Streaming Star Spends 37 Hours Attempting to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Stick

One could think that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have run out of novel challenge runs that impose unique restrictions on a playthrough. However, while numerous players have attempted to finish the game using just a stick, content creator the streamer stands out as the player who endeavored to clear the game with a one stick—meaning, the very same one throughout.

PointCrow is famous for such challenge runs, like the time he played the game solely with bombs or the attempt where he aimed to defeat the story with no energy. A one-branch run, however, seems impossible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which requires the hero to use the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the whole durability mechanic, which is particularly relevant when dealing with the most fragile weapon in the entire game. Yet if the stick breaks, that's the end. It's over.

So, How?

So, how? The simple explanation is glitches. The full answer, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have separate game sessions that impact one another. So the creator creates a “setup” file where he progresses standardly, and the real save, where he's restricted. The setup save has him going through the prologue and first tutorial island, and this Link gains maximum endurance and health. From this point, he triggers a cinematic and halts partway through to instruct the game to load an auto-save from the stick file. The game gets mixed up and creates a new save file that merges the states of the original two.

That creates fresh problems, however. The merged file has a protagonist that did not acquired the capability to access sacred places. Fortunately, this is an issue that the file exploit addresses easily, but pulling it off means depending on an unstable build of the title that fails to load some areas. Like everything else, he has a clever solution for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its early version 1.0, and then patches the software midway through to ensure it begins working properly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Other Hurdles

Interestingly, the introductory form of the hero is programmed so that he is unable to break any tools he wields, likely to avoid a situation where the player gets stuck at the start of the game. But that's additionally how PointCrow bypasses the durability issue, as the Link he transfers across universes is the one from the beginning of the story. It's a smart trick, but not a method that eliminates all possible friction. The branch is nonetheless a weak item that makes battles tedious. But at that stage, it's all a matter of grit and dedication. It also aids that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an plentiful supply of consumables to improve his strength, or stock up on healing spirits. He also employs a glitch that enables him to phase through the world. A few would consider these means reason to question the validity of the attempt, but to my view, he's a resourceful gamer who is ready to do whatever it takes to entertain his audience. He also implements a penalty of sorts stating that, for every fairy he employs, he'll ban one fan from his Twitch chat, establishing an incentive to avoid depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Last Showdown

The streamer succeeds to get through many of the game's main enemies, but the battles look painful. The video edit of his journey spares the audience endure the entire conflicts, which is a blessing when some of them take multiple long hours. A particular boss fight, a powerful foe, takes an incredible 23 hours. The Ganondorf showdown, which depletes the hero's health as it unfolds, is a memorable tense moment. The unbreakable stick is still only a stick. He is unable to always duplicate objects during the fight.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, he does overcome the beast form of Ganon. But the game compels the player to use the legendary weapon as the final strike, so strictly speaking, it's not completely a stick-only playthrough. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, the streamer removed more than 1,000 users in his live stream. RIP.