Twitch Personality Spends 37 Hours Trying to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Stick
You might assume that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have exhausted novel self-imposed challenges that apply unique rules on a playthrough. However, although numerous gamers have tried to complete Tears of the Kingdom using only a stick, streamer the streamer stands out as the individual who endeavored to beat the adventure with a one branch—specifically, the exact same one throughout.
The streamer is renowned for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, such as the instance he went through the game solely with explosives or the effort where he aimed to beat the game with zero energy. A one-branch playthrough, though, seems impossible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which forces the hero to use the legendary blade. Then, there's the entire durability system, which is particularly relevant when dealing with the most fragile tool in the whole game. But if the stick breaks, that's the end. It's over.
The Method Behind the Madness
So, how? The straightforward answer is glitches. The complete story, I kid you not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have distinct game sessions that impact one another. So the creator creates a “preparation” file where he progresses normally, and the actual save, where he's restricted. The setup file has him going through the prologue and initial starting area, and this Link acquires maximum endurance and health. From here, he starts a cutscene and halts partway through to tell the game to load an automatic save from the stick file. The game gets confused and generates a third game file that merges the states of the first two files.
This creates new problems, though. The fused file has a Link that never obtain the ability to enter sacred places. Fortunately, this is something that the save glitch fixes easily, but executing it means depending on an buggy version of the title that fails to load certain areas. As with other obstacles, he has a clever workaround for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release version 1.0, and then patches the software partway through to make sure it starts working properly.
Overcoming Durability and Other Challenges
Interestingly, the introductory form of the hero is programmed so that he cannot damage any weapons he wields, likely to avoid a scenario where the user gets trapped at the start of the adventure. But that's additionally how PointCrow bypasses the wear problem, as the character he transfers across universes is the one from the beginning of the story. It's a smart trick, but not a method that eradicates all possible difficulty. The branch is nonetheless a weak item that renders encounters onerous. But at that point, it's all a question of determination and dedication. It also helps that there's a copying exploit that grants him an plentiful supply of consumables to improve his strength, or stock up on healing spirits. He also employs a bug that enables him to phase through the world. A few would consider these methods grounds to question the validity of the attempt, but to my view, he's a resourceful gamer who is willing to do anything necessary to engage his audience. He further implements a safeguard of sorts stating that, for every spirit he uses, he'll remove one fan from his live stream, establishing an incentive to not overly rely on them.
Major Battles and the Final Encounter
PointCrow manages to get through several of the game's bosses, but the battles appear painful. The YouTube edit of his journey spares the viewer sit through the entire fights, which is a good thing when a few of them last multiple hours. A particular enemy encounter, a powerful foe, requires an incredible twenty-three hours. The final villain battle, which erases the hero's health as it unfolds, is a memorable tense moment. The unbreakable branch is after all only a piece of wood. He is unable to necessarily clone objects midway the battle.
Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, he manages to defeat the dragon version of the antagonist. But the game compels the user to use the Master Sword as the final strike, so strictly speaking, it's not fully a branch-exclusive run. But where's the challenge in that?
When everything is said and done, the streamer banned over a thousand users in his live stream. RIP.
