Streaming Personality Spends Thirty-Seven Hours Attempting to Beat <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Branch

One could think that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have run out of novel self-imposed challenges that impose special restrictions on a playthrough. However, although numerous gamers have attempted to complete the game with just a wooden stick, streamer the streamer holds the record as the player who endeavored to beat the adventure with a one branch—specifically, the very same one throughout.

The streamer is famous for such challenge runs, such as the instance he went through the title solely with explosives or the effort where he tried to defeat the story with zero energy. A one-branch playthrough, however, sounds unfeasible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which requires the hero to use the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the whole durability system, which is especially important when working with the most fragile tool in the whole game. But if the branch breaks, that's the end. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The simple explanation is glitches. The complete answer, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can tweak the game's saving mechanism to have separate playthroughs that impact one another. So PointCrow does a “preparation” file where he progresses normally, and the real save, where he's limited. The setup save has him completing the prologue and first tutorial island, and this Link gains maximum endurance and hearts. From this point, he starts a cutscene and halts partway through to tell the game to load an automatic save from the stick file. The system gets confused and creates a new save file that merges the states of the original two.

This causes fresh issues, however. The fused save file has a Link that never obtain the ability to enter sacred places. Luckily, this is an issue that the file exploit fixes easily, but pulling it off means relying on an buggy build of the game that refuses to open some areas. As with everything else, he has a technical solution for it: He starts the game on its early version 1.0, and then patches the game midway through to ensure it begins working properly.

Overcoming Durability and Additional Challenges

Interestingly, the introductory version of the hero is coded so that he cannot break any weapons he wields, presumably to prevent a situation where the player gets stuck at the start of the game. But that's additionally how PointCrow bypasses the durability problem, as the character he transfers between universes is the one from the start of the story. It's a clever trick, but not one that eliminates all potential friction. The stick is nonetheless a ineffective weapon that renders encounters onerous. But at that point, it's all a matter of grit and perseverance. It further helps that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an abundant supply of items to boost his strength, or stock up on healing spirits. He additionally employs a bug that allows him to phase through the environment. A few would find these means grounds to question the legitimacy of the run, but in my mind, he's a inventive player who is willing to do anything necessary to engage his viewer. He also implements a safeguard of kinds stating that, for each fairy he employs, he'll ban one viewer from his Twitch chat, establishing an incentive to not depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Final Showdown

PointCrow manages to get through many of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the fights look grueling. The video version of his quest spares the viewer sit through the entire conflicts, which is a good thing when a few of them take multiple long hours. One boss fight, a powerful foe, takes an incredible twenty-three hours. The Ganondorf battle, which erases the hero's health as it unfolds, is a notable nail-biter. The unbreakable branch is still just a stick. He can't always clone objects during the battle.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow manages to defeat the dragon version of the antagonist. But the game compels the user to wield the Master Sword as the final strike, so technically, it's not quite fully a branch-exclusive playthrough. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow banned over 1,000 people in his live stream. Rest in peace.