Twitch Star Spends 37 Straight Trying to Conquer <em>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 debuted, fans would have exhausted novel self-imposed challenges that impose special restrictions on a gameplay session. Yet, although many players have attempted to complete Tears of the Kingdom with just a stick, content creator the streamer holds the record as the individual who endeavored to beat the game with a single stick—meaning, the exact same one from start to finish.

The streamer is famous for these kinds of challenge runs, like the time he played the game using only bombs or the effort where he aimed to beat the game with zero energy. A single stick playthrough, however, seems unfeasible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which forces Link to use the legendary blade. Then, there's the entire weapon wear system, which is especially relevant when dealing with the weakest tool in the whole game. But if the branch breaks, that's the end. It's over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The simple answer is glitches. The full story, I kid you not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can tweak the game's saving mechanism to have separate playthroughs that affect one another. So the creator creates a “setup” file where he progresses standardly, and the real file, where he's limited. The setup save has him going through the prologue and initial starting area, and this character acquires maximum endurance and health. From here, he triggers a cinematic and halts partway through to instruct the game to load an automatic save from the branch-only file. The system gets confused and creates a third save file that combines the states of the first two files.

This causes new issues, though. The fused save file has a Link that never obtain the capability to access shrines. Fortunately, this is something that the save glitch fixes readily, but pulling it off means depending on an buggy version of the game that refuses to open certain areas. Like other obstacles, he has a clever solution for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release version 1.0, and then patches the software midway through to ensure it begins functioning correctly.

Overcoming Durability and Additional Challenges

Curiously, the prologue form of the hero is coded so that he is unable to break any weapons he wields, presumably to prevent a situation where the player gets trapped at the start of the adventure. But that's also how the streamer gets around the wear issue, as the Link he pulls between universes is the one from the beginning of the game. It's a smart technique, but not a method that eradicates all potential difficulty. The branch is nonetheless a ineffective item that makes encounters onerous. But at that stage, it's all a matter of determination and dedication. It also helps that there's a copying exploit that grants him an plentiful number of consumables to improve his attack, or stock up on healing spirits. He additionally employs a bug that allows him to clip through the world. A few would find these methods grounds to question the legitimacy of the attempt, but to my view, he's a inventive gamer who is ready to do anything necessary to entertain his audience. He also uses a safeguard of kinds stating that, for each fairy he uses, he'll remove a fan from his Twitch chat, creating an motivation to avoid overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Showdown

PointCrow succeeds to defeat many of the game's bosses, but the battles appear grueling. The YouTube edit of his quest doesn't make the viewer sit through the entire conflicts, which is a blessing when a few of them take multiple long hours. A particular boss fight, Queen Gibdo, requires an incredible 23 straight. The Ganondorf battle, which depletes the hero's hearts as it unfolds, is a memorable tense moment. The unbreakable branch is still just a piece of wood. He can't always duplicate objects during the fight.

So, is it possible? Technically, PointCrow does defeat the beast form of Ganon. But the software compels the player to use the legendary weapon as the final strike, so technically, it's not quite completely a stick-only playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, PointCrow banned over a thousand users in his live stream. RIP.