Twitch Personality Spends Thirty-Seven Hours Attempting to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Branch

One could think that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have run out of creative challenge runs that impose special restrictions on a playthrough. Yet, while numerous gamers have attempted to complete Tears of the Kingdom with just a wooden stick, streamer the streamer holds the record as the individual who endeavored to beat the adventure with a one branch—meaning, the exact same one from start to finish.

The streamer is famous for these kinds of challenge runs, such as the instance he went through the title solely with bombs or the attempt where he tried to defeat the story with zero stamina. A single stick playthrough, however, seems unfeasible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which forces Link to wield the legendary blade. Then, there's the entire weapon wear mechanic, which is particularly relevant when working with the weakest tool in the entire world. But if the branch shatters, that's the end. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

So, how? The simple explanation is glitches. The complete story, I kid you not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have distinct playthroughs that affect one another. So PointCrow creates a “setup” file where he progresses standardly, and the actual save, where he's limited. The preparatory file has him going through the prologue and initial tutorial island, and this Link acquires full stamina and hearts. From this point, he starts a cinematic and pauses midway through to tell the software to load an auto-save from the branch-only file. The game gets mixed up and generates a new game file that combines the states of the original two.

This creates fresh problems, though. The fused file has a protagonist that never obtain the ability to access shrines. Fortunately, this is an issue that the file exploit fixes readily, but pulling it off means relying on an buggy version of the game that refuses to load some areas. As with other obstacles, he has a technical workaround for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its early 1.0 build, and then patches the game midway through to ensure it begins working properly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Additional Challenges

Curiously, the prologue version of the hero is coded so that he is unable to break any weapons he wields, likely to prevent a scenario where the player gets trapped at the beginning of the game. But that's also how PointCrow gets around the durability problem, as the Link he transfers between dimensions is the one from the start of the story. It's a smart trick, but not a method that eliminates all potential difficulty. The branch is nonetheless a weak item that makes battles onerous. But at that stage, it's all a question of grit and dedication. It further aids that there's a copying exploit that gives him an plentiful supply of items to boost his attack, or accumulate on revival fairies. He also makes use of a bug that allows Link to phase through the world. A few would find these methods reason to discredit the legitimacy of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a resourceful player who is ready to do whatever it takes to entertain his viewer. He also implements a penalty of sorts stipulating that, for every fairy he uses, he'll ban a fan from his Twitch chat, creating an incentive to avoid overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Encounter

The streamer manages to defeat many of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the fights appear painful. The YouTube version of his quest doesn't make the viewer endure the entire conflicts, which is a blessing when some of them take multiple long hours. One boss fight, a powerful foe, takes an incredible twenty-three straight. The Ganondorf showdown, which depletes the hero's hearts as it unfolds, is a memorable tense moment. The indestructible stick is after all just a stick. He is unable to necessarily clone objects midway the battle.

So, is it possible? Technically, PointCrow manages to overcome the dragon version of Ganon. But the software compels the player to use the legendary weapon as the last attack, so strictly speaking, it's not fully a branch-exclusive playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, the streamer removed more than a thousand people in his live stream. Rest in peace.