Streaming Star Dedicates Thirty-Seven Hours Attempting to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a One Stick

One could think that two years post-launch 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 players have attempted to complete Tears of the Kingdom using just a stick, content creator PointCrow stands out as the player who endeavored to clear the game with a one stick—meaning, the very same one from start to finish.

The streamer is famous for such challenge runs, like the time he went through the title solely with explosives or the effort where he aimed to beat the story with zero energy. A one-branch run, though, seems impossible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which forces the hero to wield the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the entire durability system, which is especially relevant when working with the most fragile tool in the whole world. But if the branch shatters, that's it. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The simple answer is exploits. The full answer, believe it or not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have separate playthroughs that impact one another. So the creator creates a “setup” file where he advances standardly, and the actual file, where he's limited. The setup save has him going through the intro and initial starting area, and this Link acquires maximum endurance and health. From here, he triggers a cinematic and halts midway through to instruct the game to open an automatic save from the branch-only file. The system gets confused and creates a third save file that combines the conditions of the original two.

This creates new problems, though. The merged file has a Link that never obtain the ability to enter shrines. Luckily, this is something that the save glitch addresses easily, but pulling it off means depending on an buggy build of the title that fails to open certain locations. As with other obstacles, he has a clever solution for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release version 1.0, and then updates the game partway through to make sure it begins working properly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Other Challenges

Interestingly, the prologue version of the hero is coded so that he cannot damage any weapons he uses, likely to avoid a situation where the user gets trapped at the beginning of the adventure. But that's additionally how PointCrow gets around the wear problem, as the Link he transfers between dimensions is the one from the beginning of the story. It's a clever technique, but not a method that eliminates all possible friction. The stick is still a weak item that makes encounters onerous. But at that stage, it's all a matter of determination and dedication. It further helps that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an plentiful supply of items to improve his strength, or stock up on revival fairies. He additionally employs a bug that allows him to phase through the world. A few would find these means reason to question the legitimacy of the run, but to my view, he's a inventive player who is ready to do whatever it takes to entertain his viewer. He also uses a penalty of kinds stating that, for every fairy he uses, he'll remove one fan from his Twitch chat, creating an motivation to avoid depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Showdown

PointCrow succeeds to get through many of the game's bosses, but the fights appear grueling. The video edit of his quest doesn't make the audience sit through the whole fights, which is a good thing when a few of them last several hours. One boss fight, Queen Gibdo, takes an incredible 23 hours. The final villain showdown, which depletes the hero's health as it progresses, is a memorable nail-biter. The unbreakable stick is after all just a stick. He can't necessarily clone items during the fight.

So, is it possible? Technically, PointCrow manages to defeat the beast form of Ganon. But the game forces the player to wield the Master Sword as the last attack, so strictly speaking, it's not quite fully a stick-only run. But what fun is that?

In the end, the streamer removed over 1,000 users in his Twitch chat. RIP.