Twitch Personality Dedicates 37 Straight Attempting to Beat <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a Single Branch

One could think that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have run out of novel self-imposed challenges that impose special rules on a playthrough. Yet, although numerous players have attempted to finish Tears of the Kingdom with just a wooden stick, content creator PointCrow stands out as the player who aimed to beat the adventure with a one branch—specifically, the exact same one from start to finish.

PointCrow is famous for such difficult playthroughs, such as the instance he went through the title using only bombs or the attempt where he aimed to defeat the story with no stamina. A single stick run, however, sounds unfeasible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which forces Link to use the legendary blade. Then, there's the whole weapon wear mechanic, which is particularly relevant when dealing with the weakest weapon in the entire world. Yet if the branch shatters, that's it. It's over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The straightforward explanation is glitches. The complete answer, believe it or not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have separate game sessions that affect one another. So PointCrow creates a “setup” save where he progresses standardly, and the real save, where he's restricted. The preparatory file has him completing the prologue and initial starting area, and this character acquires maximum stamina and health. From this point, he starts a cinematic and pauses midway through to instruct the game to open an automatic save from the stick file. The system gets mixed up and generates a third game file that merges the conditions of the original two.

This creates fresh issues, though. The fused save file has a Link that did not obtain the capability to enter shrines. Luckily, this is an issue that the save glitch fixes easily, but executing it means depending on an buggy version of the game that fails to open some areas. Like other obstacles, he has a clever workaround for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its early version 1.0, and then updates the software midway through to make sure it begins functioning correctly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Additional Hurdles

Curiously, the prologue form of the hero is programmed so that he is unable to damage any tools he wields, likely to avoid a situation where the user gets stuck at the start of the game. But that's also how PointCrow gets around the durability issue, as the character he transfers between universes is the one from the start of the game. It's a smart trick, but not one that eradicates all possible friction. The stick is nonetheless a ineffective weapon that makes encounters onerous. But at that stage, it's all a question of determination and dedication. It further aids that there's a copying exploit that grants him an plentiful number of consumables to boost his attack, or accumulate on revival fairies. He additionally employs a glitch that enables Link to clip through the world. A few would consider these means grounds to discredit the validity of the attempt, but to my view, he's a inventive player who is willing to do whatever it takes to entertain his viewer. He further uses a safeguard of kinds stipulating that, for each spirit he employs, he'll ban one fan from his Twitch chat, creating an incentive to not overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Showdown

PointCrow manages to get through many of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the fights look grueling. The YouTube edit of his quest spares the audience sit through the whole fights, which is a good thing when a few of them take several hours. One boss fight, Queen Gibdo, requires an incredible 23 straight. The Ganondorf battle, which erases Link's hearts as it unfolds, is a notable nail-biter. The indestructible branch is after all only a piece of wood. He is unable to necessarily duplicate objects midway the battle.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, he manages to defeat the beast form of the antagonist. But the software forces the user to wield the legendary weapon as the final attack, so technically, it's not quite fully a stick-only playthrough. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow removed over a thousand people in his live stream. Rest in peace.