Streaming Personality Dedicates Thirty-Seven Straight Trying to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Branch

You might assume that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have run out of creative self-imposed challenges that impose special rules on a gameplay session. However, while numerous players have tried to finish the game using only a stick, content creator the streamer holds the record as the individual who aimed to clear the adventure with a one branch—meaning, the very same stick throughout.

PointCrow is renowned for such challenge runs, like the time he played the title using only bombs or the attempt where he aimed to defeat the game with no stamina. A one-branch playthrough, however, seems impossible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which forces the hero to use the Master Sword. Then, there's the whole weapon wear mechanic, which is especially relevant when dealing with the most fragile weapon in the whole world. But if the branch breaks, that's the end. Game over.

So, How?

So, how? The simple answer is exploits. The full story, believe it or 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 the creator creates a “preparation” file where he advances standardly, and the real file, where he's restricted. The preparatory save has him going through the prologue and initial tutorial island, and this character acquires maximum endurance and health. From here, he triggers a cinematic and pauses partway through to instruct the software to load an automatic save from the branch-only file. The system gets confused and generates a new save file that combines the conditions of the original two.

This creates new problems, though. The fused save file has a Link that did not obtain the ability to access sacred places. Luckily, this is something that the save glitch fixes readily, but pulling it off means relying on an buggy build of the game that fails to load some areas. Like everything else, he has a technical solution for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then patches the game midway through to make sure it starts functioning correctly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Additional Challenges

Interestingly, the introductory form of the hero is coded so that he cannot damage any weapons he uses, presumably to avoid a scenario where the user gets trapped at the beginning of the game. But that's additionally how PointCrow bypasses the wear issue, as the Link he pulls across universes is the version from the start of the game. It's a clever technique, but not a method that eliminates all potential friction. The branch is nonetheless a weak weapon that makes encounters onerous. But at that stage, it's entirely a question of determination and perseverance. It further aids that there's a copying exploit that grants him an plentiful number of items to improve his attack, or accumulate on revival fairies. He also makes use of a bug that allows Link to phase through the world. A few would find these means grounds to discredit the legitimacy of the run, but in my mind, he's a inventive player who is ready to do anything necessary to engage his audience. He further implements a safeguard of kinds stipulating that, for each fairy he employs, he'll remove one viewer from his live stream, creating an motivation to avoid depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Showdown

PointCrow manages to get through several of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the fights appear grueling. The video version of his quest doesn't make the viewer endure the whole fights, which is a blessing when a few of them last multiple hours. A particular enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, requires an astonishing twenty-three straight. The final villain showdown, which depletes the hero's health as it unfolds, is a notable tense moment. The indestructible branch is still only a piece of wood. He can't necessarily duplicate items during the battle.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow manages to defeat the beast form of the antagonist. But the game forces the user to use the legendary weapon as the last attack, so strictly speaking, it's not completely a stick-only playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow removed over 1,000 users in his Twitch chat. RIP.