Twitch Star Spends 37 Hours Trying to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a One Stick

You might assume that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have run out of creative challenge runs that apply special rules on a playthrough. However, although many gamers have tried to finish Tears of the Kingdom with just a stick, content creator PointCrow stands out as the individual who endeavored to clear the adventure with a single stick—meaning, the exact same one from start to finish.

The streamer is famous for these kinds of challenge runs, such as the instance he played the game solely with bombs or the effort where he tried to beat the story with zero stamina. A single stick run, though, seems unfeasible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which requires Link to wield the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the entire weapon wear system, which is especially relevant when working with the most fragile weapon in the whole game. But if the branch breaks, that's it. Game over.

So, How?

So, how? The simple answer is glitches. The full story, believe it or not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have distinct playthroughs that affect one another. So PointCrow does a “preparation” save where he advances standardly, and the actual save, where he's restricted. The preparatory file has him completing the intro and initial starting area, and this character acquires full stamina and health. From this point, he starts a cutscene and pauses partway through to instruct the game to load an automatic save from the stick file. The system gets mixed up and creates a third save file that merges the states of the original two.

This creates new problems, however. The fused file has a Link that never acquired the capability to access sacred places. Fortunately, this is an issue that the save glitch addresses easily, but executing it means relying on an buggy build of the title that refuses to open certain locations. As with other obstacles, he has a clever solution for it: He begins the game on its early 1.0 build, and then patches the software midway through to ensure it starts functioning correctly.

Overcoming Durability and Other Hurdles

Interestingly, the introductory form of Link is coded so that he cannot break any tools he uses, likely to avoid a situation where the user gets trapped at the beginning of the game. But that's additionally how PointCrow bypasses the wear issue, as the Link he transfers across dimensions is the one from the beginning of the game. It's a smart technique, but not one that eliminates all potential friction. The stick is nonetheless a ineffective item that renders encounters tedious. But at that point, it's all a question of grit and perseverance. It further helps that there's a copying exploit that gives him an abundant supply of items to boost his attack, or accumulate on healing spirits. He also employs a glitch that allows Link to phase through the world. Some would find these methods reason to question the validity of the run, but in my mind, he's a inventive gamer who is ready to do whatever it takes to engage his audience. He further implements a safeguard of kinds stating that, for every fairy he employs, he'll remove one fan from his Twitch chat, establishing an motivation to not overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Encounter

The streamer manages to defeat several of the game's bosses, but the fights appear painful. The video version of his quest spares the viewer endure the whole fights, which is a good thing when a few of them last multiple hours. A particular enemy encounter, a powerful foe, takes an astonishing twenty-three straight. The Ganondorf battle, which depletes Link's health as it unfolds, is a notable nail-biter. The indestructible branch is after all only a stick. He is unable to always clone items during the battle.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow does overcome the beast form of Ganon. But the game compels the user to use the Master Sword as the final attack, so technically, it's not quite completely a stick-only run. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, PointCrow banned more than 1,000 people in his live stream. RIP.