Streaming Personality Spends Thirty-Seven Straight Trying to Beat <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a Single Stick

One could think that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have run out of novel challenge runs that apply unique restrictions on a playthrough. Yet, although many gamers have tried to complete the game using only a stick, streamer the streamer holds the record as the player who endeavored to clear the adventure with a single stick—specifically, the very same one from start to finish.

PointCrow is renowned for such challenge runs, such as the instance he went through the game solely with explosives or the attempt where he aimed to beat the game with zero stamina. A single stick playthrough, though, sounds impossible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which forces Link to wield the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the entire weapon wear mechanic, which is especially important when dealing with the weakest tool in the whole world. Yet if the stick shatters, that's it. It's over.

So, How?

So, how? The straightforward answer is exploits. The complete answer, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have distinct game sessions that impact one another. So the creator creates a “setup” save where he advances normally, and the real file, where he's limited. The preparatory save has him going through the prologue and initial tutorial island, and this character gains maximum endurance and health. From here, he starts a cutscene and pauses midway through to instruct the game to load an automatic save from the stick file. The game gets confused and generates a new game file that combines the states of the original two.

That causes fresh problems, though. The fused file has a protagonist that never obtain the ability to enter shrines. Luckily, this is something that the save glitch addresses readily, but executing it means relying on an buggy version of the game that fails to load certain locations. Like other obstacles, he has a clever solution for it: He starts the game on its early 1.0 build, and then patches the game partway through to make sure it begins working properly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Other Hurdles

Interestingly, the introductory form of the hero is programmed so that he is unable to damage any weapons he wields, likely to prevent a scenario where the user gets trapped at the beginning of the game. But that's additionally how the streamer gets around the durability problem, as the character he transfers between dimensions is the version from the start of the game. It's a smart trick, but not a method that eradicates all possible difficulty. The stick is still a ineffective item that makes encounters tedious. But at that stage, it's entirely a question of determination and dedication. It also aids that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an plentiful supply of consumables to improve his strength, or accumulate on revival fairies. He also makes use of a bug that enables him to phase through the world. Some would consider these methods reason to discredit the legitimacy of the run, but to my view, he's a inventive gamer who is ready to do anything necessary to engage his viewer. He further implements a penalty of sorts stating that, for each fairy he employs, he'll remove a viewer from his Twitch chat, establishing an incentive to avoid depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Encounter

PointCrow manages to defeat many of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the battles look grueling. The YouTube version of his journey spares the viewer endure the entire conflicts, which is a good thing when a few of them last several hours. A particular enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, takes an astonishing twenty-three straight. The Ganondorf showdown, which erases the hero's health as it progresses, is a memorable tense moment. The indestructible stick is after all only a stick. He is unable to necessarily clone objects during the fight.

So, is it possible? Technically, he manages to defeat the beast form of Ganon. But the software compels the user to use the legendary weapon as the last attack, so strictly speaking, it's not completely a stick-only playthrough. But what fun is that?

In the end, PointCrow removed over a thousand people in his Twitch chat. RIP.