Streaming Personality Spends Thirty-Seven Hours Attempting to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Stick

One could think that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have exhausted novel self-imposed challenges that impose unique rules on a gameplay session. Yet, although numerous players have tried to complete Tears of the Kingdom with just a wooden stick, content creator the streamer holds the record as the player who aimed to clear the game with a single stick—meaning, the exact same stick throughout.

PointCrow is famous for such difficult playthroughs, like the time he played the game using only bombs or the effort where he aimed to beat the game with zero energy. A one-branch run, though, sounds impossible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which requires the hero to use the Master Sword. Then, there's the entire durability mechanic, which is particularly relevant when dealing with the weakest tool in the whole game. But if the stick breaks, that's the end. Game over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The simple explanation is exploits. The complete story, believe it or not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can manipulate the game's saving mechanism to have distinct game sessions that impact one another. So the creator creates a “setup” file where he advances normally, and the actual file, where he's restricted. The preparatory file has him going through the prologue and initial starting area, and this Link gains full stamina and hearts. From this point, he starts a cinematic and halts partway through to instruct the game to open an automatic save from the branch-only file. The game gets mixed up and generates a third game file that combines the states of the first two files.

This creates fresh problems, however. The fused save file has a protagonist that did not acquired the ability to access shrines. Fortunately, this is an issue that the save glitch addresses easily, but executing it means relying on an buggy build of the title that fails to open some locations. Like other obstacles, he has a technical solution for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its early 1.0 build, and then updates the game midway through to ensure it starts working properly.

Overcoming Durability and Additional Challenges

Interestingly, the introductory form of the hero is coded so that he is unable to break any tools he uses, likely to prevent a situation where the player gets stuck at the start of the game. But that's additionally how the streamer bypasses the wear problem, as the character he transfers between universes is the one from the start of the story. It's a smart trick, but not a method that eradicates all potential friction. The stick is nonetheless a weak weapon that makes encounters tedious. But at that stage, it's all a matter of determination and perseverance. It also aids that there's a copying exploit that gives him an plentiful number of consumables to improve his attack, or accumulate on healing spirits. He additionally makes use of a bug that allows Link to phase through the environment. Some would find these methods reason to discredit the legitimacy of the run, but in my mind, he's a resourceful gamer who is willing to do whatever it takes to engage his viewer. He also uses a penalty of kinds stipulating that, for every fairy he employs, he'll ban one viewer from his live stream, creating an incentive to avoid 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 battles look grueling. The YouTube version of his quest doesn't make the audience sit through the entire conflicts, which is a blessing when a few of them take several long hours. A particular boss fight, Queen Gibdo, requires an astonishing 23 straight. The final villain battle, which depletes the hero's hearts as it unfolds, is a memorable tense moment. The unbreakable stick is still just a piece of wood. He is unable to necessarily duplicate objects midway the fight.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, he does overcome the dragon version of the antagonist. But the software forces the user to use the Master Sword as the final attack, so strictly speaking, it's not fully 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. RIP.