Twitch Personality Spends 37 Straight Attempting to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a One Stick

You might assume that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have exhausted creative challenge runs that apply unique rules on a gameplay session. Yet, although many gamers have tried to complete Tears of the Kingdom with only a stick, streamer the streamer holds the record as the player who endeavored to beat the game with a one stick—specifically, the very same stick throughout.

PointCrow is famous for such difficult playthroughs, such as the time he went through the game using only bombs or the attempt where he aimed to beat the game with no stamina. A single stick run, however, seems unfeasible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which requires Link to wield the legendary blade. Then, there's the whole weapon wear system, which is especially relevant when working with the weakest weapon in the whole world. Yet if the stick breaks, that's it. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The simple answer is glitches. The full answer, I kid you not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have distinct game sessions that affect one another. So PointCrow creates a “preparation” save where he advances standardly, and the actual file, where he's restricted. The setup save has him completing the intro and initial starting area, and this Link acquires maximum endurance and health. From here, he starts a cinematic and pauses midway through to tell the game to load an automatic save from the stick file. The system gets confused and creates a new game file that combines the states of the first two files.

This creates fresh problems, however. The fused file has a protagonist that did not obtain the capability to access shrines. Fortunately, this is an issue that the save glitch addresses easily, but pulling it off means depending on an unstable version of the game that fails to open some locations. As with other obstacles, he has a technical workaround 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 Weapon Wear and Additional Challenges

Interestingly, the prologue form of Link is programmed so that he is unable to damage any weapons he uses, likely to avoid a scenario where the user gets trapped at the start of the game. But that's also how the streamer gets around the durability issue, as the Link he transfers across dimensions is the version from the beginning of the story. It's a clever technique, but not a method that eradicates all potential friction. The branch is still a ineffective item that renders battles tedious. But at that point, it's all a question of determination and perseverance. It further helps that there's a copying exploit that grants him an abundant number of items to improve his strength, or accumulate on healing spirits. He additionally employs a bug that allows him to phase through the environment. Some would find these methods grounds to discredit the validity of the run, but to my view, he's a inventive gamer who is ready to do anything necessary to engage his audience. He also implements a penalty of kinds stipulating that, for every fairy he uses, he'll ban a fan from his Twitch chat, creating an motivation to not overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Showdown

PointCrow manages to get through several of the game's main enemies, but the fights look painful. The video version of his journey spares the viewer sit through the whole conflicts, which is a blessing when some of them last multiple long hours. One boss fight, a powerful foe, takes an incredible 23 hours. The Ganondorf showdown, which depletes the hero's hearts as it progresses, is a notable nail-biter. The indestructible stick is after all just a piece of wood. He can't necessarily clone objects midway the battle.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow does defeat the beast form of Ganon. But the software forces the user to wield the legendary weapon as the final strike, so technically, it's not quite completely a stick-only playthrough. But what fun is that?

In the end, the streamer banned more than 1,000 users in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.