Twitch Personality Spends 37 Straight Trying to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Branch

One could think that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have exhausted creative self-imposed challenges that apply unique restrictions on a playthrough. Yet, although numerous players have attempted to complete Tears of the Kingdom using just a stick, streamer PointCrow holds the record as the individual who endeavored to beat the adventure with a one stick—meaning, the very same stick throughout.

The streamer is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, such as the instance he went through the title solely with explosives or the attempt where he tried to defeat the game with zero stamina. A one-branch playthrough, though, seems impossible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which forces the hero to wield the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the entire durability mechanic, which is especially important when dealing with the weakest weapon in the whole world. But if the branch breaks, that's the end. Game over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The simple explanation is exploits. The full answer, I kid you not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have separate game sessions that impact one another. So the creator creates a “preparation” file where he progresses normally, and the actual save, where he's restricted. The preparatory save has him completing the intro and first starting area, and this character acquires maximum endurance and hearts. From here, he starts a cinematic and halts midway through to instruct the software to load an automatic save from the stick file. The game gets confused and generates a new game file that merges the conditions of the original two.

This causes new issues, however. The merged save file has a Link that never obtain the ability to enter shrines. Fortunately, this is an issue that the save glitch fixes readily, but executing it means depending on an unstable version of the game that refuses to open some areas. Like other obstacles, he has a technical solution for it: He starts the game on its early 1.0 build, and then patches the game midway through to ensure it begins working properly.

Bypassing Durability and Other Challenges

Interestingly, the prologue form of Link is coded so that he cannot damage any weapons he uses, likely to prevent a situation where the user gets trapped at the start of the adventure. But that's also how the streamer gets around the wear problem, as the Link he pulls across dimensions is the one from the start of the story. It's a smart trick, but not a method that eradicates all possible difficulty. The branch is still a weak weapon that makes battles onerous. But at that point, it's entirely a matter of determination and perseverance. It further helps that there's a copying exploit that grants him an plentiful supply of items to improve his strength, or accumulate on revival fairies. He additionally employs a bug that enables Link to clip through the world. Some would consider these methods grounds to discredit the legitimacy of the run, but to my view, he's a inventive gamer who is ready to do anything necessary to entertain his viewer. He further implements a safeguard of sorts stating that, for each fairy he uses, he'll remove one viewer from his live stream, establishing an incentive to not depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Last Showdown

PointCrow manages to defeat many of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the fights appear painful. The YouTube version of his quest spares the viewer endure the entire conflicts, which is a blessing when a few of them last multiple hours. One enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, takes an astonishing 23 straight. The final villain battle, which erases the hero's hearts as it unfolds, is a memorable tense moment. The indestructible branch is after all only a stick. He can't always clone items midway the battle.

Did he succeed? Technically, he manages to overcome the beast form of the antagonist. But the software forces the user to use the legendary weapon as the last strike, so technically, it's not quite fully a branch-exclusive run. But what fun is that?

In the end, the streamer removed over a thousand people in his Twitch chat. RIP.