Twitch Star Spends Thirty-Seven Hours Trying to Beat <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Branch

One could think that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have run out of creative self-imposed challenges that apply unique restrictions on a gameplay session. Yet, although many gamers have attempted to complete Tears of the Kingdom using just a wooden stick, streamer the streamer holds the record as the player who aimed to clear the game with a one stick—specifically, the exact same one from start to finish.

The streamer is famous for these kinds of challenge runs, like the time he played the game solely with bombs or the attempt where he aimed to defeat the game with zero energy. A single stick run, however, sounds impossible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which forces Link to use the Master Sword. Then, there's the whole weapon wear system, which is especially important when dealing with the most fragile weapon in the whole game. Yet if the stick breaks, that's it. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The simple answer is glitches. The complete story, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have distinct game sessions that impact one another. So the creator does a “preparation” file where he progresses standardly, and the actual save, where he's restricted. The setup save has him going through the prologue and initial tutorial island, and this Link gains maximum endurance and health. From this point, he starts a cinematic and halts partway through to instruct the software to load an automatic save from the branch-only file. The system gets confused and generates a third save file that merges the conditions of the original two.

That creates fresh issues, though. The fused save file has a protagonist that never acquired the capability to enter sacred places. Luckily, this is something that the file exploit addresses readily, but executing it means depending on an buggy version of the title that fails to load certain locations. As with other obstacles, he has a clever workaround for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release version 1.0, and then patches the software partway through to make sure it begins working properly.

Bypassing Durability and Other Hurdles

Curiously, the introductory form of the hero is programmed so that he is unable to break any weapons he wields, likely to avoid a situation where the user gets stuck at the start of the game. But that's also how the streamer gets around the wear problem, as the Link he pulls between dimensions is the version from the beginning of the game. It's a smart trick, but not a method that eliminates all possible difficulty. The branch is nonetheless a ineffective weapon that renders battles onerous. But at that stage, it's entirely a matter of grit and dedication. It also aids that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an plentiful supply of consumables to boost his attack, or accumulate on revival fairies. He also employs a glitch that enables him to phase through the environment. Some 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 viewer. He also uses a penalty of kinds stipulating that, for each spirit he uses, he'll ban one viewer from his live stream, establishing an incentive to not depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Encounter

PointCrow succeeds to defeat several of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the battles appear grueling. The video version of his quest doesn't make the viewer sit through the entire fights, which is a good thing when a few of them take multiple hours. One enemy encounter, a powerful foe, requires an astonishing twenty-three hours. The final villain showdown, which depletes the hero's health as it progresses, is a notable nail-biter. The unbreakable stick is after all only a stick. He can't always duplicate items during the battle.

So, is it possible? Technically, he does defeat the beast form of Ganon. But the software compels the player to wield the Master Sword as the last attack, so strictly speaking, it's not fully a branch-exclusive run. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow banned more than 1,000 people in his live stream. RIP.