Twitch Personality Dedicates 37 Hours Trying to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Branch
You might assume that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have run out of creative challenge runs that impose unique rules on a playthrough. However, although numerous gamers have attempted to finish the game with only a stick, content creator PointCrow stands out as the player who aimed to beat the adventure with a one branch—meaning, the exact same one from start to finish.
The streamer is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, such as the time he played the game solely with bombs or the attempt where he aimed to beat the game with no energy. A single stick run, though, seems impossible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which requires the hero to use the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the whole durability mechanic, which is particularly relevant when working with the most fragile weapon in the entire game. But if the branch breaks, that's it. It's over.
The Method Behind the Madness
How did he do it? The straightforward answer is exploits. The complete story, I kid you not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can tweak the game's save file system to have distinct playthroughs that impact one another. So PointCrow creates a “setup” save where he advances standardly, and the real file, where he's restricted. The setup save has him going through the prologue and first starting area, and this Link gains maximum stamina and health. From this point, he triggers a cinematic and halts partway through to tell the game to load an automatic save from the branch-only file. The system gets confused and creates a new save file that merges the states of the original two.
This causes fresh problems, though. The merged file has a protagonist that never acquired the capability to access shrines. Fortunately, this is an issue that the file exploit fixes easily, but pulling it off means depending on an unstable version of the game that refuses to load some areas. As with everything else, he has a technical workaround for it: He starts the game on its early 1.0 build, and then patches the game midway through to ensure it starts working properly.
Overcoming Weapon Wear and Additional Hurdles
Curiously, the introductory form of the hero is coded so that he is unable to break any tools he wields, likely to avoid a situation where the user gets stuck at the beginning of the game. But that's additionally how PointCrow gets around the durability issue, as the Link he pulls across universes is the version from the beginning of the story. It's a clever trick, but not a method that eliminates all possible difficulty. The stick is nonetheless a ineffective weapon that renders encounters onerous. But at that point, it's entirely a matter of determination and perseverance. It also aids that there's a copying exploit that gives him an abundant number of items to improve his strength, or stock up on healing spirits. He additionally makes use of a bug that enables Link to clip through the world. A few would find these means grounds to question the validity of the run, but in my mind, he's a inventive player who is willing to do anything necessary to entertain his audience. He also implements a safeguard of sorts stipulating that, for each spirit he employs, he'll remove one fan from his live stream, creating an incentive to not depend too much on them.
Major Battles and the Last Encounter
The streamer succeeds to get through several of the game's main enemies, but the fights look grueling. The YouTube edit of his journey doesn't make the viewer endure the whole conflicts, which is a good thing when a few of them take multiple hours. A particular enemy encounter, a powerful foe, requires an astonishing 23 straight. The Ganondorf battle, which erases Link's hearts as it unfolds, is a memorable nail-biter. The indestructible stick is after all just a piece of wood. He can't necessarily duplicate items during the fight.
Did he succeed? Technically, PointCrow manages to 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 quite completely a branch-exclusive run. But where's the challenge in that?
When everything is said and done, the streamer banned over a thousand people in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.
