Twitch Personality Spends 37 Straight Attempting to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Stick

You might assume that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have run out of novel self-imposed challenges that impose unique restrictions on a playthrough. Yet, while numerous gamers have attempted to finish Tears of the Kingdom with only a wooden stick, content creator the streamer stands out as the individual who aimed to clear the adventure with a single stick—specifically, the very same one throughout.

PointCrow is famous for these kinds of challenge runs, like the instance he played the game using only bombs or the attempt where he aimed to defeat the story with zero stamina. A single stick playthrough, however, seems impossible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which requires Link to use the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the whole weapon wear mechanic, which is especially relevant when working with the most fragile weapon in the whole game. But if the branch shatters, that's it. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The straightforward answer is glitches. The full answer, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can manipulate the game's saving mechanism to have distinct game sessions that affect one another. So the creator creates a “preparation” file where he progresses standardly, and the real file, where he's limited. The preparatory save has him completing the intro and first tutorial island, and this character gains full stamina and health. From this point, he starts a cinematic and halts midway through to tell the software to open an automatic save from the branch-only file. The system gets confused and generates a new save file that combines the states of the original two.

This creates fresh issues, though. The merged save file has a protagonist that did not acquired the capability to access shrines. Luckily, this is something that the save glitch addresses easily, but executing it means relying on an buggy build of the title that fails to open some areas. As with other obstacles, he has a clever solution for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its early version 1.0, and then patches the software partway through to ensure it starts functioning correctly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Additional Challenges

Interestingly, the prologue form of Link is programmed so that he is unable to break any tools he uses, likely to prevent a situation where the user gets stuck at the start of the adventure. But that's also how the streamer bypasses the durability problem, as the character he pulls between universes is the one from the beginning of the story. It's a clever trick, but not one that eliminates all potential friction. The branch is still a ineffective weapon that renders encounters onerous. But at that point, it's entirely a question of grit and perseverance. It also aids that there's a copying exploit that gives him an abundant supply of consumables to boost his strength, or stock up on revival fairies. He additionally makes use of a glitch that enables Link to clip through the world. A few would find these means grounds to question the validity of the attempt, but to my view, he's a resourceful gamer who is ready to do whatever it takes to engage his viewer. He also uses a penalty of sorts stating that, for every spirit he employs, he'll remove a fan from his Twitch chat, establishing an incentive to not depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Last Showdown

The streamer manages to get through many of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the battles look grueling. The YouTube edit of his quest spares the viewer endure the entire conflicts, which is a good thing when some of them last multiple long hours. A particular enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, requires an incredible 23 hours. The final villain showdown, which erases Link's hearts as it unfolds, is a notable nail-biter. The unbreakable branch is after all only a stick. He can't always duplicate objects during the fight.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, he does overcome the beast form of the antagonist. But the game compels the player to wield the Master Sword as the final attack, so technically, it's not completely a stick-only playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow banned more than a thousand people in his Twitch chat. RIP.