Streaming Personality Dedicates Thirty-Seven Straight Attempting to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Branch

One could think that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have exhausted creative self-imposed challenges that apply unique rules on a gameplay session. However, while many gamers have tried to complete Tears of the Kingdom using just a wooden stick, streamer the streamer stands out as the individual who aimed to beat the game with a single stick—specifically, the very same stick throughout.

The streamer is famous for these kinds of challenge runs, like the instance he played the title using only explosives or the effort where he tried to defeat the story with no energy. A single stick playthrough, however, seems impossible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which requires the hero to wield the legendary blade. Then, there's the whole weapon wear system, which is especially important when working with the weakest tool in the entire world. Yet if the branch breaks, that's the end. It's over.

So, How?

So, how? The straightforward explanation is exploits. The complete story, believe it or not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have distinct playthroughs that impact one another. So PointCrow does a “preparation” save where he progresses normally, and the real file, where he's restricted. The preparatory save has him going through the prologue and initial tutorial island, and this Link gains maximum stamina and hearts. From this point, he starts a cinematic and pauses midway through to instruct the game to load an automatic save from the branch-only file. The system gets mixed up and generates a third save file that merges the states of the original two.

This creates new issues, however. The merged save file has a Link that never acquired the capability to enter shrines. Luckily, this is an issue that the file exploit fixes readily, but executing it means depending on an unstable build of the game that fails to open certain areas. Like everything else, he has a clever solution for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its early version 1.0, and then updates the game partway through to ensure it starts working properly.

Overcoming Durability and Additional Hurdles

Curiously, the introductory form of the hero is coded so that he is unable to damage any tools he wields, presumably to prevent a situation where the player gets stuck at the start of the adventure. But that's also how the streamer bypasses the wear problem, as the Link he transfers across universes is the version from the beginning of the story. It's a smart technique, but not one that eradicates all potential friction. The stick is still a ineffective weapon that renders battles onerous. But at that point, it's all a question of grit and dedication. It further aids that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an abundant supply of consumables to improve his attack, or stock up on revival fairies. He also makes use of a bug that allows him to clip through the environment. Some would find these methods grounds to discredit the legitimacy of the run, but in my mind, he's a inventive gamer who is ready to do whatever it takes to entertain his audience. He also implements a penalty of sorts stipulating that, for every spirit he employs, he'll remove one viewer from his live stream, creating an incentive to not overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Encounter

The streamer succeeds to defeat many of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the fights look painful. The video edit of his quest spares the audience sit through the entire fights, which is a good thing when a few of them take multiple long hours. A particular enemy encounter, a powerful foe, requires an astonishing twenty-three straight. The final villain showdown, which erases the hero's health as it unfolds, is a notable nail-biter. The indestructible stick is after all just a piece of wood. He can't always duplicate objects midway the fight.

Did he succeed? Technically, he manages to defeat the beast form of the antagonist. But the software compels the user to use the Master Sword as the last attack, so technically, it's not completely a branch-exclusive playthrough. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, the streamer banned over a thousand people in his live stream. RIP.