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

One could think that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have exhausted novel self-imposed challenges that apply unique rules on a gameplay session. Yet, while many gamers have attempted to complete the game using only a stick, content creator the streamer holds the record as the individual who endeavored to beat the adventure with a one stick—specifically, the very same stick throughout.

The streamer is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, such as the instance he played the game solely with explosives or the attempt where he tried to beat the story with no energy. A one-branch playthrough, however, seems unfeasible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which requires Link to wield the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the whole weapon wear system, which is particularly relevant when dealing with the most fragile weapon in the whole world. Yet if the branch breaks, that's the end. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The straightforward explanation is glitches. The complete story, I kid you not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can tweak the game's save file system to have separate playthroughs that affect one another. So PointCrow creates a “preparation” file where he advances normally, and the actual file, where he's restricted. The preparatory file has him going through the prologue and initial starting area, and this character gains maximum stamina and hearts. From this point, he starts a cinematic and pauses partway through to tell the software to load an auto-save from the stick file. The system gets mixed up and creates a new save file that merges the conditions of the first two files.

That creates fresh problems, though. The fused file has a protagonist that never acquired the capability to enter sacred places. Luckily, this is something that the file exploit fixes easily, but pulling it off means relying on an unstable build of the title that fails to load certain locations. As with everything else, he has a technical solution for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release version 1.0, and then updates the software partway through to ensure it starts functioning correctly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Additional Hurdles

Curiously, the introductory form of Link is coded so that he is unable to break any weapons he wields, likely to prevent a situation where the player gets trapped at the start of the game. But that's also how PointCrow bypasses the wear problem, as the character he pulls across universes is the version from the start of the story. It's a smart technique, but not a method that eradicates all potential friction. The branch is still a weak weapon that renders battles tedious. But at that stage, it's all a question of grit and perseverance. It further helps that there's a copying exploit that grants him an abundant number of consumables to improve his strength, or stock up on healing spirits. He also makes use of a glitch that enables him to clip through the world. Some would find these means reason to question the legitimacy of the attempt, but to my view, he's a resourceful gamer who is ready to do anything necessary to engage his viewer. He further implements a safeguard of sorts stating that, for every spirit he uses, he'll remove a viewer from his live stream, establishing an motivation to not depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Encounter

The streamer manages to defeat many of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the battles appear painful. The YouTube edit of his journey doesn't make the audience endure the entire fights, which is a good thing when some of them last multiple hours. One boss fight, Queen Gibdo, requires an astonishing 23 straight. The final villain showdown, which erases Link's hearts as it progresses, is a notable nail-biter. The indestructible stick is still only a stick. He is unable to always clone objects midway the battle.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, he manages to defeat the beast form of the antagonist. But the software compels the user to use the Master Sword as the last attack, so technically, it's not fully a stick-only playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow banned over a thousand users in his Twitch chat. RIP.