Twitch Personality Dedicates Thirty-Seven Straight Attempting to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a One Branch
One could think that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have exhausted creative challenge runs that apply special restrictions on a playthrough. Yet, although many gamers have tried to finish the game using only a wooden stick, streamer PointCrow holds the record as the individual who endeavored to beat the adventure with a one branch—meaning, the very same one from start to finish.
PointCrow is renowned for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, such as the instance he played the game using only explosives or the effort where he tried to defeat the story with no energy. A single stick run, though, seems unfeasible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which forces Link to wield the Master Sword. Then, there's the whole weapon wear mechanic, which is especially relevant when working with the most fragile weapon in the whole game. But if the branch shatters, that's the end. Game over.
The Method Behind the Madness
So, how? The simple answer is exploits. The complete answer, believe it or not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have separate game sessions that affect one another. So PointCrow does a “setup” save where he progresses normally, and the actual save, where he's limited. The preparatory save has him completing the intro and initial tutorial island, and this Link acquires maximum endurance and health. From this point, he triggers a cutscene and pauses midway through to instruct the game to load an automatic save from the branch-only file. The game gets mixed up and creates a third game file that combines the states of the original two.
This causes fresh issues, however. The merged file has a protagonist that did not acquired the ability to access sacred places. Fortunately, this is something that the file exploit fixes readily, but pulling it off means relying on an unstable version of the title that fails to load certain locations. As with other obstacles, he has a technical workaround for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release version 1.0, and then updates the game partway through to make sure it starts functioning correctly.
Overcoming Durability and Other Hurdles
Interestingly, the prologue form of Link is programmed so that he is unable to break any tools he uses, presumably to avoid a situation where the user gets stuck at the beginning of the game. But that's additionally how the streamer bypasses the durability issue, as the Link he transfers across dimensions is the one from the start of the game. It's a smart technique, but not one that eliminates all potential friction. The branch is nonetheless a weak item that renders encounters tedious. But at that stage, it's entirely a matter of grit and perseverance. It also helps that there's a copying exploit that gives him an abundant number of consumables to improve his attack, or stock up on healing spirits. He additionally makes use of a glitch that enables him to phase through the world. Some would find these means grounds to discredit the validity of the run, but in my mind, he's a resourceful gamer who is willing to do whatever it takes to engage his viewer. He also uses a safeguard of kinds stating that, for each spirit he employs, he'll remove one fan from his live stream, establishing an motivation to avoid overly rely on them.
Major Battles and the Last Encounter
PointCrow succeeds to get through many of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the fights appear painful. The YouTube edit of his quest spares the viewer endure the entire conflicts, which is a good thing when a few of them take multiple hours. One enemy encounter, a powerful foe, takes an astonishing twenty-three hours. The final villain showdown, which depletes the hero's hearts as it unfolds, is a memorable nail-biter. The indestructible stick is still just a piece of wood. He is unable to always clone items midway the fight.
Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, he does defeat the dragon version of the antagonist. But the game compels the user to use the Master Sword as the final strike, so technically, it's not completely a stick-only run. But what fun is that?
When everything is said and done, PointCrow removed over 1,000 users in his live stream. RIP.
