Twitch Star Spends Thirty-Seven Straight Attempting to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Branch

One could think that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have exhausted creative challenge runs that apply special rules on a gameplay session. However, while many players have tried to finish the game with just a wooden stick, content creator the streamer stands out as the individual who aimed to beat the game with a one stick—specifically, the very same stick from start to finish.

PointCrow is famous for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, like the instance he played the game solely with bombs or the effort where he tried to beat the story with no stamina. A one-branch playthrough, though, seems unfeasible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which requires Link to use the legendary blade. Then, there's the whole weapon wear mechanic, which is particularly relevant when dealing with the most fragile tool in the entire game. But if the branch breaks, that's the end. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The simple explanation is glitches. The full story, believe it or not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have separate playthroughs that affect one another. So the creator does a “preparation” file where he progresses standardly, and the real file, where he's limited. The setup file has him completing the prologue and first starting area, and this character acquires maximum endurance and health. From this point, he starts a cutscene and halts midway through to tell the software to open an auto-save from the branch-only file. The system gets confused and creates a new game file that combines the conditions of the original two.

This creates new problems, though. The fused file has a protagonist that never acquired the capability to enter shrines. Fortunately, this is something that the file exploit addresses readily, but pulling it off means relying on an unstable version of the title that fails to load some areas. As with everything else, he has a clever solution for it: He begins the game on its early 1.0 build, and then patches the software partway through to ensure it starts working properly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Other Challenges

Interestingly, the prologue form of the hero is coded so that he is unable to damage any weapons he wields, presumably to avoid a situation where the player gets trapped at the beginning of the adventure. But that's also how PointCrow gets around the wear issue, as the character he pulls across universes is the one from the beginning of the story. It's a smart trick, but not one that eliminates all potential friction. The branch is still a weak item that makes battles tedious. But at that point, it's entirely a question of determination and perseverance. It further helps that there's a copying exploit that gives him an plentiful supply of consumables to improve his strength, or accumulate on healing spirits. He also makes use of a glitch that enables Link to phase through the environment. Some would find these means grounds to discredit the validity of the attempt, but to my view, he's a resourceful player who is willing to do anything necessary to entertain his audience. He further implements a penalty of sorts stipulating that, for each fairy he employs, he'll remove a viewer from his live stream, establishing an incentive to avoid depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Showdown

PointCrow succeeds to defeat several of the game's main enemies, but the fights look painful. The video version of his quest doesn't make the viewer endure the entire conflicts, which is a good thing when some of them last several long hours. A particular enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, requires an incredible twenty-three straight. The final villain showdown, which depletes the hero's hearts as it progresses, is a notable tense moment. The indestructible stick is after all only a stick. He is unable to always clone objects during the fight.

Did he succeed? Technically, PointCrow manages to defeat the dragon version of the antagonist. But the game compels the user to use the Master Sword as the last attack, so strictly speaking, it's not fully a branch-exclusive run. But what fun is that?

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