Streaming Personality Spends 37 Straight Attempting to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a One Branch

One could think that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have run out of novel challenge runs that apply special rules on a gameplay session. However, although numerous gamers have tried to finish Tears of the Kingdom with just a wooden stick, streamer the streamer stands out as the player who aimed to beat the adventure with a single branch—specifically, the very same one from start to finish.

The streamer is famous for such challenge runs, like the time he played the title using only bombs or the effort where he aimed to defeat the game with zero energy. A single stick playthrough, however, sounds impossible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which requires the hero to wield the legendary blade. Then, there's the whole durability system, which is especially important when working with the weakest tool in the entire world. But if the stick shatters, that's it. It's over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The simple explanation is glitches. The full story, believe it or not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can tweak the game's save file system to have distinct game sessions that affect one another. So the creator creates a “setup” file where he progresses standardly, and the actual save, where he's limited. The setup save has him going through the intro and initial tutorial island, and this character gains full endurance and health. From this point, he starts a cutscene and halts midway through to instruct the game to open an auto-save from the stick file. The system gets mixed up and creates a new game file that merges the states of the original two.

This causes new problems, however. The fused save file has a protagonist that did not obtain the capability to enter sacred places. Luckily, this is something that the save glitch addresses easily, but executing it means depending on an unstable build of the title that refuses to load certain locations. Like everything else, he has a technical workaround for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then updates the software partway through to make sure it starts working properly.

Overcoming Durability and Other Challenges

Curiously, the introductory form of Link is coded so that he cannot damage any tools he uses, presumably to avoid a scenario where the player gets stuck at the beginning of the game. But that's also how PointCrow bypasses the durability problem, as the Link he pulls across dimensions is the version from the start of the game. It's a smart trick, but not a method that eradicates all possible friction. The stick is nonetheless a weak item that makes battles onerous. But at that point, it's entirely a question of determination and dedication. It further helps that there's a copying exploit that gives him an plentiful number of consumables to boost his strength, or accumulate on healing spirits. He additionally employs a glitch that allows Link to clip through the environment. A few would find these methods reason to question the validity of the run, but to my view, he's a resourceful gamer who is ready to do anything necessary to entertain his audience. He also implements a safeguard of sorts stipulating that, for every spirit he employs, he'll remove a fan from his live stream, establishing an incentive to not depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Showdown

PointCrow manages to defeat several of the game's bosses, but the fights look painful. The video version of his quest spares the viewer sit through the whole fights, which is a good thing when a few of them take multiple hours. One boss fight, Queen Gibdo, requires an astonishing 23 hours. The Ganondorf showdown, which depletes the hero's hearts as it progresses, is a memorable nail-biter. The indestructible stick is after all only a stick. He can't necessarily duplicate objects midway the battle.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow does overcome the beast form of the antagonist. But the software compels the user to wield the legendary weapon as the last strike, so strictly speaking, it's not quite completely a branch-exclusive run. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, the streamer removed over a thousand users in his live stream. RIP.