Twitch Personality Spends Thirty-Seven Hours Attempting to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Stick

You might assume that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have exhausted creative challenge runs that apply unique rules on a gameplay session. Yet, while many players have tried to finish Tears of the Kingdom using only a stick, streamer PointCrow stands out as the player who aimed to beat the adventure with a single stick—meaning, the very same stick throughout.

PointCrow is famous for such challenge runs, like the instance he went through the game using only explosives or the effort where he tried to beat the game with no stamina. A single stick playthrough, however, sounds unfeasible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which forces Link to wield the Master Sword. Then, there's the entire durability mechanic, which is especially important when dealing with the weakest weapon in the entire world. But if the stick shatters, that's it. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

So, how? The straightforward answer is glitches. The complete answer, believe it or not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can manipulate the game's save file system to have distinct playthroughs that affect one another. So PointCrow creates a “preparation” save where he advances standardly, and the actual file, where he's limited. The preparatory file has him going through the prologue and first tutorial island, and this Link gains full endurance and health. From here, he starts a cutscene and halts partway through to tell the software to open an automatic save from the stick file. The system gets mixed up and creates a third game file that merges the states of the original two.

That creates fresh issues, though. The merged file has a Link that did not obtain the ability to access sacred places. Luckily, this is something that the save glitch addresses readily, but pulling it off means depending on an unstable version of the title that fails to open certain locations. Like other obstacles, he has a clever solution for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its early version 1.0, and then updates the game partway through to ensure it starts functioning correctly.

Bypassing Durability and Other Challenges

Interestingly, the prologue form of the hero is coded so that he is unable to break any weapons he wields, likely to prevent a scenario where the player gets stuck at the start of the game. But that's also how PointCrow gets around the durability issue, as the character he pulls across dimensions is the one from the beginning of the game. It's a smart technique, but not a method that eliminates all possible difficulty. The stick is nonetheless a weak weapon that renders encounters onerous. But at that stage, it's all a question of determination and dedication. It also aids that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an plentiful number of items to improve his strength, or stock up on revival fairies. He additionally employs a glitch that enables Link to clip through the world. A few would find these methods reason to question the legitimacy of the run, but to my view, he's a inventive gamer who is willing to do whatever it takes to entertain his audience. He also uses a safeguard of sorts stipulating that, for each spirit he employs, he'll remove one viewer from his live stream, creating an incentive to not depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Final Encounter

The streamer succeeds to defeat many of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the fights look painful. The YouTube version of his quest spares the viewer endure the whole conflicts, which is a good thing when a few of them take several long hours. A particular enemy encounter, a powerful foe, requires an incredible twenty-three straight. The final villain showdown, which depletes Link's health as it progresses, is a notable tense moment. The unbreakable stick is after all only a stick. He can't always clone items during the fight.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow manages to overcome the beast form of the antagonist. But the software compels the player to use the Master Sword as the final attack, so strictly speaking, it's not quite fully a branch-exclusive run. But what fun is that?

In the end, the streamer removed more than a thousand users in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.