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

You might assume that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have run out of novel challenge runs that impose special restrictions on a playthrough. However, although many players have tried to complete Tears of the Kingdom with just a stick, streamer the streamer holds the record as the individual who endeavored to beat the adventure with a one branch—specifically, the exact same one throughout.

PointCrow is famous for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, such as the instance he played the title solely with explosives or the attempt where he tried to defeat the game with zero energy. A one-branch run, however, seems unfeasible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which requires the hero to use the legendary blade. Then, there's the whole weapon wear mechanic, which is especially relevant when working with the most fragile tool in the entire world. Yet if the branch shatters, that's the end. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The straightforward explanation is exploits. The full story, I kid you not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can manipulate the game's saving mechanism to have separate game sessions that affect one another. So PointCrow does a “preparation” file where he progresses normally, and the actual save, where he's restricted. The setup save has him completing the intro and initial starting area, and this Link gains full stamina and hearts. From here, he starts a cutscene and pauses partway through to tell the software to load an automatic save from the branch-only file. The system gets mixed up and creates a new save file that combines the conditions of the original two.

This causes fresh problems, though. The fused file has a protagonist that never acquired the ability to access shrines. Fortunately, this is something that the file exploit addresses readily, but pulling it off means depending on an unstable build of the title that refuses to open certain locations. As with everything else, he has a technical solution for it: He starts the game on its early 1.0 build, and then updates the software partway through to ensure it starts working properly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Other Hurdles

Curiously, the prologue form of the hero is coded so that he cannot break any tools he uses, likely to avoid a situation where the user gets trapped at the beginning of the adventure. But that's also how PointCrow gets around the durability issue, as the Link he transfers across universes is the version from the start of the story. It's a clever technique, but not one that eliminates all possible difficulty. The stick is still a weak item that makes battles tedious. But at that point, it's entirely a question of determination and dedication. It further aids that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an abundant number of items to improve his strength, or stock up on revival fairies. He additionally employs a glitch that allows Link to clip through the environment. Some would find these methods reason to question the validity of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a inventive player who is willing to do anything necessary to engage his viewer. He further implements a safeguard of kinds stipulating that, for each fairy he employs, he'll ban one fan from his Twitch chat, establishing an motivation to avoid depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Showdown

PointCrow succeeds to get through several of the game's main enemies, but the fights look painful. The video edit of his quest doesn't make the audience sit through the entire fights, which is a good thing when some of them last multiple hours. One enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, takes an astonishing 23 straight. The Ganondorf showdown, which depletes the hero's health as it unfolds, is a memorable tense moment. The unbreakable branch is after all just a piece of wood. He is unable to necessarily duplicate items midway the fight.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, he manages to overcome the dragon version of the antagonist. But the software forces the user to wield the Master Sword as the last strike, so strictly speaking, it's not completely a branch-exclusive playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, the streamer banned more than a thousand people in his live stream. RIP.