Streaming Personality Dedicates Thirty-Seven Hours Trying to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Branch

One could think that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have exhausted novel challenge runs that impose special rules on a gameplay session. Yet, although numerous gamers have tried to finish the game with just a stick, content creator the streamer stands out as the individual who aimed to clear the adventure with a single branch—specifically, the exact same one throughout.

The streamer is renowned for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, such as the time he went through the game solely with bombs or the effort where he aimed to defeat the game with no energy. A single stick playthrough, though, seems unfeasible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which forces Link to wield the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the entire weapon wear system, which is especially relevant when working with the most fragile tool in the whole world. Yet if the branch shatters, that's it. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The simple answer is glitches. The complete story, I kid you not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can manipulate the game's saving mechanism to have distinct playthroughs that affect one another. So the creator creates a “preparation” save where he progresses standardly, and the actual file, where he's limited. The setup file has him going through the prologue and initial tutorial island, and this character gains maximum stamina and hearts. From here, he starts a cinematic and halts partway through to instruct the software to load an automatic save from the branch-only file. The system gets mixed up and generates a new save file that merges the conditions of the original two.

This causes new issues, however. The merged file has a protagonist that never acquired the ability to access sacred places. Luckily, this is an issue that the save glitch fixes readily, but executing it means depending on an unstable build of the title that refuses to open certain locations. As with everything else, he has a technical solution for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its early version 1.0, and then updates the game midway through to ensure it starts functioning correctly.

Bypassing Durability and Additional Challenges

Curiously, the introductory version of the hero is programmed so that he cannot damage any weapons he uses, likely to avoid a situation where the user gets stuck at the start of the game. But that's additionally how PointCrow bypasses the durability issue, as the character he transfers across dimensions is the version from the start of the game. It's a smart trick, but not one that eradicates all potential friction. The stick is nonetheless a ineffective weapon that makes encounters onerous. But at that point, it's entirely a question of grit and dedication. It further aids that there's a copying exploit that gives him an plentiful number of items to boost his attack, or accumulate on revival fairies. He also makes use of a glitch that allows him to phase through the world. A few would find these means reason to question the validity of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a inventive gamer who is willing to do whatever it takes to engage his viewer. He further implements a safeguard of sorts stating that, for each spirit he employs, he'll ban a fan from his Twitch chat, creating an incentive to avoid depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Final Encounter

The streamer manages to get through several of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the fights appear painful. The YouTube edit of his journey spares the audience endure the entire fights, which is a good thing when a few of them last multiple long hours. A particular boss fight, Queen Gibdo, requires an astonishing 23 straight. The Ganondorf battle, which depletes Link's health as it progresses, is a notable tense moment. The indestructible branch is after all just a stick. He is unable to necessarily clone items during the fight.

Did he succeed? Technically, PointCrow manages to overcome the beast form of Ganon. But the game forces the player to use the legendary weapon as the last attack, so technically, it's not fully a stick-only playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, PointCrow banned more than a thousand people in his live stream. RIP.