Streaming Personality Dedicates 37 Hours Trying to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: 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 arrived, fans would have exhausted creative self-imposed challenges that impose unique rules on a playthrough. Yet, while many gamers have tried to finish Tears of the Kingdom using just a wooden stick, streamer the streamer stands out as the player who endeavored to clear the game with a single stick—meaning, the exact same one throughout.

The streamer is famous for such difficult playthroughs, like the time he played the title using only explosives or the effort where he aimed to defeat the story with no stamina. A single stick playthrough, however, sounds impossible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which forces the hero to use the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the whole weapon wear mechanic, which is particularly important when working with the weakest weapon in the whole game. Yet if the branch breaks, that's it. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

So, how? The straightforward explanation is exploits. The complete answer, I kid you not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can manipulate the game's saving mechanism to have separate game sessions that impact one another. So the creator does a “preparation” file where he progresses normally, and the real save, where he's limited. The preparatory file has him going through the prologue and first starting area, and this Link gains full stamina and hearts. From here, he starts a cinematic and halts midway through to tell the software to load an auto-save from the branch-only file. The system gets confused and creates a third save file that merges the states of the first two files.

This causes fresh problems, however. The merged save file has a protagonist that never obtain the capability to access shrines. Fortunately, this is an issue that the save glitch addresses readily, but pulling it off means relying on an buggy version of the title that refuses to open some locations. Like everything else, he has a clever workaround for it: He begins the game on its early version 1.0, and then patches the game midway through to make sure it starts functioning correctly.

Overcoming Durability and Other Challenges

Curiously, the introductory form of the hero is programmed so that he cannot damage any weapons he uses, presumably to avoid a scenario where the user gets trapped at the beginning of the adventure. But that's additionally how PointCrow bypasses the durability issue, as the character he pulls between universes is the one from the start of the game. It's a smart trick, but not a method that eliminates all potential difficulty. The stick is still 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 gives him an plentiful supply of consumables to boost his attack, or accumulate on revival fairies. He additionally makes use of a bug that allows him to phase through the environment. Some would consider these methods grounds to question the validity of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a resourceful player who is willing to do whatever it takes to entertain his viewer. He further implements a safeguard of kinds stipulating that, for every spirit he employs, he'll ban a viewer from his Twitch chat, creating an incentive to avoid overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Encounter

PointCrow manages to defeat several of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the fights look painful. The video version of his quest doesn't make the audience sit through the entire conflicts, which is a blessing when some of them last multiple long hours. A particular enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, takes an incredible twenty-three hours. The Ganondorf showdown, which erases Link's health as it progresses, is a memorable tense moment. The indestructible branch is after all only a stick. He can't always clone objects during the battle.

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

In the end, PointCrow banned more than a thousand users in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.