Twitch Personality Dedicates 37 Hours Attempting to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a One Branch

One could think that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have run out of novel self-imposed challenges that impose unique restrictions on a playthrough. Yet, although numerous players have attempted to complete Tears of the Kingdom with just a stick, streamer the streamer holds the record as the individual who endeavored to clear the game with a single branch—meaning, the very same stick throughout.

PointCrow is famous for such challenge runs, such as the time he went through the title using only explosives or the effort where he tried to defeat the story with no energy. A one-branch playthrough, however, seems impossible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which requires the hero to wield the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the entire durability mechanic, which is especially relevant when dealing with the most fragile tool in the entire world. But if the branch breaks, that's it. It's over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The simple explanation is glitches. The complete story, I kid you not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can tweak the game's saving mechanism to have distinct game sessions that impact one another. So PointCrow does a “preparation” file where he progresses normally, and the real file, where he's restricted. The preparatory file has him going through the intro and initial starting area, and this Link gains maximum endurance and health. From this point, he starts a cutscene and halts midway through to instruct the software to open an auto-save from the stick file. The game gets confused and creates a third game file that combines the conditions of the original two.

That creates new issues, though. The merged file has a protagonist that never acquired the ability to access shrines. Fortunately, this is something that the save glitch addresses easily, but pulling it off means depending on an unstable build of the title that refuses to load some areas. As with other obstacles, he has a technical solution for it: He begins the game on its early 1.0 build, and then patches the software midway through to ensure it starts functioning correctly.

Bypassing Durability and Other Challenges

Curiously, the introductory form of the hero is programmed so that he cannot break any weapons he uses, presumably to prevent a scenario where the player gets trapped at the start of the game. But that's additionally how the streamer bypasses the durability problem, as the character he pulls between dimensions is the version from the start of the story. It's a smart trick, but not a method that eradicates all possible difficulty. The stick is nonetheless a ineffective item that makes battles tedious. But at that point, it's entirely a question of determination and dedication. It also helps that there's a copying exploit that grants him an abundant number of consumables to improve his attack, or accumulate on revival fairies. He also employs a glitch that enables Link to clip through the environment. Some would consider these means reason to question the validity of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a resourceful gamer who is willing to do anything necessary to entertain his viewer. He also uses a penalty of kinds stating that, for every spirit he employs, he'll remove a fan from his live stream, creating an incentive to not overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Final Showdown

PointCrow manages 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 fights, which is a blessing when a few of them last several long hours. One boss fight, a powerful foe, requires an incredible 23 straight. The Ganondorf battle, which erases the hero's health as it progresses, is a memorable nail-biter. The unbreakable stick is still just a stick. He is unable to always duplicate objects during the fight.

Did he succeed? Technically, PointCrow manages to defeat the beast form of the antagonist. But the software forces the user to use the legendary weapon as the last strike, so technically, it's not completely a branch-exclusive run. But what fun is that?

In the end, PointCrow removed more than a thousand users in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.