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

You might assume that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have run out of novel challenge runs that impose unique restrictions on a playthrough. However, although many gamers have tried to complete the game using only a stick, streamer the streamer holds the record as the player who aimed to clear the adventure with a one branch—specifically, the very same stick throughout.

The streamer is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, such as the instance he played the title using only explosives or the attempt where he aimed to defeat the game with no energy. A single stick playthrough, however, seems unfeasible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which forces the hero to use the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the whole weapon wear system, which is particularly relevant when working with the most fragile tool in the entire game. But if the branch shatters, that's it. It's over.

So, How?

So, how? The simple answer is glitches. The complete answer, I kid you not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can tweak the game's save file system to have separate playthroughs that impact one another. So the creator creates a “preparation” save where he progresses normally, and the real save, where he's restricted. The setup save has him completing the intro and initial tutorial island, and this character gains full stamina and hearts. From this point, he triggers a cutscene and halts midway through to tell the game to load an auto-save from the stick file. The game gets mixed up and generates a third game file that merges the conditions of the first two files.

That causes new issues, however. The merged save file has a protagonist that did not acquired the capability to access shrines. Luckily, this is an issue that the file exploit addresses easily, but executing it means depending on an buggy version of the game that refuses to open some locations. As with other obstacles, he has a clever solution for it: He starts the game on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then updates the software partway through to make sure it begins working properly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Additional Hurdles

Curiously, the prologue form of Link is programmed so that he is unable to break any tools he wields, presumably to prevent a scenario where the player gets stuck at the beginning of the adventure. But that's additionally how the streamer bypasses the durability issue, as the character he transfers across universes is the one from the start of the game. It's a smart trick, but not a method that eradicates all possible difficulty. The stick is still a weak item that renders battles onerous. But at that stage, it's entirely a matter of grit and dedication. It also aids that there's a copying exploit that gives him an abundant number of items to improve his strength, or stock up on revival fairies. He also employs 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 in my mind, he's a inventive player who is ready to do anything necessary to entertain his audience. He also implements a safeguard of sorts stipulating that, for every spirit he employs, he'll ban a fan from his Twitch chat, creating an motivation to avoid overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Final Encounter

PointCrow manages to defeat many of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the battles appear grueling. The YouTube edit of his journey doesn't make the viewer sit through the entire fights, which is a blessing when a few of them take multiple hours. One enemy encounter, a powerful foe, requires an incredible twenty-three straight. The Ganondorf battle, which erases Link's hearts as it progresses, is a notable nail-biter. The indestructible branch is after all just a stick. He is unable to always clone objects midway the fight.

Did he succeed? Technically, PointCrow manages to overcome the dragon version of the antagonist. But the software forces the player to use the legendary weapon as the final strike, so technically, it's not completely a branch-exclusive playthrough. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow banned more than 1,000 people in his live stream. Rest in peace.