Streaming Personality Dedicates Thirty-Seven Hours Attempting to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a One Stick

You might assume that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have exhausted novel challenge runs that impose special restrictions on a playthrough. Yet, while many gamers have attempted to complete Tears of the Kingdom using only a stick, content creator PointCrow stands out as the individual who aimed to clear the adventure with a single stick—specifically, the very same one throughout.

The streamer is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, like the time he went through the game solely with bombs or the effort where he tried to defeat the game with no stamina. A single stick playthrough, though, seems unfeasible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which forces the hero to use the legendary blade. Then, there's the entire weapon wear mechanic, which is particularly relevant when dealing with the weakest tool in the whole world. Yet if the stick breaks, that's the end. Game over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The straightforward explanation is glitches. The full answer, I kid you not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have separate game sessions that affect one another. So PointCrow creates a “setup” file where he progresses standardly, and the actual save, where he's restricted. The preparatory file has him going through the prologue and initial starting area, and this Link gains full stamina and health. From this point, he triggers a cinematic and pauses partway through to instruct the software to load an auto-save from the stick file. The game gets confused and generates a third save file that merges the conditions of the original two.

This causes new problems, however. The merged save file has a protagonist that did not acquired the ability to access sacred places. Luckily, this is an issue that the save glitch addresses easily, but executing it means relying on an unstable build of the game that refuses to load certain locations. As with everything else, he has a technical solution for it: He begins the game on its early 1.0 build, and then updates the game partway through to make sure it begins functioning correctly.

Overcoming Durability and Additional Challenges

Interestingly, the introductory form of the hero is coded so that he cannot break any tools he uses, likely to prevent a situation where the user gets stuck at the beginning of the adventure. But that's additionally how the streamer bypasses the durability issue, as the Link he pulls across universes is the one from the beginning of the story. It's a smart technique, but not a method that eradicates all potential friction. The stick is still a ineffective item that makes encounters onerous. But at that stage, it's entirely a matter of determination and dedication. It also aids that there's a copying exploit that gives him an plentiful number of items to boost his attack, or accumulate on healing spirits. He additionally makes use of a glitch that enables him to phase through the world. A few would find these means reason to discredit the validity of the attempt, but to my view, he's a inventive player who is ready to do anything necessary to entertain his viewer. He further implements a penalty of kinds stipulating that, for every spirit he employs, he'll remove a fan from his Twitch chat, creating an motivation to avoid depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Showdown

The streamer succeeds to get through several of the game's main enemies, but the fights appear grueling. The video version of his quest spares the viewer endure the whole fights, which is a good thing when some of them last multiple hours. A particular enemy encounter, a powerful foe, requires an incredible twenty-three hours. The Ganondorf battle, which erases the hero's health as it unfolds, is a notable tense moment. The indestructible branch is still only a piece of wood. He is unable to always duplicate objects during the battle.

So, is it possible? Technically, PointCrow does defeat the beast form of Ganon. But the software compels the user to use the legendary weapon as the last strike, so strictly speaking, it's not quite fully a branch-exclusive playthrough. But what fun is that?

In the end, PointCrow removed more than 1,000 users in his live stream. RIP.