Twitch Personality Spends Thirty-Seven Straight Trying to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Stick

One could think that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have run out of creative challenge runs that apply unique rules on a gameplay session. However, although many players have attempted to complete Tears of the Kingdom using only a stick, streamer PointCrow stands out as the player who aimed to clear the game with a single stick—meaning, the very same one from start to finish.

PointCrow is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, such as the instance he went through the title using only explosives or the effort where he tried to defeat the story with no energy. A single stick run, however, sounds impossible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which forces the hero to use the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the whole weapon wear system, which is especially relevant when working with the most fragile weapon in the entire game. Yet if the stick shatters, that's it. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The straightforward explanation is exploits. The full story, I kid you not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have separate playthroughs that affect one another. So the creator creates a “preparation” save where he progresses normally, and the real save, where he's restricted. The preparatory file has him going through the prologue and first starting area, and this Link acquires maximum endurance and hearts. From this point, he triggers a cinematic and halts partway through to tell the game to open an automatic save from the branch-only file. The game gets confused and creates a new save file that combines the states of the first two files.

That creates new issues, though. The merged save file has a Link that never acquired the capability to enter shrines. Fortunately, this is something that the save glitch addresses readily, but executing it means depending on an buggy build of the game that refuses to load certain areas. Like other obstacles, he has a clever workaround for it: He begins the game on its early version 1.0, and then updates the software partway through to ensure it starts working properly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Other Challenges

Interestingly, the prologue version of the hero is programmed so that he cannot break any tools he uses, presumably to prevent a situation where the user gets stuck at the beginning of the game. But that's additionally how PointCrow gets around the durability problem, as the Link he pulls across dimensions is the one from the beginning of the story. It's a clever trick, but not a method that eradicates all potential friction. The branch is nonetheless a weak item that makes battles tedious. But at that point, it's entirely a question of grit and perseverance. It also aids that there's a copying exploit that grants him an abundant number of items to boost his attack, or accumulate on healing spirits. He additionally employs a bug that allows 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 willing to do whatever it takes to entertain his viewer. He also uses a safeguard of kinds stating that, for every spirit he uses, he'll remove one viewer from his Twitch chat, creating an motivation to avoid depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Final Encounter

The streamer succeeds to get through many of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the fights appear painful. The YouTube edit of his quest spares the viewer sit through the entire fights, which is a blessing when a few of them take several hours. A particular boss fight, Queen Gibdo, requires an astonishing 23 hours. The Ganondorf showdown, which erases the hero's hearts as it unfolds, is a memorable tense moment. The unbreakable stick is still just a stick. He is unable to always clone items midway the fight.

So, is it possible? Technically, PointCrow manages to overcome the beast form of Ganon. But the software forces the user to wield the legendary weapon as the last strike, so technically, it's not quite completely a stick-only run. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, PointCrow banned more than a thousand people in his live stream. RIP.