Streaming Personality Spends Thirty-Seven Straight Trying to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Stick

One could think that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have run out of novel self-imposed challenges that apply special restrictions on a gameplay session. Yet, although many players have tried to complete Tears of the Kingdom with only a stick, content creator the streamer holds the record as the individual who endeavored to beat the adventure with a one stick—specifically, the exact same stick throughout.

The streamer is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, such as the instance he played the title using only bombs or the attempt where he tried to defeat the game with no stamina. A one-branch run, though, sounds unfeasible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which forces the hero to wield the legendary blade. Then, there's the entire weapon wear system, which is particularly important when dealing with the weakest weapon in the whole world. Yet if the stick breaks, that's the end. It's over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The straightforward answer is exploits. The complete answer, I kid you not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can tweak the game's saving mechanism to have separate game sessions that affect one another. So PointCrow creates a “setup” file where he progresses standardly, and the actual save, where he's restricted. The setup save has him completing the intro and initial tutorial island, and this Link acquires full endurance and hearts. From here, he starts a cutscene and pauses partway through to instruct the game to load an auto-save from the branch-only file. The system gets mixed up and generates a new save file that combines the states of the original two.

This creates fresh problems, however. The fused save file has a Link that did not acquired the ability to enter sacred places. Fortunately, this is an issue that the file exploit addresses readily, but pulling it off means relying on an unstable version of the title that fails to open certain areas. As with other obstacles, he has a technical solution for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release version 1.0, and then patches the game partway through to ensure it begins working properly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Additional Hurdles

Curiously, the introductory form of Link is coded so that he cannot break any weapons he uses, presumably to avoid a scenario where the user gets trapped at the beginning of the adventure. But that's additionally how the streamer gets around the durability issue, as the character he transfers between dimensions is the one from the start of the game. It's a smart technique, but not one that eliminates all possible difficulty. The stick is still a ineffective item that renders battles onerous. But at that point, it's entirely a question of grit and perseverance. It further helps that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an plentiful number of consumables to boost his strength, or stock up on revival fairies. He additionally makes use of a bug that enables Link to phase through the world. A few would consider these means grounds to discredit the legitimacy of the attempt, but to my view, he's a resourceful player who is willing to do anything necessary to engage his audience. He also implements a safeguard of sorts stating that, for each spirit he uses, he'll remove one viewer from his Twitch chat, creating an motivation to avoid depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Last Encounter

PointCrow manages to defeat many of the game's main enemies, but the battles look painful. The video edit of his quest doesn't make the audience endure the entire conflicts, which is a blessing when a few of them last multiple hours. A particular enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, requires an astonishing 23 straight. The final villain battle, which erases the hero's health as it progresses, is a notable tense moment. The indestructible branch is after all just a stick. He is unable to necessarily duplicate items midway the fight.

Did he succeed? Technically, he does overcome the dragon version of Ganon. But the game forces the user to wield the legendary weapon as the final attack, so strictly speaking, it's not quite fully a stick-only playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

When everything is said and done, the streamer removed over a thousand people in his live stream. Rest in peace.