Twitch Personality Spends 37 Hours Trying to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Branch

One could think that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have exhausted creative challenge runs that apply unique restrictions on a gameplay session. However, although many players have attempted to complete Tears of the Kingdom using just a wooden stick, streamer the streamer holds the record as the player who endeavored to beat the adventure with a one branch—specifically, the exact same stick from start to finish.

PointCrow is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, such as the instance he went through the title solely with bombs or the effort where he tried to defeat the game with zero stamina. A one-branch playthrough, though, seems impossible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which requires Link to use the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the whole weapon wear mechanic, which is especially relevant when dealing with the weakest weapon in the entire game. Yet if the branch shatters, that's the end. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The simple explanation is glitches. The complete answer, I kid you not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have separate game sessions that affect one another. So the creator does a “setup” save where he advances normally, and the real file, where he's limited. The setup file has him completing the intro and first tutorial island, and this character acquires full stamina and health. From this point, he triggers a cinematic and halts midway through to tell the software to load an automatic save from the branch-only file. The system gets mixed up and creates a new game file that combines the conditions of the first two files.

That causes fresh issues, however. The merged file has a protagonist that did not obtain the capability to enter shrines. Luckily, this is an issue that the save glitch addresses readily, but executing it means depending on an buggy build of the title that refuses to open certain locations. Like everything else, he has a clever solution for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release version 1.0, and then updates the software partway through to ensure it starts functioning correctly.

Bypassing Durability and Other Hurdles

Interestingly, the introductory version of the hero is coded so that he cannot break any tools he uses, likely to prevent a scenario where the user gets stuck at the beginning of the adventure. But that's additionally how the streamer gets around the durability problem, as the character he pulls across universes is the version from the start of the story. It's a smart technique, but not a method that eradicates all potential friction. The stick is nonetheless a weak item that makes battles onerous. But at that point, it's all a matter of determination and perseverance. It also aids that there's a copying exploit that gives him an plentiful supply of items to improve his strength, or accumulate on healing spirits. He also makes use of a glitch that enables him to clip through the environment. A few would consider these methods reason to question 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 safeguard of kinds stipulating that, for each spirit he employs, he'll ban a fan from his live stream, establishing an motivation to avoid depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Encounter

The streamer manages to defeat many of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the battles look grueling. The YouTube edit of his journey spares the viewer sit through the whole fights, which is a blessing when some of them last several hours. A particular enemy encounter, a powerful foe, takes an astonishing twenty-three straight. The final villain battle, which erases the hero's health as it unfolds, is a notable nail-biter. The indestructible stick is after all just a piece of wood. He can't necessarily duplicate objects midway the fight.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow manages to defeat the dragon version of Ganon. But the software forces the user to use the Master Sword as the last strike, so technically, it's not quite completely a stick-only playthrough. But what fun is that?

In the end, PointCrow banned more than a thousand users in his Twitch chat. RIP.