Twitch Personality Dedicates 37 Straight Attempting to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Branch

One could think that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have run out of novel challenge runs that apply unique restrictions on a playthrough. However, although numerous gamers have tried to complete Tears of the Kingdom using just a stick, content creator PointCrow holds the record as the player who aimed to beat the adventure with a single branch—meaning, the very same one throughout.

PointCrow is famous for such challenge runs, such as the instance he played the game solely with bombs or the attempt where he tried to beat the game with no stamina. A single stick run, however, seems unfeasible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which requires Link to wield the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the whole weapon wear mechanic, which is especially important when working with the most fragile weapon in the whole game. Yet if the stick shatters, that's the end. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The straightforward explanation is glitches. The full answer, I kid you not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have separate playthroughs that impact one another. So PointCrow does a “preparation” file where he advances standardly, and the real file, where he's restricted. The preparatory file has him going through the intro and first tutorial island, and this character gains full endurance and hearts. From here, he triggers a cinematic and pauses partway through to instruct the game to load an automatic save from the stick file. The system gets confused and generates a third save file that merges the conditions of the original two.

This creates new issues, however. The merged file has a protagonist that did not obtain the ability to access shrines. Fortunately, this is something that the save glitch fixes readily, but pulling it off means depending on an buggy version of the title that fails to open certain areas. Like other obstacles, he has a clever solution for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release version 1.0, and then patches the game midway through to make sure it starts functioning correctly.

Overcoming Durability and Other Hurdles

Curiously, the prologue form of the hero is programmed so that he is unable to break any tools he uses, presumably to avoid a situation where the player gets trapped at the start of the adventure. But that's additionally how PointCrow bypasses the durability problem, as the character he transfers across dimensions is the one from the start of the game. It's a clever trick, but not a method that eradicates all possible friction. The stick is still a ineffective weapon that renders encounters onerous. But at that point, it's entirely a matter of determination and dedication. It further helps that there's a copying exploit that gives him an abundant number of items to improve his strength, or accumulate on healing spirits. He also makes use of a glitch that enables him to clip through the environment. A few would consider these methods reason to question the validity of the run, but in my mind, he's a inventive gamer who is willing to do whatever it takes to engage his viewer. He further implements a penalty of kinds stipulating that, for every fairy he uses, he'll remove one fan from his Twitch chat, establishing an motivation to avoid depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Last Encounter

The streamer manages to get through several of the game's main enemies, but the battles appear grueling. The YouTube edit of his journey spares the audience sit through the whole fights, which is a blessing when a few of them take several long hours. A particular enemy encounter, a powerful foe, requires an astonishing twenty-three straight. The Ganondorf battle, which erases the hero's health as it unfolds, is a notable nail-biter. The indestructible stick is still only a piece of wood. He is unable to always clone objects midway the fight.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, he manages to overcome the beast form of the antagonist. But the software compels the player to wield the Master Sword as the final attack, so technically, it's not fully a branch-exclusive run. But where's the challenge in that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow banned over a thousand people in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.