Streaming Personality Spends 37 Straight Trying to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Stick

One could think that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have exhausted novel self-imposed challenges that apply unique rules on a gameplay session. Yet, while many gamers have attempted to finish Tears of the Kingdom using only a stick, content creator PointCrow stands out as the individual who aimed to beat the game with a one stick—meaning, the exact same one throughout.

PointCrow is renowned for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, such as the time he went through the game solely with bombs or the attempt where he aimed to defeat the game with zero energy. A one-branch run, however, sounds unfeasible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which forces the hero to use the legendary blade. Then, there's the entire durability mechanic, which is particularly relevant when working with the weakest tool in the entire world. But if the stick shatters, that's the end. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

So, how? The simple explanation is exploits. The complete answer, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can tweak the game's save file system to have distinct playthroughs that affect one another. So the creator does a “preparation” save where he advances standardly, and the real file, where he's restricted. The setup save has him going through the prologue and initial starting area, and this character acquires full endurance and hearts. From this point, he starts a cinematic and pauses partway through to instruct the game to open an automatic save from the stick file. The system gets mixed up and generates a third game file that combines the conditions of the first two files.

This causes fresh problems, though. The merged file has a protagonist that did not obtain the ability to access shrines. Luckily, this is an issue that the file exploit addresses readily, but executing it means relying on an buggy build of the game that refuses to open certain areas. Like other obstacles, he has a clever workaround for it: He starts the game on its pre-release version 1.0, and then patches the software midway through to make sure it starts functioning correctly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Additional Challenges

Interestingly, the prologue version of the hero is coded so that he cannot break any tools he uses, likely to prevent a situation where the user gets trapped at the start of the adventure. But that's also how the streamer gets around the durability issue, as the character he pulls across dimensions is the one from the start of the game. It's a clever technique, but not a method that eliminates all possible difficulty. The branch is nonetheless a weak weapon that makes battles tedious. But at that point, it's all a question of grit and dedication. It further helps that there's a copying exploit that grants him an plentiful number of consumables to improve his attack, or accumulate on healing spirits. He also employs a bug that enables him to phase through the world. A few would find these means grounds to question the validity of the run, but in my mind, he's a resourceful gamer who is willing to do anything necessary to entertain his viewer. He also uses a penalty of sorts stipulating that, for every spirit he uses, he'll ban a viewer from his live stream, establishing an incentive to avoid depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Showdown

The streamer succeeds to get through several of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the fights look painful. The video edit of his quest spares the audience sit through the entire conflicts, which is a blessing when a few of them take multiple long hours. A particular boss fight, a powerful foe, requires an astonishing twenty-three hours. The final villain showdown, which erases Link's health as it unfolds, is a memorable nail-biter. The unbreakable branch is still only a stick. He is unable to necessarily clone objects during the battle.

So, is it possible? Technically, PointCrow manages to overcome the dragon version of Ganon. But the software compels the player to use the legendary weapon as the final attack, so strictly speaking, it's not completely a stick-only playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow removed more than 1,000 users in his live stream. RIP.