Twitch Personality Spends Thirty-Seven Straight Trying to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a Single Branch

One could think that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have run out of novel challenge runs that apply special rules on a gameplay session. However, while many gamers have tried to complete Tears of the Kingdom with just a wooden stick, streamer the streamer stands out as the individual who endeavored to beat the game with a single branch—specifically, the very same one throughout.

PointCrow is renowned for these kinds of challenge runs, like the instance he went through the game using only bombs or the attempt where he aimed to beat the game with zero stamina. A single stick run, though, sounds impossible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which forces the hero to wield the Master Sword. Then, there's the whole weapon wear mechanic, which is particularly important when working with the weakest tool in the entire world. But if the branch breaks, that's the end. Game over.

So, How?

So, how? The simple answer is glitches. The full answer, believe it or not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have separate game sessions that impact one another. So PointCrow does a “setup” save where he progresses normally, and the real file, where he's restricted. The setup file has him completing the prologue and first tutorial island, and this Link gains maximum stamina and health. From here, he starts a cutscene and halts midway through to tell the software to load an automatic save from the branch-only file. The game gets confused and creates a new save file that merges the states of the original two.

This creates new issues, though. The fused save file has a protagonist that did not acquired the ability to access sacred places. Luckily, this is an issue that the save glitch fixes readily, but pulling it off means relying on an buggy version of the game that refuses to load some areas. Like everything else, he has a clever solution for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its early version 1.0, and then updates the game midway through to make sure it starts functioning correctly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Other Hurdles

Curiously, the prologue version of Link is programmed so that he cannot damage any weapons he uses, likely to avoid a situation where the user gets trapped at the beginning of the adventure. But that's additionally how PointCrow bypasses the durability problem, as the character he pulls between dimensions is the version from the start of the story. It's a smart trick, but not one that eliminates all possible difficulty. The branch is nonetheless a ineffective item that makes battles tedious. But at that stage, it's entirely a matter of grit and perseverance. It further aids that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an abundant number of items to improve his strength, or stock up on revival fairies. He additionally employs a glitch that enables him to clip through the environment. A few would find these means reason to question the legitimacy of the attempt, but to my view, he's a inventive gamer who is ready to do whatever it takes to entertain his audience. He also uses a safeguard of sorts stating that, for each fairy he employs, he'll remove one viewer from his Twitch chat, establishing an incentive to not overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Last Encounter

PointCrow succeeds to defeat many of the game's main enemies, but the battles appear painful. The video version of his journey doesn't make the audience sit through the whole conflicts, which is a blessing when a few of them last several hours. One enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, takes an incredible twenty-three straight. The final villain showdown, which erases the hero's hearts as it unfolds, is a notable nail-biter. The unbreakable branch is after all only a piece of wood. He is unable to necessarily duplicate objects midway the fight.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, he manages to defeat the dragon version of Ganon. But the game compels the player to use the Master Sword as the last strike, so strictly speaking, it's not completely a stick-only run. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, PointCrow removed more than 1,000 users in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.