Twitch Personality Dedicates 37 Hours Attempting to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a Single Stick

One could think that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have exhausted creative self-imposed challenges that apply unique restrictions on a gameplay session. However, although many gamers have tried to finish the game using just a wooden stick, streamer PointCrow stands out as the individual who endeavored to clear the game with a one stick—meaning, the exact same one throughout.

PointCrow is renowned for such challenge runs, like the instance he played the game solely with explosives or the attempt where he tried to beat the story with no energy. A single stick run, however, seems impossible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which forces the hero to wield the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the entire weapon wear system, which is particularly important when working with the most fragile tool in the whole game. But if the branch shatters, that's the end. Game over.

So, How?

So, how? The simple answer is glitches. The full answer, believe it or not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can tweak the game's save file system to have separate game sessions that affect one another. So PointCrow does a “preparation” save where he progresses normally, and the actual save, where he's limited. The preparatory save has him completing the prologue 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 automatic save from the stick file. The system gets confused and generates a third game file that merges the states of the original two.

This causes new problems, though. The merged file has a protagonist that did not acquired the capability to access shrines. Fortunately, this is an issue that the file exploit addresses easily, but executing it means relying on an unstable build of the game that fails to open some locations. Like other obstacles, he has a clever workaround for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release version 1.0, and then patches the game partway through to ensure it starts functioning correctly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Other Challenges

Curiously, the introductory form of the hero is coded so that he cannot break any weapons he uses, likely to avoid a scenario where the player gets trapped at the beginning of the adventure. But that's additionally how PointCrow bypasses the wear problem, as the Link he transfers between dimensions is the one from the start of the game. It's a clever trick, but not one that eradicates all potential friction. The branch is nonetheless a ineffective item that renders encounters tedious. But at that stage, it's all a matter of determination and dedication. It also helps that there's a copying exploit that gives him an abundant supply of consumables to improve his attack, or accumulate on healing spirits. He additionally makes use of a glitch that enables Link to phase through the environment. A few would find these means grounds to question the legitimacy of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a resourceful gamer who is willing to do anything necessary to entertain his viewer. He also uses a penalty of sorts stating that, for each 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 several of the game's main enemies, but the fights appear grueling. The YouTube version of his quest doesn't make the viewer endure the whole conflicts, which is a good thing when some of them take several hours. A particular enemy encounter, a powerful foe, takes an astonishing twenty-three straight. The final villain showdown, which depletes the hero's health as it progresses, is a notable tense moment. The unbreakable stick is after all only a stick. He can't necessarily duplicate objects during the fight.

Did he succeed? Technically, he does defeat the dragon version of Ganon. But the software compels the user to wield the Master Sword as the last strike, 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. Rest in peace.