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

You might assume that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have run out of creative self-imposed challenges that apply unique rules on a gameplay session. Yet, while numerous players have tried to complete the game with just a wooden stick, content creator the streamer holds the record as the individual who endeavored to clear the game with a single stick—specifically, the very same one throughout.

The streamer is famous for such difficult playthroughs, such as the instance he played the game solely with explosives or the attempt where he tried to defeat the game with no energy. A single stick run, however, seems unfeasible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which forces Link to wield the Master Sword. Then, there's the entire durability mechanic, which is especially relevant when working with the most fragile weapon in the whole world. Yet if the branch shatters, that's it. It's over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The straightforward answer is glitches. The full story, believe it or not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have separate playthroughs that impact one another. So the creator does a “setup” file where he advances normally, and the real file, where he's restricted. The setup save has him completing the intro and first tutorial island, and this Link acquires full stamina and hearts. From this point, he starts a cinematic and pauses midway through to instruct the game to open an auto-save from the branch-only file. The game gets mixed up and creates a third save file that combines the conditions of the first two files.

This creates fresh problems, however. The fused save file has a Link that did not obtain the ability to enter sacred places. Luckily, this is an issue that the file exploit addresses readily, but pulling it off means depending on an buggy build of the title that fails to open some areas. As with other obstacles, he has a clever solution for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release version 1.0, and then updates the software partway through to make sure it begins functioning correctly.

Overcoming Durability and Other Challenges

Curiously, the introductory version of the hero is coded so that he cannot damage any weapons he uses, likely to avoid a situation where the player gets stuck at the start of the game. But that's additionally how the streamer bypasses the durability issue, as the character he pulls across universes is the one from the start of the game. It's a clever trick, but not one that eliminates all possible difficulty. The branch is nonetheless a weak weapon that makes encounters tedious. 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 abundant number of consumables to boost his attack, or stock up on revival fairies. He additionally makes use of a glitch that allows him to phase through the world. A few would consider these means grounds to question the legitimacy of the run, but to my view, he's a resourceful gamer who is ready to do anything necessary to entertain his viewer. He further uses a safeguard of kinds stipulating that, for each fairy he uses, he'll remove one viewer from his Twitch chat, establishing an motivation to avoid depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Last Encounter

PointCrow manages to defeat several of the game's main enemies, but the fights appear painful. The video edit of his journey doesn't make the viewer endure the whole fights, which is a good thing when a few of them last several long hours. One boss fight, a powerful foe, requires an astonishing twenty-three hours. The final villain battle, which depletes the hero's health as it progresses, is a memorable tense moment. The indestructible stick is after all only a stick. He can't necessarily duplicate items during the fight.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, he manages to overcome the dragon version of the antagonist. But the game compels the user to use the legendary weapon as the final attack, so strictly speaking, it's not fully a branch-exclusive playthrough. But what fun is that?

In the end, the streamer removed over a thousand users in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.