Streaming Personality Dedicates Thirty-Seven Hours Attempting to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a One Branch

One could think that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have run out of novel self-imposed challenges that apply special restrictions on a playthrough. However, while numerous gamers have tried to finish the game using only a stick, streamer PointCrow stands out as the player who endeavored to beat the adventure with a one branch—specifically, the very same stick throughout.

The streamer is famous for such challenge runs, such as the instance he played the game using only bombs or the effort where he tried to beat the game with no stamina. A one-branch playthrough, though, seems unfeasible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which forces the hero to use the Master Sword. Then, there's the entire weapon wear system, which is particularly relevant when working with the weakest weapon in the whole world. Yet if the branch breaks, that's it. Game over.

So, How?

So, how? The straightforward explanation is glitches. The complete story, I kid you not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have separate playthroughs that affect one another. So the creator creates a “setup” save where he progresses normally, and the actual file, where he's restricted. The setup file has him going through the intro and initial tutorial island, and this character acquires full stamina and hearts. From this point, he triggers a cutscene and halts midway through to instruct the software to load an automatic save from the stick file. The game gets confused and generates a new save file that merges the states of the first two files.

That creates fresh issues, though. The merged save file has a Link that never acquired the ability to enter shrines. Fortunately, this is something that the save glitch fixes readily, but pulling it off means relying on an buggy version of the title that fails to load some areas. Like other obstacles, he has a clever solution for it: He starts the game on its early version 1.0, and then patches the game partway through to ensure it starts functioning correctly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Other Challenges

Curiously, the introductory version of Link is coded so that he cannot damage any tools he uses, likely to prevent a scenario where the player gets trapped at the start of the adventure. But that's also how PointCrow gets around the wear problem, as the character he pulls across dimensions is the version from the start of the story. It's a clever trick, but not a method that eradicates all possible difficulty. The branch is still a weak weapon that makes battles onerous. But at that point, it's all a matter of determination and dedication. It also helps that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an plentiful number of consumables to boost his attack, or stock up on healing spirits. He additionally employs a bug that allows Link to clip through the environment. A few would consider these methods reason to discredit the legitimacy of the run, but to my view, he's a resourceful player who is ready to do anything necessary to entertain his viewer. He further uses a penalty of kinds stipulating that, for every spirit he employs, he'll ban one viewer from his live stream, creating an incentive to avoid depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Showdown

The streamer succeeds to get through many of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the fights appear grueling. The YouTube edit of his quest spares the viewer endure the entire fights, which is a blessing when a few of them take several long hours. One enemy encounter, a powerful foe, requires an incredible 23 hours. The final villain battle, which depletes Link's health as it progresses, is a memorable nail-biter. The indestructible branch is after all just a stick. He is unable to necessarily duplicate objects during the fight.

Did he succeed? Technically, PointCrow manages to overcome the beast form of the antagonist. But the software compels the player to wield the Master Sword as the final strike, so strictly speaking, it's not quite completely a stick-only playthrough. But what fun is that?

In the end, PointCrow removed more than 1,000 users in his live stream. RIP.