Twitch Personality Dedicates 37 Straight Trying to Beat <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Branch

You might assume that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have run out of creative self-imposed challenges that apply unique restrictions on a playthrough. However, although many players have attempted to complete Tears of the Kingdom using only a wooden stick, streamer the streamer stands out as the individual who endeavored to clear the adventure with a one branch—meaning, the very same one throughout.

PointCrow is renowned for such challenge runs, like the instance he played the title solely with bombs or the effort where he aimed to defeat the story with no stamina. A one-branch playthrough, though, seems impossible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which forces Link to wield the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the entire weapon wear mechanic, which is especially relevant when dealing with the most fragile weapon in the whole world. But if the stick breaks, that's the end. Game over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The straightforward answer is exploits. The complete story, I kid you not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can tweak the game's saving mechanism to have distinct playthroughs that affect one another. So PointCrow creates a “setup” save where he progresses standardly, and the actual file, where he's restricted. The preparatory save has him completing the prologue and first starting area, and this character acquires full stamina and hearts. From this point, he starts a cinematic and halts midway through to instruct the game to load an automatic save from the stick file. The system gets confused and generates a third save file that combines the conditions of the original two.

That causes new problems, though. The merged save file has a Link that did not acquired the capability to enter shrines. Luckily, this is an issue that the file exploit fixes easily, but pulling it off means relying on an buggy version of the game that refuses to load some locations. Like everything else, he has a clever solution for it: He starts the game on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then updates the software partway through to make sure it starts functioning correctly.

Bypassing Durability and Other Challenges

Interestingly, the introductory form of Link is coded so that he cannot break any weapons he uses, presumably to avoid a scenario where the user gets trapped at the start of the game. But that's also how the streamer gets around the durability issue, as the character he transfers between dimensions is the one from the start of the game. It's a smart trick, but not a method that eliminates all possible friction. The branch is nonetheless a ineffective item that renders battles onerous. But at that stage, it's entirely a question of grit and perseverance. It also aids that there's a copying exploit that grants him an abundant supply of items to boost his attack, or stock up on revival fairies. He also makes use of a glitch that allows him to clip through the world. A few would find these means grounds to question the legitimacy of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a inventive player who is willing to do whatever it takes to entertain his viewer. He also uses a penalty of kinds stating that, for every spirit he uses, he'll ban a fan from his Twitch chat, creating an motivation to avoid overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Encounter

The streamer succeeds to get through several of the game's main enemies, but the battles appear grueling. The video version of his quest spares the audience endure the whole fights, which is a blessing when a few of them last multiple hours. One boss fight, Queen Gibdo, requires an incredible twenty-three straight. The final villain showdown, which erases Link's hearts as it unfolds, is a notable nail-biter. The unbreakable stick is after all only a piece of wood. He is unable to always duplicate items midway the battle.

Did he succeed? Technically, PointCrow manages to overcome the beast form of the antagonist. But the game compels the user to use the legendary weapon as the final attack, so strictly speaking, it's not quite completely a stick-only run. But what fun is that?

In the end, PointCrow banned over 1,000 users in his live stream. Rest in peace.