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

You might assume that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have run out of novel self-imposed challenges that apply special restrictions on a playthrough. Yet, although many gamers have attempted to complete Tears of the Kingdom using just a wooden stick, content creator PointCrow stands out as the player who endeavored to beat the game with a one stick—meaning, the exact same stick from start to finish.

PointCrow is renowned for such challenge runs, like the instance he played the game solely with bombs or the effort where he aimed to defeat the story with no energy. A single stick playthrough, however, sounds impossible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which requires Link to use the Master Sword. Then, there's the whole weapon wear mechanic, which is particularly important when working with the weakest weapon in the whole game. But if the stick shatters, that's it. It's over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The simple answer is exploits. The complete answer, I kid you not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have separate playthroughs that impact one another. So the creator does a “setup” file where he progresses normally, and the actual save, where he's limited. The preparatory save has him going through the intro and initial tutorial island, and this character gains full stamina and health. From here, he starts a cinematic and halts partway through to tell the software to open an automatic save from the branch-only file. The system gets mixed up and creates a new save file that combines the conditions of the original two.

That causes new problems, though. The fused file has a Link that did not acquired the ability to access shrines. Luckily, this is something that the file exploit fixes easily, but executing it means depending on an unstable build of the title that fails to load some areas. Like everything else, he has a technical solution for it: He begins the game on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then patches the game partway through to ensure it begins functioning correctly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Additional Hurdles

Curiously, the prologue version of the hero is programmed so that he is unable to damage any weapons he uses, presumably to prevent a scenario where the player gets stuck at the beginning of the adventure. But that's also how the streamer bypasses the durability issue, as the Link he pulls between dimensions is the one from the start of the game. It's a smart technique, but not one that eliminates all potential difficulty. The stick is nonetheless a ineffective weapon that makes encounters tedious. But at that point, it's all a question of grit and perseverance. It further aids that there's a copying exploit that grants him an abundant supply of consumables to boost his attack, or stock up on revival fairies. He additionally employs a glitch that enables Link to clip through the world. A few would find these means grounds to question the legitimacy of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a inventive gamer who is ready to do anything necessary to engage his audience. He further uses a penalty of kinds stating that, for every spirit he uses, he'll ban a viewer from his live stream, creating an incentive to avoid depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Encounter

The streamer succeeds to defeat several of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the battles appear painful. The video edit of his quest spares the viewer sit through the entire conflicts, which is a blessing when a few of them take multiple long hours. A particular enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, requires an astonishing twenty-three hours. The Ganondorf showdown, which depletes Link's health as it unfolds, is a notable nail-biter. The indestructible stick is after all only a stick. He is unable to always duplicate items during the fight.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow manages to overcome the beast form of Ganon. But the software compels the user to use the Master Sword as the last strike, so strictly speaking, it's not quite fully a branch-exclusive playthrough. But what fun is that?

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