Streaming Star Spends Thirty-Seven Hours Attempting to Beat <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a One Stick

You might assume that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have exhausted novel self-imposed challenges that impose unique rules on a gameplay session. However, although numerous gamers have tried to complete the game with just a stick, content creator PointCrow stands out as the individual who aimed to clear the adventure with a one stick—specifically, the exact same one from start to finish.

PointCrow is renowned for these kinds of challenge runs, like the time he went through the game using only explosives or the attempt where he aimed to defeat the story with no stamina. A single stick playthrough, though, sounds unfeasible at first glance. 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 weakest weapon in the entire game. Yet if the stick shatters, that's the end. It's over.

So, How?

So, how? The straightforward answer is glitches. The full story, believe it or not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can tweak the game's saving mechanism to have separate playthroughs that impact one another. So PointCrow creates a “preparation” file where he advances normally, and the actual save, where he's restricted. The preparatory save has him completing the intro and initial tutorial island, and this Link acquires full endurance and health. From here, he triggers a cutscene and pauses midway through to tell the software to load an auto-save from the stick file. The game gets mixed up and generates a third game file that combines the states of the first two files.

That causes new issues, though. The fused save file has a Link that never obtain the capability to access sacred places. Fortunately, this is something that the file exploit fixes readily, but executing it means depending on an unstable build of the title that fails to open certain areas. Like other obstacles, 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 midway through to make sure it starts functioning correctly.

Overcoming Durability and Additional Hurdles

Curiously, the prologue version of the hero is programmed so that he is unable to damage any tools he wields, presumably to avoid a scenario where the player gets trapped at the start of the game. But that's additionally how PointCrow gets around the durability problem, as the Link he transfers across universes is the one from the start of the story. It's a clever technique, but not one that eradicates all potential friction. The branch is still a ineffective item that makes encounters tedious. But at that point, it's entirely a question of grit and perseverance. It further helps that there's a copying exploit that grants him an abundant number of consumables to improve his attack, or accumulate on healing spirits. He also makes use of a bug that allows Link to phase through the world. Some would consider these methods reason to discredit the validity of the run, but in my mind, he's a resourceful player who is willing to do whatever it takes to engage his audience. He further implements a safeguard of kinds stating that, for each spirit he uses, he'll remove one viewer from his Twitch chat, creating an motivation to avoid depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Final Showdown

PointCrow succeeds to defeat many of the game's bosses, but the fights look painful. The YouTube version of his journey doesn't make the viewer sit through the entire fights, which is a blessing when some of them last several long hours. A particular enemy encounter, a powerful foe, takes an incredible twenty-three straight. The Ganondorf showdown, which depletes the hero's health as it progresses, is a notable nail-biter. The indestructible branch is after all only a stick. He is unable to necessarily duplicate objects during the fight.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, he does overcome the dragon version of Ganon. But the software forces the user to use the legendary weapon as the final attack, so strictly speaking, it's not quite fully a stick-only run. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, the streamer banned more than a thousand people in his live stream. RIP.