Twitch Star Spends 37 Hours Attempting to Beat <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Branch

One could think that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have exhausted novel challenge runs that apply special restrictions on a playthrough. However, although many gamers have tried to finish the game with only a wooden stick, streamer the streamer stands out as the player who endeavored to clear the game with a single branch—meaning, the very same one throughout.

PointCrow is renowned for such challenge runs, like the time he played the title using only bombs or the effort where he tried to beat the story with zero energy. A one-branch playthrough, however, seems impossible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which requires the hero to wield the Master Sword. Then, there's the whole durability mechanic, which is particularly important when dealing with the weakest weapon in the entire world. Yet if the stick breaks, that's the end. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The simple explanation is glitches. The complete answer, believe it or not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have separate game sessions that affect one another. So PointCrow does a “preparation” save where he advances normally, and the real file, where he's limited. The setup file has him going through the intro and first starting area, and this character acquires full stamina and health. From this point, he triggers a cutscene and pauses partway through to instruct the game to open an auto-save from the stick file. The game gets confused and creates a third save file that combines the conditions of the original two.

That causes new problems, though. The fused file has a protagonist that did not acquired the capability to enter shrines. Fortunately, this is an issue that the save glitch fixes easily, but executing it means depending on an unstable version of the game that fails to load certain areas. Like everything else, he has a clever workaround for it: He starts the game on its early version 1.0, and then updates the software partway through to make sure it begins functioning correctly.

Overcoming Durability and Additional Challenges

Curiously, the prologue version of the hero is coded so that he is unable to damage any tools he wields, presumably to prevent a situation where the user gets stuck at the beginning of the game. But that's also how the streamer gets around the durability issue, as the character he pulls between universes is the version from the beginning of the game. It's a smart technique, but not one that eliminates all potential difficulty. The stick is still a ineffective item that makes battles tedious. But at that point, it's entirely a matter of determination and perseverance. It also helps that there's a copying exploit that grants him an plentiful supply of items to boost his strength, or stock up on healing spirits. He also makes use of a glitch that enables Link to phase through the environment. Some would find these means grounds to question the validity of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a inventive player who is willing to do anything necessary to entertain his audience. He also uses a safeguard of kinds stating that, for each fairy he employs, he'll remove a fan from his live stream, establishing an incentive to not overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Encounter

PointCrow manages to defeat many of the game's bosses, but the fights appear painful. The YouTube edit of his quest spares the audience endure the entire conflicts, which is a blessing when a few of them last several long hours. A particular enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, takes an incredible 23 hours. The Ganondorf showdown, which erases Link's hearts as it unfolds, is a notable tense moment. The indestructible branch is still just a stick. He is unable to always clone objects during the battle.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, he manages to overcome the dragon version of Ganon. But the game forces the user to use the legendary weapon as the final attack, so technically, it's not completely a stick-only run. But where's the challenge in that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow banned over a thousand people in his Twitch chat. RIP.