Twitch Personality Spends Thirty-Seven Straight Attempting to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a Single Branch

One could think that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have run out of creative self-imposed challenges that apply special rules on a gameplay session. However, while numerous players have attempted to complete Tears of the Kingdom using just a wooden stick, streamer PointCrow stands out as the player who aimed to clear the adventure with a one stick—meaning, the very same stick throughout.

PointCrow is famous for these kinds of challenge runs, such as the instance he played the title solely with bombs or the effort where he tried to beat the story with zero energy. A one-branch run, though, seems unfeasible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which forces Link to use the legendary blade. Then, there's the entire weapon wear mechanic, which is especially important when dealing with the weakest weapon in the entire game. But if the branch breaks, that's it. It's over.

So, How?

So, how? The straightforward explanation is glitches. The complete answer, believe it or not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have separate playthroughs that affect one another. So PointCrow creates a “setup” file where he advances standardly, and the real file, where he's limited. The preparatory save has him completing the prologue and initial tutorial island, and this character gains maximum stamina and health. From this point, he starts a cutscene and pauses partway through to tell the game to open an auto-save from the branch-only file. The system gets mixed up and creates a third game file that merges the states of the original two.

This creates new problems, however. The merged file has a protagonist that never acquired the capability to access sacred places. Luckily, this is an issue that the file exploit addresses readily, but pulling it off means relying on an buggy build of the game that fails to open some areas. Like everything else, he has a clever workaround for it: He starts the game on its pre-release version 1.0, and then updates the software midway through to ensure it starts functioning correctly.

Overcoming Durability and Other Challenges

Interestingly, the introductory form of Link is coded so that he is unable to damage any weapons he wields, likely to prevent a situation where the player gets trapped at the start of the game. But that's additionally how the streamer bypasses the durability issue, as the character he transfers across dimensions is the one from the beginning of the game. It's a clever trick, but not a method that eradicates all possible friction. The branch is nonetheless a weak weapon that renders battles tedious. But at that stage, it's all a matter of grit and dedication. It further aids 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 allows Link to phase through the environment. A few would find these methods grounds to discredit the legitimacy of the attempt, but to my view, he's a resourceful player who is willing to do anything necessary to entertain his viewer. He further implements a safeguard of kinds stipulating that, for each fairy he employs, he'll ban one fan from his Twitch chat, establishing an incentive to avoid depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Final Showdown

PointCrow manages to defeat many of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the battles look painful. The video edit of his quest spares the audience endure the whole fights, which is a good thing when a few of them last several long hours. One enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, takes an astonishing twenty-three straight. The Ganondorf showdown, which erases the hero's hearts as it progresses, is a memorable nail-biter. The unbreakable branch is still only a piece of wood. He can't necessarily clone items midway the battle.

So, is it possible? Technically, he manages to defeat the dragon version of the antagonist. But the software forces the user to use the legendary weapon as the last attack, so technically, it's not quite fully a branch-exclusive run. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow banned more than a thousand people in his Twitch chat. RIP.