Streaming Star Dedicates Thirty-Seven Hours Attempting to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Stick

One could think that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have run out of novel self-imposed challenges that impose special rules on a playthrough. However, although numerous players have attempted to finish Tears of the Kingdom using just a wooden stick, streamer the streamer holds the record as the individual who endeavored to beat the game with a one stick—meaning, the exact same stick from start to finish.

PointCrow is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, such as the instance he played the game solely with bombs or the attempt where he aimed to beat the story with zero energy. A one-branch run, though, sounds unfeasible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which requires Link to wield the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the whole weapon wear mechanic, which is especially important when working with the weakest weapon in the whole game. But if the stick breaks, that's the end. Game over.

So, How?

So, how? The simple explanation is exploits. The full answer, believe it or not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can tweak the game's saving mechanism to have separate playthroughs that impact one another. So the creator does a “setup” save where he progresses standardly, and the real file, where he's limited. The setup save has him going through the prologue and initial tutorial island, and this Link acquires maximum stamina and health. From this point, he starts a cinematic and pauses midway through to instruct the game to open an auto-save from the branch-only file. The game gets confused and generates a new game file that merges the states of the first two files.

That creates new problems, though. The fused save file has a protagonist that never acquired the capability to enter sacred places. Fortunately, this is something that the file exploit fixes readily, but executing it means depending on an unstable version of the game that refuses to load some areas. Like everything else, he has a clever solution for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then patches the software partway through to make sure it begins working properly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Additional Hurdles

Interestingly, the introductory version of Link is coded so that he cannot damage any tools he uses, presumably to avoid a situation where the player gets stuck at the beginning of the game. But that's additionally how PointCrow gets around the wear problem, as the Link he transfers between dimensions is the version from the start of the story. It's a smart technique, but not one that eradicates all possible friction. The branch is still a weak item that renders encounters tedious. But at that point, it's entirely a matter of determination and perseverance. It further aids that there's a copying exploit that grants him an plentiful supply of consumables to boost his strength, or stock up on healing spirits. He also employs a glitch that allows him to clip through the world. A few would consider these means reason to discredit the legitimacy of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a resourceful gamer who is willing to do whatever it takes to engage his audience. He further uses a safeguard of kinds stating that, for each fairy he employs, he'll ban a viewer from his live stream, creating an incentive to avoid overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Final Encounter

PointCrow succeeds to defeat several of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the fights look grueling. The video edit of his journey spares the viewer endure the whole conflicts, which is a blessing when some of them take multiple long hours. A particular enemy encounter, a powerful foe, takes an incredible twenty-three hours. The Ganondorf battle, which depletes the hero's hearts as it unfolds, is a memorable tense moment. The unbreakable stick is still only a stick. He can't necessarily clone objects during the fight.

Did he succeed? Technically, he does overcome the dragon version of Ganon. 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 playthrough. But what fun is that?

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