Twitch Personality Dedicates 37 Straight Attempting to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Branch

One could think that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have exhausted creative self-imposed challenges that apply special restrictions on a gameplay session. However, while many players have tried to complete Tears of the Kingdom using only a stick, content creator the streamer stands out as the individual who endeavored to beat the adventure with a single stick—meaning, the exact same stick throughout.

The streamer is famous for such challenge runs, such as the time he played the title solely with bombs or the effort where he aimed to defeat the game with zero stamina. A single stick run, though, seems unfeasible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which requires the hero to wield the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the whole durability mechanic, which is particularly important when dealing with the weakest weapon in the entire game. Yet if the stick breaks, that's the end. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

So, how? The straightforward explanation is exploits. The complete answer, I kid you not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can manipulate the game's saving mechanism to have separate game sessions that affect one another. So the creator creates a “setup” save where he progresses standardly, and the real file, where he's restricted. The setup save has him going through the prologue and initial tutorial island, and this character gains full stamina and hearts. From this point, he triggers a cutscene and pauses midway through to instruct the game to load an automatic save from the stick file. The system gets mixed up and creates a new game file that combines the states of the first two files.

This causes new problems, though. The merged file has a Link that did not acquired the capability to enter shrines. Luckily, this is something that the file exploit fixes easily, but pulling it off means depending on an buggy version of the game that refuses to open some locations. As with everything else, he has a technical solution for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release version 1.0, and then patches the software midway through to ensure it starts working properly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Other Challenges

Curiously, the introductory version of Link is programmed so that he is unable to break any tools he wields, presumably to avoid a situation where the player gets stuck at the start of the game. But that's also how the streamer gets around the durability problem, as the Link he transfers between dimensions is the one from the beginning of the game. It's a clever technique, but not a method that eliminates all possible friction. The branch is nonetheless a ineffective item that makes battles onerous. But at that point, it's entirely a matter of grit and perseverance. It also helps that there's a copying exploit that grants him an plentiful number of consumables to improve his strength, or accumulate on revival fairies. He additionally employs a bug that enables him to phase through the world. Some would consider these means reason to question the validity of the run, but in my mind, he's a resourceful gamer who is ready to do whatever it takes to entertain his audience. He also uses a safeguard of kinds stating that, for each fairy he employs, he'll remove a fan from his Twitch chat, creating an incentive to avoid overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Encounter

The streamer succeeds to get through several of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the fights look grueling. The video edit of his journey spares the viewer sit through the entire conflicts, which is a good thing when some of them take multiple hours. One enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, requires an incredible twenty-three straight. The Ganondorf showdown, which depletes the hero's health as it unfolds, is a notable nail-biter. The indestructible branch is still only a piece of wood. He can't always duplicate items during the fight.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow manages to defeat the beast form of the antagonist. But the game forces the user to use the Master Sword as the last strike, so strictly speaking, it's not completely a branch-exclusive playthrough. But what fun is that?

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