Streaming Star Dedicates Thirty-Seven Hours Attempting to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a One Stick

One could think that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have exhausted novel self-imposed challenges that apply special rules on a playthrough. Yet, although numerous gamers have attempted to finish the game with just a stick, content creator the streamer holds the record as the player who aimed to clear the adventure with a single stick—meaning, the very same stick throughout.

PointCrow is famous for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, such as the time he played the game using only explosives or the effort where he tried to defeat the game with zero energy. A one-branch run, however, seems impossible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which forces Link to wield the Master Sword. Then, there's the entire durability mechanic, which is particularly important when dealing with the weakest tool in the entire world. But if the stick breaks, that's it. It's over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The straightforward answer is glitches. The complete story, I kid you not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have distinct game sessions that affect one another. So the creator does a “setup” file where he progresses standardly, and the real save, where he's restricted. The setup save has him completing the intro and first tutorial island, and this Link acquires maximum stamina and hearts. From here, he triggers a cutscene and halts partway through to instruct the game to open an auto-save from the stick file. The game gets mixed up and generates a new save file that merges the states of the first two files.

This creates fresh problems, though. The merged save file has a protagonist that never obtain the ability to access shrines. Luckily, this is something that the save glitch addresses readily, but pulling it off means relying on an unstable version of the game that refuses to open certain locations. Like everything else, he has a clever solution for it: He starts the game on its pre-release version 1.0, and then patches the game midway through to make sure it begins working properly.

Overcoming Durability and Other Challenges

Interestingly, the prologue version of the hero is programmed so that he cannot damage any tools he uses, likely to avoid a scenario where the user gets trapped at the beginning of the game. But that's also how PointCrow gets around the durability problem, as the character he transfers across universes is the one from the start of the game. It's a clever trick, but not one that eliminates all potential friction. The branch is still a ineffective weapon that makes encounters tedious. But at that point, it's entirely a question of determination and perseverance. It further helps that there's a copying exploit that gives him an abundant supply of consumables to boost his attack, or stock up on revival fairies. He also employs a bug that enables Link to phase through the world. Some would consider these methods reason to question the legitimacy of the run, but to my view, he's a resourceful player who is willing to do whatever it takes to entertain his viewer. He further uses a penalty of kinds stating that, for every spirit he uses, he'll remove one fan from his Twitch chat, creating an incentive to not overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Last Encounter

PointCrow succeeds to defeat many of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the fights look grueling. The video edit of his quest doesn't make the viewer endure the entire conflicts, which is a blessing when a few of them last several long hours. One enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, requires an astonishing 23 straight. The Ganondorf battle, which depletes the hero's health as it progresses, is a memorable nail-biter. The indestructible branch is after all just a stick. He is unable to always duplicate items midway the fight.

So, is it possible? Technically, PointCrow manages to defeat the dragon version of Ganon. But the software compels the user to wield the Master Sword as the final strike, so technically, it's not quite fully a stick-only playthrough. But what fun is that?

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