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

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 special rules on a playthrough. Yet, although numerous players have tried to finish the game with just a stick, content creator the streamer stands out as the individual who endeavored to beat the adventure with a single stick—specifically, the exact same stick throughout.

PointCrow is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, such as the instance he went through the game using only explosives or the effort where he aimed to defeat the game with zero stamina. A single stick run, though, seems unfeasible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which requires the hero to wield the legendary blade. Then, there's the whole weapon wear system, which is especially important when working with the weakest weapon in the entire game. But if the stick breaks, that's it. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

So, how? The simple answer is exploits. The full story, believe it or not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can tweak the game's save file system to have separate game sessions that impact one another. So PointCrow does a “setup” file where he progresses normally, and the actual file, where he's restricted. The setup save has him going through the prologue and first starting area, and this character acquires full stamina and hearts. From here, he starts a cinematic and pauses midway through to tell the game to load an auto-save from the branch-only file. The system gets confused and creates a third save file that merges the conditions of the original two.

This creates fresh issues, though. The fused file has a Link that did not obtain the ability to access sacred places. Fortunately, this is something that the save glitch addresses easily, but pulling it off means relying on an unstable build of the game that refuses to open certain areas. As with other obstacles, he has a clever solution for it: He begins the game on its early version 1.0, and then updates the game partway through to ensure it starts working properly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Additional Challenges

Curiously, the introductory version of Link is coded so that he is unable to damage any tools he wields, presumably to avoid a situation where the player gets stuck at the beginning of the game. But that's also how the streamer bypasses the wear problem, as the character he pulls across dimensions is the version from the beginning of the story. It's a smart trick, but not one that eliminates all possible difficulty. The stick is nonetheless a weak item that renders encounters tedious. But at that point, it's entirely a matter of determination and dedication. It further helps that there's a copying exploit that grants him an plentiful number of items to boost his attack, or accumulate on revival fairies. He additionally makes use of a glitch that allows Link to clip through the world. Some would find these methods reason to discredit 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 also implements a penalty of kinds stating that, for every spirit he uses, he'll remove a viewer from his live stream, creating an motivation to avoid overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Showdown

PointCrow succeeds to get through many of the game's main enemies, but the battles appear painful. The video edit of his quest spares the audience sit through the entire fights, which is a good thing when some of them last multiple long hours. One enemy encounter, a powerful foe, requires an incredible 23 straight. The Ganondorf battle, which depletes the hero's hearts as it progresses, is a memorable tense moment. The unbreakable stick is after all only a piece of wood. He can't necessarily duplicate objects midway the battle.

Did he succeed? Technically, PointCrow does overcome the beast form of the antagonist. But the game compels the player to use the Master Sword as the last attack, so technically, it's not quite completely a stick-only playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

When everything is said and done, the streamer banned over 1,000 users in his live stream. Rest in peace.