Streaming Personality Spends 37 Hours Trying to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Branch

You might assume that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have exhausted novel challenge runs that apply unique rules on a playthrough. Yet, although numerous players have attempted to complete the game with just a wooden stick, streamer the streamer holds the record as the individual who endeavored to beat the adventure with a single stick—specifically, the very same stick from start to finish.

The streamer is famous for such difficult playthroughs, such as the instance he played the game solely with explosives or the attempt where he aimed to beat the game with zero energy. A one-branch playthrough, though, sounds unfeasible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which forces Link to wield the legendary blade. Then, there's the entire durability mechanic, which is especially important when dealing with the most fragile weapon in the whole game. But if the branch shatters, that's it. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

So, how? The simple explanation is glitches. The complete story, I kid you not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can tweak the game's save file system to have separate game sessions that impact one another. So PointCrow creates a “preparation” save where he advances normally, and the real save, where he's limited. The setup save has him completing the intro and initial starting area, and this Link acquires full stamina and health. From here, he triggers a cinematic and halts partway through to instruct the software to load an automatic save from the stick file. The system gets confused and generates a third save file that merges the states of the original two.

That creates new issues, however. The merged save file has a protagonist that did not obtain the capability to access shrines. Luckily, this is an issue that the save glitch fixes readily, but executing it means relying on an buggy build of the game that refuses to open certain areas. Like everything else, he has a clever solution for it: He begins the game on its early 1.0 build, and then updates the game midway through to make sure it starts working properly.

Bypassing Durability and Other Challenges

Interestingly, the introductory form of the hero is coded so that he cannot break any tools he uses, likely to avoid a scenario where the user gets stuck at the beginning of the game. But that's additionally how the streamer bypasses the durability problem, as the character he pulls across universes is the one from the beginning of the story. It's a smart technique, but not a method that eliminates all possible difficulty. The branch is still a ineffective weapon that renders encounters onerous. But at that stage, it's all a question of determination and dedication. It further aids that there's a copying exploit that grants him an abundant number of consumables to boost his strength, or accumulate on revival fairies. He additionally makes use of a bug that enables Link to clip through the environment. Some would consider these methods reason to discredit the legitimacy of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a resourceful gamer who is ready to do anything necessary to entertain his audience. He also uses a safeguard of sorts stipulating that, for each spirit he uses, he'll ban a fan from his Twitch chat, establishing an incentive to avoid depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Last Encounter

The streamer manages to defeat several of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the fights appear grueling. The video version of his quest spares the audience sit through the whole fights, which is a good thing when a few of them take multiple hours. One boss fight, a powerful foe, requires an incredible 23 hours. The final villain battle, which erases the hero's hearts as it progresses, is a notable tense moment. The unbreakable branch is still only a piece of wood. He can't always duplicate items midway the battle.

Did he succeed? Technically, he does overcome the dragon version of Ganon. But the game compels the player to wield the Master Sword as the final attack, so technically, it's not completely a branch-exclusive playthrough. But what fun is that?

In the end, PointCrow removed over a thousand people in his Twitch chat. RIP.