Zelda: Skyward Sword suffers game-breaking bug

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword suffers a game-breaking bug if you happen to talk to a particular Goron after obtaining the Thunder Dragon's song.

24

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword apparently suffers a game-breaking bug if events are done out of sequence, keeping you from progressing further. A reported response to a fan from Nintendo outlines the problem, but unfortunately doesn't offer any solution to players who might be stuck.

"If the game has been saved after completing the sequence of events, it will no longer be possible to proceed through the game on that save file," said a Nintendo representative.

As detailed on Zelda Informer, the problem occurs if you talk to Golo the Goron in the mines after receiving the Thunder Dragon's song, but before heading to the forest and volcano regions. The events in those regions become inaccessible at that point, making it impossible to go on.

"The only options at that point are to either start the game over or to use an earlier save file to continue," the representative notes. "I wish I had a better answer, but I'm afraid there currently is no other fix available. I can assure, however, that we are documenting all feedback we receive on this issue."

So an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, but it would certainly be nice if the glitch didn't exist at all. Nintendo doesn't tend to patch its games often, so your best bet is to avoid talking to Golo. Or just all Gorons. Or, to be on the safe side, anyone at all.

Editor-In-Chief
Filed Under
From The Chatty
  • reply
    December 6, 2011 1:00 PM

    Steve Watts posted a new article, Zelda: Skyward Sword suffers game-breaking bug.

    The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword suffers a game-breaking bug if you happen to talk to a particular Goron after obtaining the Thunder Dragon's song.

    • reply
      December 6, 2011 1:07 PM

      [deleted]

    • reply
      December 6, 2011 1:17 PM

      I would have lost my shit had that happened.

    • reply
      December 6, 2011 1:22 PM

      Ah, I just got the bundle delivered today, making a note now.

    • reply
      December 6, 2011 1:31 PM

      I don't see how Nintendo has a choice, they HAVE to patch the game.. Really wouldn't be suprised to see a lawsuit filed against Nintendo, technically the game is not fully functional nor does it come with a warning on the back of the box that says "DONT TALK TO GOLO BLAH BLAH BLAH".. That spot in the game is more then 20+ hours in. It's Nintendo's fuck up and they need to fix it.

      • reply
        December 6, 2011 1:34 PM

        [deleted]

        • reply
          December 6, 2011 1:42 PM

          didn't they do an exchange for that one? also the reason they don't have a patching mechanism is because this is all on the Wii which isn't even guaranteed to have more than 512MB and possibly none if people have a lot of Wiiware games. Plus who knows how big a patch for this game would be. I can't imagine that the Wii U won't have some sort of patching system. they would be really dumb not to

        • reply
          December 6, 2011 2:04 PM

          I'm not a pro, but as far as i understand, the Wii runs games directly from disk, and there is no way to inject alternate code (like a patch).

          • reply
            December 6, 2011 4:38 PM

            They could patch your save file so it unflags the flag that says you talked to Goro.

            • reply
              December 7, 2011 12:37 AM

              hmm yes, like they fixed the twilight hack. But this would still require you to save/exit/restart/load the game at least once after the bug occurs.

              • reply
                December 7, 2011 8:43 PM

                That's not how they patched the Twilight Hack. Twilight Hack causes a stack overflow on Epona's name that allows you to execute a root .dol . Wii's architecture isn't built on firmware, it has multiple IOS (input/output systems), where each one corresponds to a different thing. e.g. IOS 9 was used by the original system menu and launch games.

                All they need to do is patch the IOS and BAM, no more twilight hack. Hence, Bannerbomb was developed (after Brawl hack and Lego hack etc.) after system menu 3.3v2 disabled homebrew. They also overwrote IOSes 222, 223, 229 and 250 as they were used by hackers.

          • reply
            December 7, 2011 1:08 AM

            [deleted]

        • reply
          December 6, 2011 2:51 PM

          [deleted]

      • reply
        December 6, 2011 1:44 PM

        [deleted]

      • reply
        December 6, 2011 1:45 PM

        They may or may not patch it, but I doubt there will be a lawsuit, games are broken at release and remain that way all the time.

      • reply
        December 6, 2011 1:49 PM

        [deleted]

      • reply
        December 6, 2011 1:59 PM

        lol a lawsuit?

      • reply
        December 6, 2011 2:00 PM

        what

        • reply
          December 6, 2011 2:02 PM

          imma going to file a lawsuit against Bethesda every time Skyrim crashes

      • reply
        December 6, 2011 2:00 PM

        [deleted]

      • reply
        December 6, 2011 2:02 PM

        I would agree if it was unavoidable. But you can always start over and avoid it if it happened to affect you. It would suck and maybe you'd have a different opinion of Nintendo in the future but it's not like you wasted your money. Only some time.

      • reply
        December 6, 2011 2:04 PM

        I hear you man. I am still suing everyone involved with ninja gaiden(s)

      • reply
        December 6, 2011 2:23 PM

        Hahahahahaha. A law suit? Are you fucking serious?

      • reply
        December 6, 2011 2:33 PM

        I'm sure all software is sold AS IS WITH NO WARRANTIES IMPLIED OR OTHERWISE etc. etc. etc. tucked away into the booklet somewhere.

      • reply
        December 6, 2011 2:56 PM

        hhahaha! wut?!

      • reply
        December 7, 2011 12:41 AM

        That's it. I'm gonna sue Bethesda for four bugged quests :P.

    • reply
      December 6, 2011 1:36 PM

      This story could use a "Technical Issues" tag.

    • reply
      December 6, 2011 2:04 PM

      Good to know, I just bought the bundle. I'll make sure to avoid this bug.

      • reply
        December 6, 2011 2:08 PM

        The game leads you to doing the desert area last for that whole sequence.

        There's a specific reason why you might want to do that area first, but then you'd have to backtrack to talk with the dude. Unless you're using a guide or on repeat runs, you're not very likely to encounter the bug on your own.

        • reply
          December 6, 2011 2:08 PM

          err... then you'd have to backtrack to talk with the dude to expose the bug, I should say.

        • reply
          December 6, 2011 2:37 PM

          I think it's pretty open about which area you want to do first. But yeah, you'd have to walk all the way out instead of using the savepoint quick-teleport thing right there.

          • reply
            December 6, 2011 2:40 PM

            The quest goes something like, these dragons are supposed to know the song, and we've already met one.. why don't we ask her wtf's going on? Head to the forest area!.

    • reply
      December 6, 2011 2:08 PM

      [deleted]

      • reply
        December 6, 2011 2:39 PM

        It's easy enough to do, but it involves going outside of the designed path (that is, if instead of returning to the sky to go to a different area, you deside to wander back through the area you're already in and talk to people, it can happen).

        • reply
          December 6, 2011 2:57 PM

          I'm one of those people. I will try to do -everything- before I take the next step on an obvious quest.

    • reply
      December 6, 2011 2:25 PM

      Couldn't they just make a free Wiiware app that patches your save file if it detects this problem? Seems like it would be fairly trivial to do.

      • reply
        December 7, 2011 12:36 AM

        hmm well thats how they "fixed" the Twilight hack. Basically the hack consisted of a broken savefile, in which the name of your horse was long enough to trigger a buffer overflow. After that was discovered (and used to break the consoles security) they updated the savegame/file manager to check those specific savefiles and delete everything that looks fishy.

    • reply
      December 6, 2011 7:34 PM

      Good to know I just meet the Golo tonight. This bug is much later in the game?

    • reply
      December 7, 2011 11:15 AM

      Is there any info on how far along in the game this is?
      like how many hours or so?

Hello, Meet Lola