Twitch streamer TragicOnTwitch has been dedicated to an act of suffering for some time now. She's been doing a 100% completion run of EarthBound going back multiple months, a massive game in and of itself. But for four different streams and over 30 hours of gameplay, TragicOnTwitch has been focused on one item: the Gutsy Bat, a very rare item. It's hard enough to get playing Earthbound normally, but TragicOntwitch made it all the more difficult by finally finding the Gutsy Bat, only to accidentally kick her console and turn it off.
Four days and 30 hours of streaming on Twitch is a long time to dedicate to acquiring an item. TragicOnTwitch was dedicated to the task, however. The Gutsy Bat has a 1 in 128 drop rate and only drops from the Bionic Kraken, which doesn't spawn constantly in the first place. Even with those long odds, TragicOnTwitch had bad luck. She'd already defeated more than 200 Bionic Kraken when her luck finally came to fruition. The Bionic Kraken fell, and the message, "The enemy left a present!" popped up onscreen. Then, disaster struck.
TragicOnTwitch was, understandably, very excited to finally get the Gutsy Bat to drop. The enemy doesn't have any other drops, so seeing the message about a present meant that the Gutsy Bat was hers. In her excitement, however, she kicked the SNES console at her feet. It's unclear exactly what or how she kicked the console, but it was enough to force a reset. The Gutsy Bat was obliterated in a split second, leaving TragicOnTwitch back at the start of her journey.
To TragicOnTwitch's credit, she took the Twitch livestreamed tragedy well. She laughed, and laughed, and laughed some more. Then acceptance settled in, and she held her arms above her head before ultimately laughing some more. This cycle of complete silence, like TragicOnTwitch's soul had left her body, followed by brief outbursts of laughter continued for some time. "No, I'm not doing so great," she told her chat while still laughing.
After coming to terms with the loss, TragicOnTwitch started Earthbound back up and began searching for more Bionic Krakens. The mood on the stream was definitely different from before, but TragicOnTwitch's community was still very supportive. The Twitch clip was already increasing in viewers.
While TragicOnTwitch may have lost a Gutsy Bat item in Earthbound, she gained a lot of attention for her Twitch channel. Maybe the Gutsy Bat was always the friends made along the way.
Earthbound is available on SNES and Game Boy Advance.