Streaming Star Dedicates 37 Hours Trying to Beat <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Branch
You might assume that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have run out of novel challenge runs that apply unique rules on a playthrough. Yet, while many players have tried to finish Tears of the Kingdom with just a wooden stick, streamer PointCrow stands out as the individual who aimed to beat the adventure with a single stick—specifically, the exact same stick from start to finish.
PointCrow is famous for these kinds of challenge runs, such as the instance he went through the title solely with bombs or the effort where he tried to beat the story with zero energy. A single stick playthrough, though, sounds unfeasible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which forces the hero to use the legendary blade. Then, there's the entire weapon wear mechanic, which is particularly relevant when working with the most fragile weapon in the whole world. Yet if the stick shatters, that's it. It's over.
The Method Behind the Madness
How did he do it? The straightforward answer is exploits. The complete story, believe it or not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have distinct game sessions that affect one another. So the creator does a “setup” save where he advances normally, and the actual save, where he's restricted. The setup save has him going through the prologue and first tutorial island, and this character gains maximum endurance and health. From here, he triggers a cinematic and halts midway through to instruct the game to load an auto-save from the branch-only file. The system gets confused and generates a third save file that combines the states of the original two.
That creates fresh issues, however. The fused save file has a Link that did not obtain the ability to access shrines. Fortunately, this is something that the save glitch addresses easily, but executing it means depending on an unstable version of the title that refuses to open certain areas. As with everything else, he has a clever solution for it: He begins the game on its pre-release version 1.0, and then patches the game partway through to ensure it begins functioning correctly.
Overcoming Weapon Wear and Additional Challenges
Interestingly, the prologue version of the hero is programmed so that he is unable to break any weapons he uses, likely to prevent a scenario where the user gets stuck at the start of the adventure. But that's additionally how the streamer gets around the durability problem, as the Link he transfers between universes is the one from the start of the game. It's a clever trick, but not a method that eliminates all possible difficulty. The stick is still a weak weapon that renders battles onerous. But at that stage, it's entirely a matter of determination and dedication. It further helps that there's a copying exploit that gives him an plentiful number of items to boost his attack, or stock up on revival fairies. He additionally employs a glitch that enables him to phase through the world. Some would consider these methods reason to discredit the legitimacy 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 uses a penalty of sorts stating that, for every fairy he uses, he'll remove a fan from his Twitch chat, establishing an motivation to not depend too much on them.
Major Battles and the Last Encounter
PointCrow manages to get through several of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the battles appear grueling. The video edit of his quest doesn't make the audience endure the entire conflicts, which is a blessing when some of them last multiple hours. A particular boss fight, a powerful foe, requires an astonishing twenty-three straight. The final villain showdown, which erases Link's hearts as it unfolds, is a notable tense moment. The indestructible branch is after all just a piece of wood. He is unable to always clone objects midway the fight.
Did he succeed? Technically, PointCrow manages to overcome the dragon version of Ganon. But the software compels the user to use the legendary weapon as the final strike, so technically, it's not fully a branch-exclusive playthrough. But what fun is that?
When everything is said and done, the streamer removed more than a thousand users in his live stream. RIP.
