Twitch Personality Spends Thirty-Seven Hours Attempting to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a One Stick

One could think that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have exhausted creative self-imposed challenges that impose special restrictions on a gameplay session. However, while many gamers have tried to finish the game using only a stick, streamer the streamer stands out as the player who aimed to beat the adventure with a single stick—specifically, the very same one from start to finish.

The streamer is famous for such challenge runs, such as the instance he went through the game using only explosives or the attempt where he tried to beat the story with no stamina. A single stick playthrough, though, seems impossible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which forces the hero to wield the legendary blade. Then, there's the whole weapon wear system, which is especially important when dealing with the weakest tool in the entire game. But if the branch shatters, that's the end. Game over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The simple answer is glitches. The complete story, I kid you not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can manipulate the game's saving mechanism to have separate game sessions that affect one another. So PointCrow creates a “preparation” save where he progresses normally, and the real save, where he's restricted. The preparatory save has him going through the prologue and first starting area, and this character gains maximum stamina and hearts. From here, he triggers a cinematic and pauses partway through to instruct the software to open an automatic save from the stick file. The game gets mixed up and creates a new game file that merges the conditions of the original two.

This causes new problems, though. The fused file has a Link that did not acquired the capability to enter shrines. Fortunately, this is something that the save glitch fixes easily, but pulling it off means relying on an unstable version of the title that fails to open some locations. As with other obstacles, he has a clever solution for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release version 1.0, and then updates the game partway through to ensure it begins functioning correctly.

Bypassing Durability and Other Hurdles

Curiously, the prologue form of Link is coded so that he is unable to damage any weapons he uses, presumably to prevent a situation where the player gets trapped at the beginning of the game. But that's also how the streamer gets around the wear problem, as the character he pulls between universes is the one from the start of the game. It's a clever trick, but not a method that eradicates all potential difficulty. The stick is nonetheless a ineffective item that makes encounters onerous. But at that point, it's entirely a question of grit and dedication. It also helps that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an abundant number of items to improve his strength, or stock up on revival fairies. He additionally employs a glitch that allows Link to phase through the environment. A few would find these means grounds to question the validity of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a resourceful player who is willing to do anything necessary to engage his viewer. He further implements a safeguard of sorts stipulating that, for every spirit he employs, he'll remove a fan from his live stream, creating an incentive to not depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Showdown

The streamer manages to defeat several of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the fights appear grueling. The YouTube version of his quest doesn't make the audience endure the entire fights, which is a blessing when some of them take several long hours. A particular enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, requires an astonishing twenty-three hours. The Ganondorf showdown, which erases Link's health as it unfolds, is a notable nail-biter. The unbreakable branch is still just a piece of wood. He can't always clone items during the battle.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow manages to overcome the dragon version of the antagonist. But the game forces the player to wield the Master Sword as the last strike, so strictly speaking, it's not completely a stick-only run. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, the streamer removed over 1,000 users in his live stream. RIP.