Streaming Star Spends Thirty-Seven Hours Trying to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a Single Stick

You might assume that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have exhausted creative self-imposed challenges that apply unique restrictions on a playthrough. However, although numerous players have tried to finish the game using just a stick, streamer PointCrow stands out as the player who endeavored to clear the adventure with a single stick—meaning, the exact same stick from start to finish.

PointCrow is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, such as the instance he played the game using only bombs or the attempt where he aimed to defeat the story with no stamina. A single stick run, though, seems impossible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which requires Link to use the legendary blade. Then, there's the entire durability mechanic, which is especially important when dealing with the weakest weapon in the entire world. Yet if the stick shatters, that's the end. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The simple explanation is glitches. The complete story, I kid you not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can manipulate the game's saving mechanism to have separate game sessions that affect one another. So PointCrow creates a “setup” save where he progresses standardly, and the actual save, where he's restricted. The setup file has him going through the intro and first starting area, and this character gains maximum endurance and health. From here, he starts a cutscene and halts midway through to instruct 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 causes fresh problems, though. The merged save file has a protagonist that did not obtain the capability to access shrines. Luckily, this is an issue that the file exploit addresses easily, but pulling it off means depending on an buggy version of the title that refuses to load certain locations. Like other obstacles, he has a clever solution for it: He begins the game on its early version 1.0, and then updates the software partway through to ensure it begins functioning correctly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Other Challenges

Interestingly, the introductory version of the hero is programmed so that he cannot damage any tools he uses, presumably to avoid a situation where the user gets stuck at the beginning of the game. But that's additionally how PointCrow gets around the durability problem, as the Link he transfers across dimensions is the one from the start of the game. It's a smart technique, but not a method that eliminates all potential difficulty. The stick is nonetheless a weak item that makes encounters tedious. But at that stage, it's all a question of determination and perseverance. It further aids that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an plentiful number of consumables to improve his strength, or accumulate on revival fairies. He additionally makes use of a bug that allows Link to phase through the environment. A few would consider these methods grounds to discredit the legitimacy of the attempt, but to my view, he's a resourceful gamer who is willing to do whatever it takes to engage his audience. He further uses a penalty of sorts stipulating that, for each spirit he employs, he'll remove a fan from his live stream, establishing an incentive to not depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Final Showdown

The streamer succeeds to get through several of the game's main enemies, but the battles appear painful. The YouTube edit of his journey doesn't make the audience sit through the entire conflicts, which is a good thing when a few of them last several hours. A particular enemy encounter, a powerful foe, requires an incredible 23 hours. The Ganondorf battle, which erases the hero's hearts as it unfolds, is a memorable nail-biter. The unbreakable stick is after all just a stick. He can't always duplicate items midway the fight.

So, is it possible? Technically, he manages to defeat the dragon version of Ganon. But the software compels the user to use the Master Sword as the final attack, so strictly speaking, it's not quite fully a branch-exclusive playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

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