Twitch Personality Spends 37 Straight Attempting to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Branch

One could think that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have exhausted novel self-imposed challenges that impose special rules on a gameplay session. However, while numerous gamers have tried to finish the game with just a wooden stick, streamer the streamer stands out as the player who endeavored to beat the game with a one stick—specifically, the very same stick from start to finish.

PointCrow is renowned for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, like the time he went through the game solely with bombs or the effort where he aimed to defeat the story with zero energy. A one-branch run, though, sounds unfeasible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which forces Link to use the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the entire durability mechanic, which is especially relevant when working with the weakest tool in the entire game. Yet if the branch breaks, that's the end. Game over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The straightforward answer is exploits. The full story, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have distinct game sessions that affect one another. So PointCrow does a “setup” save where he progresses standardly, and the actual file, where he's restricted. The preparatory file has him completing the intro and initial starting area, and this character acquires full stamina and hearts. From here, he starts a cinematic and halts partway through to instruct the game to open an auto-save from the stick file. The system gets mixed up and generates a new save file that merges the states of the original two.

This causes fresh problems, however. The fused file has a Link that never obtain the capability to enter sacred places. Luckily, this is an issue that the file exploit addresses readily, but executing it means depending on an buggy build of the title that refuses to open certain locations. As with everything else, 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 partway through to ensure it starts working properly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Other Challenges

Curiously, the introductory form of the hero is coded so that he is unable to break any weapons he wields, presumably to prevent a situation where the user gets stuck at the start of the game. But that's additionally how the streamer gets around the durability problem, as the character he transfers across dimensions is the one from the start of the story. It's a clever trick, but not one that eradicates all potential difficulty. The branch is still a weak weapon that renders battles tedious. But at that point, it's entirely a question of grit and perseverance. It further helps that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an plentiful number of items to boost his attack, or stock up on healing spirits. He also makes use of a glitch that enables Link to clip through the world. A few would consider these methods reason to question the legitimacy of the run, but in my mind, he's a inventive player who is willing to do anything necessary to engage his audience. He also implements a safeguard of kinds stating that, for each spirit he employs, he'll remove one fan from his live stream, establishing an motivation to not overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Last Encounter

PointCrow succeeds to defeat several of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the battles look painful. The YouTube edit of his journey doesn't make the viewer sit through the whole conflicts, which is a blessing when some of them last multiple hours. A particular boss fight, Queen Gibdo, takes an astonishing 23 straight. The Ganondorf battle, which depletes Link's hearts as it unfolds, is a memorable nail-biter. The indestructible stick is still just a stick. He can't always clone objects during the fight.

Did he succeed? Technically, he manages to defeat the dragon version of the antagonist. But the game forces the player to wield the Master Sword as the last attack, so strictly speaking, it's not completely a branch-exclusive playthrough. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, the streamer banned over 1,000 users in his Twitch chat. RIP.