Twitch Star Dedicates Thirty-Seven Hours Trying to Conquer <em>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 arrived, enthusiasts would have run out of novel self-imposed challenges that apply unique rules on a playthrough. However, while many gamers have attempted to complete Tears of the Kingdom using only a wooden stick, streamer the streamer stands out as the player who aimed to beat the game with a one stick—specifically, the exact same stick throughout.

PointCrow is famous for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, such as the instance he went through the title solely with explosives or the effort where he aimed to defeat the story with no energy. A single stick run, however, sounds unfeasible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which requires the hero to use the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the whole durability system, which is especially important when dealing with the weakest weapon in the entire game. But if the stick breaks, that's the end. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

So, how? The simple explanation is glitches. The complete story, believe it or not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have distinct playthroughs that impact one another. So the creator creates a “preparation” save where he progresses standardly, and the actual file, where he's restricted. The setup file has him completing the intro and first starting area, and this Link gains full endurance and health. From this point, he triggers a cutscene and halts midway through to instruct the game to open an auto-save from the stick file. The game gets mixed up and creates a third game file that merges the conditions of the first two files.

This causes new problems, though. The merged file has a Link that did not obtain the ability to access sacred places. Fortunately, this is an issue that the save glitch addresses easily, but executing it means depending on an buggy version of the title that fails to open certain areas. Like everything else, he has a technical workaround for it: He begins the game on its early version 1.0, and then updates the software partway through to make sure it starts working properly.

Bypassing Durability and Additional Challenges

Interestingly, the prologue form of Link is programmed so that he is unable to damage any tools he wields, presumably to avoid a situation where the player gets trapped at the beginning of the game. But that's additionally how the streamer bypasses the wear issue, as the character he transfers between universes is the one from the beginning of the story. It's a smart trick, but not one that eliminates all potential friction. The stick is nonetheless a ineffective weapon that renders battles tedious. But at that stage, it's entirely a matter of determination and dedication. It also aids that there's a copying exploit that grants him an abundant supply of consumables to improve his strength, or stock up on revival fairies. He also makes use of a glitch that enables him to clip through the environment. Some would find these methods reason to discredit the legitimacy of the run, but in my mind, he's a inventive player who is willing to do whatever it takes to entertain his viewer. He also implements a safeguard of sorts stipulating that, for each fairy he employs, he'll ban a viewer from his live stream, establishing an motivation to not overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Final Showdown

The streamer manages to defeat many of the game's main enemies, but the fights look grueling. The YouTube edit of his journey spares the viewer endure the entire fights, which is a good thing when a few of them last several hours. One enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, requires an astonishing 23 straight. The Ganondorf battle, which depletes the hero's hearts as it progresses, is a memorable tense moment. The unbreakable stick is still only a stick. He can't necessarily clone items midway the fight.

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

In the end, PointCrow banned over 1,000 users in his Twitch chat. RIP.