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

One could think that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have exhausted novel challenge runs that impose unique rules on a playthrough. Yet, while many gamers have tried to finish the game using only a stick, streamer PointCrow stands out as the player who aimed to clear the adventure with a one stick—meaning, the very same stick from start to finish.

The streamer is renowned for these kinds of challenge runs, like the time he went through the game using only bombs or the effort where he aimed to defeat the story with no energy. A single stick run, however, sounds unfeasible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which requires the hero to use the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the whole weapon wear system, which is especially important when working with the weakest tool in the entire game. But if the branch breaks, that's the end. It's over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The straightforward explanation is glitches. The full story, I kid you not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have distinct playthroughs that impact one another. So PointCrow does a “preparation” save where he progresses standardly, and the real file, where he's restricted. The preparatory save has him going through the intro and initial tutorial island, and this Link gains maximum endurance and health. From this point, he starts a cutscene and halts partway through to tell the game to open an auto-save from the stick file. The system gets mixed up and creates a third game file that merges the conditions of the first two files.

This creates new issues, however. The merged file has a Link that never obtain the ability to access sacred places. Luckily, this is something that the save glitch addresses easily, but executing it means relying on an unstable version of the title that fails to open some locations. Like other obstacles, he has a technical workaround for it: He starts the game on its pre-release version 1.0, and then patches the software partway through to make sure it starts functioning correctly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Additional Hurdles

Interestingly, the introductory version of the hero is programmed so that he is unable to break any tools he wields, presumably to prevent a situation where the player gets stuck at the start of the adventure. But that's additionally how PointCrow gets around the wear issue, as the character he transfers across universes is the version from the start of the story. It's a smart trick, but not a method that eliminates all possible friction. The branch is still a weak item that makes encounters tedious. But at that stage, it's entirely a matter of grit and perseverance. It also aids that there's a copying exploit that gives him an plentiful supply of consumables to improve his strength, or accumulate on revival fairies. He additionally makes use of a glitch that enables Link to clip through the environment. Some would find these means reason to question the validity of the attempt, but to my view, he's a resourceful player who is willing to do whatever it takes to engage his viewer. He further uses a penalty of sorts stipulating that, for each fairy he employs, he'll ban a fan from his live stream, establishing an incentive to avoid depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Last Encounter

PointCrow manages to get through many of the game's bosses, but the fights look grueling. The YouTube version of his quest spares the audience endure the whole fights, which is a blessing when some of them take several hours. A particular enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, takes an incredible 23 straight. The final villain battle, which depletes Link's hearts as it unfolds, is a notable tense moment. The indestructible stick is after all only a stick. He is unable to always clone items during the fight.

So, is it possible? Technically, he does defeat the dragon version of Ganon. But the game forces the user to use the legendary weapon as the last attack, so strictly speaking, it's not fully a stick-only run. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, PointCrow removed over 1,000 users in his Twitch chat. RIP.