Streaming Star Dedicates 37 Straight Trying to Beat <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a One Stick

You might assume that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have exhausted novel self-imposed challenges that impose special rules on a playthrough. Yet, although numerous players have tried to complete the game with just a wooden stick, streamer the streamer holds the record as the player who endeavored to clear the game with a single stick—specifically, the exact same one throughout.

PointCrow is famous for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, like the time he played the game using only explosives or the effort where he aimed to beat the game with zero stamina. A one-branch run, however, seems impossible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which requires Link to wield the legendary blade. Then, there's the whole weapon wear system, which is especially important when working with the weakest weapon in the whole game. But if the stick shatters, that's it. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The simple answer is glitches. The full story, believe it or not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can manipulate the game's save file system to have distinct game sessions that affect one another. So the creator does a “preparation” save where he progresses standardly, and the real file, where he's restricted. The preparatory save has him going through the intro and initial starting area, and this character acquires full stamina and hearts. From this point, he triggers a cinematic and halts midway through to tell the software to load an auto-save from the branch-only file. The game gets mixed up and creates a new save file that merges the states of the first two files.

That causes new problems, however. The fused file has a Link that never acquired the capability to access shrines. Fortunately, this is something that the save glitch addresses easily, but executing it means depending on an buggy version of the title that fails to open some areas. Like everything else, he has a clever solution for it: He begins the game on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then patches the game midway through to make sure it starts functioning correctly.

Overcoming Durability and Additional Challenges

Interestingly, the introductory form of Link is programmed so that he cannot damage any tools he uses, likely to avoid a scenario where the user gets trapped at the start of the adventure. But that's also how PointCrow gets around the durability issue, as the character he transfers across universes is the one from the start of the game. It's a clever trick, but not one that eradicates all possible difficulty. The stick is nonetheless a ineffective weapon that renders encounters onerous. But at that stage, it's all a matter of determination and perseverance. It further helps that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an abundant supply of items to improve his attack, or accumulate on revival fairies. He also employs a glitch that enables him to phase through the environment. A few would find these means reason to discredit the validity of the run, but to my view, he's a inventive gamer who is ready to do anything necessary to engage his viewer. He also implements a penalty of kinds stating that, for every fairy he uses, he'll remove a fan from his live stream, establishing an incentive to avoid overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Last Encounter

The streamer succeeds to defeat several of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the fights look painful. The video version of his quest doesn't make the audience endure the whole fights, which is a blessing when some of them last several long hours. A particular boss fight, Queen Gibdo, takes an astonishing twenty-three hours. The final villain showdown, which erases the hero's health as it unfolds, is a notable nail-biter. The indestructible stick is after all only a piece of wood. He can't necessarily clone items during the fight.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow manages to overcome the dragon version of Ganon. But the game forces the user to use the Master Sword as the final attack, so technically, it's not completely a stick-only playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, the streamer banned over a thousand users in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.