Twitch Personality Spends 37 Straight Attempting to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Stick

One could think that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have run out of creative self-imposed challenges that impose unique rules on a playthrough. Yet, although many players have tried to complete the game with only a wooden stick, streamer the streamer stands out as the player who endeavored to beat the game with a one stick—meaning, the very same one throughout.

PointCrow is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, like the time he went through the game solely with explosives or the effort where he tried to defeat the story with zero energy. A single stick run, though, seems unfeasible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which forces Link to use the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the entire weapon wear system, which is especially relevant when dealing with the weakest weapon in the entire game. Yet if the branch breaks, that's the end. Game over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The simple answer is exploits. The full story, believe it or not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have distinct game sessions that impact one another. So PointCrow creates a “setup” file where he progresses standardly, and the real save, where he's limited. The setup file has him completing the prologue and initial starting area, and this character gains maximum endurance and hearts. From this point, he triggers a cinematic and pauses partway through to instruct the software to open an auto-save from the branch-only file. The system gets mixed up and generates a third save file that merges the states of the original two.

This creates new problems, however. The fused save file has a protagonist that did not acquired the ability to enter shrines. Fortunately, this is something that the file exploit fixes easily, but executing it means depending on an buggy version of the game that refuses to open certain areas. As with everything else, he has a technical workaround for it: He begins the game on its early 1.0 build, and then patches the game midway through to make sure it starts working properly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Other Challenges

Interestingly, the introductory version of the hero is programmed so that he is unable to damage any weapons he uses, likely to prevent a scenario where the user gets stuck at the start of the game. But that's also how PointCrow bypasses the wear issue, as the character he transfers across dimensions is the version from the beginning of the game. It's a clever technique, but not one that eliminates all potential friction. The stick is still a weak item that renders encounters onerous. But at that point, it's entirely a matter of determination and perseverance. It further aids that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an plentiful supply of consumables to boost his strength, or stock up on revival fairies. He also employs a bug that allows him to phase through the environment. A few would consider these means reason to discredit the validity of the attempt, but to my view, he's a resourceful gamer who is ready to do anything necessary to entertain his audience. He also uses a penalty of kinds stating that, for each spirit he uses, he'll remove a fan from his Twitch chat, creating an incentive to avoid depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Last Showdown

The streamer manages to defeat many of the game's main enemies, but the battles appear painful. The YouTube edit of his quest spares the audience endure the entire conflicts, which is a good thing when some of them last several hours. One boss fight, Queen Gibdo, takes an incredible 23 straight. The final villain battle, which depletes Link's hearts as it progresses, is a notable nail-biter. The indestructible stick is after all just a stick. He is unable to necessarily clone objects midway the battle.

Did he succeed? Technically, he does defeat the dragon version of the antagonist. But the game compels the user to wield the legendary weapon as the final strike, so strictly speaking, it's not fully a stick-only run. But where's the challenge in that?

When everything is said and done, the streamer banned more than 1,000 users in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.