Twitch Personality Dedicates Thirty-Seven Hours Attempting to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a One Stick

You might assume that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have exhausted novel challenge runs that impose unique rules on a playthrough. However, although numerous players have attempted to complete Tears of the Kingdom using just a stick, streamer the streamer holds the record as the player who endeavored to clear the adventure with a one branch—meaning, the very same one throughout.

PointCrow is famous for such difficult playthroughs, such as the time he played the game using only explosives or the effort where he aimed to beat the game with no energy. A single stick playthrough, however, sounds impossible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which forces the hero to wield the legendary blade. Then, there's the whole weapon wear system, which is especially important when dealing with the most fragile tool in the entire world. But if the stick shatters, that's the end. It's over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The straightforward answer is glitches. The complete story, believe it or not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can tweak the game's saving mechanism to have separate game sessions that impact one another. So PointCrow does a “setup” file where he progresses standardly, and the real file, where he's restricted. The preparatory file has him completing the prologue and first tutorial island, and this Link acquires maximum stamina and health. From here, he starts a cutscene and pauses midway through to tell the game to load an automatic save from the stick file. The game gets mixed up and creates a third game file that merges the states of the original two.

This creates fresh problems, though. The merged file has a protagonist that did not acquired the ability to access shrines. Fortunately, this is an issue that the file exploit fixes readily, but executing it means relying on an buggy version of the game that fails to open some areas. As with other obstacles, he has a clever workaround for it: He starts the game on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then patches the game midway through to make sure it starts functioning correctly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Other Hurdles

Curiously, the prologue form of Link is coded so that he is unable to break any weapons he uses, presumably to prevent a situation where the player gets stuck at the beginning of the adventure. But that's additionally how the streamer bypasses the durability problem, as the Link he transfers between universes is the version from the start of the game. It's a clever technique, but not a method that eradicates all potential friction. The stick is nonetheless a ineffective item that makes encounters tedious. But at that stage, it's all a matter of grit and dedication. It further aids that there's a copying exploit that grants him an abundant supply of consumables to boost his attack, or accumulate on healing spirits. He additionally employs a glitch that allows Link to phase through the world. Some would consider these methods grounds to question the validity of the run, but in my mind, he's a inventive player who is willing to do anything necessary to entertain his audience. He further implements a penalty of sorts stating that, for every fairy he employs, he'll remove a fan from his live stream, creating an incentive to avoid overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Showdown

PointCrow manages to get through several of the game's bosses, but the fights appear painful. The YouTube version of his journey doesn't make the audience endure the whole fights, which is a blessing when a few of them take multiple long hours. A particular boss fight, a powerful foe, requires an incredible twenty-three hours. The final villain battle, which erases Link's hearts as it unfolds, is a notable nail-biter. The unbreakable stick is after all just a piece of wood. He can't always clone items during the battle.

So, is it possible? Technically, he does defeat the beast form of the antagonist. But the game forces the player to wield the legendary weapon as the last strike, so strictly speaking, it's not completely a stick-only playthrough. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, the streamer removed more than a thousand users in his live stream. Rest in peace.