Streaming Star Spends 37 Straight Attempting to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a Single Branch

One could think that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have exhausted creative challenge runs that impose special restrictions on a playthrough. However, while many players have tried to finish Tears of the Kingdom using just a wooden stick, content creator the streamer stands out as the player who endeavored to clear the game with a single branch—specifically, the exact same stick from start to finish.

PointCrow is renowned for such challenge runs, like the time he went through the game solely with explosives or the attempt where he aimed to defeat the story with no energy. A single stick playthrough, though, sounds unfeasible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which requires Link to use the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the entire weapon wear mechanic, which is particularly relevant when dealing with the most fragile tool in the entire game. Yet if the branch shatters, that's it. Game over.

So, How?

So, how? The straightforward answer is glitches. The full answer, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can manipulate the game's saving mechanism to have separate game sessions that impact one another. So the creator creates a “preparation” file where he progresses standardly, and the actual file, where he's restricted. The preparatory save has him completing the intro and first starting area, and this character acquires maximum endurance and health. From this point, he starts a cutscene and halts midway through to tell the software to open an auto-save from the stick file. The game gets mixed up and generates a new save file that merges the conditions of the first two files.

This creates new issues, though. The fused file has a protagonist that never obtain the ability to enter sacred places. Luckily, this is something that the save glitch fixes easily, but executing it means relying on an buggy build of the game that refuses to open certain areas. As with other obstacles, he has a clever workaround for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its early version 1.0, and then patches the software midway through to make sure it starts functioning correctly.

Bypassing Durability and Other Hurdles

Interestingly, the prologue version of Link is coded so that he is unable to break any weapons he uses, likely to avoid a situation where the user gets stuck at the start of the adventure. But that's also how PointCrow bypasses the wear issue, as the character he transfers between dimensions is the version from the beginning of the game. It's a smart technique, but not a method that eradicates all potential friction. The stick is still a weak item that makes battles tedious. But at that stage, it's all a question of grit and dedication. It further helps that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an plentiful number of consumables to improve his attack, or accumulate on healing spirits. He additionally employs a glitch that enables Link to clip through the world. A few would consider these methods grounds to discredit the legitimacy of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a inventive gamer who is willing to do anything necessary to entertain his audience. He also implements a penalty of sorts stating that, for every fairy he employs, he'll ban a fan from his Twitch chat, creating an motivation to not overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Showdown

The streamer succeeds to defeat many of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the battles look painful. The YouTube edit of his quest doesn't make the audience endure the whole conflicts, which is a good thing when some of them take several long hours. A particular enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, requires an incredible twenty-three hours. The final villain battle, which depletes the hero's health as it progresses, is a notable tense moment. The indestructible stick is still only a piece of wood. He is unable to necessarily clone objects midway the battle.

Did he succeed? Technically, PointCrow manages to defeat the beast form of the antagonist. But the software compels the player to use the legendary weapon as the last attack, so technically, it's not completely a branch-exclusive run. But where's the challenge in that?

When everything is said and done, the streamer banned over 1,000 people in his Twitch chat. RIP.