The worst glitch in Nintendo history

When Nintendo released The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, they soon had a problem. The game featured a MAJOR, game-breaking glitch. This bug is one of the worst in Nintendo's entire history - here's what the glitch is, how it's caused, and how Nintendo fixed what had to potential to become a HUGE problem!
Thanks so much to Kit Ellis of @kitandkrysta for answering my questions via email! Go check out their channel:
/ @kitandkrysta
Thank you also to @maned_howler5763 for letting me use their footage of the Zelda Update channel! Check out their video here:
• Updating Legend of Zel...
PATREON - / thomasgamedocs
MERCH - teespring.com/stores/thomas-g...
TWITTER - / thomasgdocs
MAIN SOURCES
- Link’s Awakening Miyamoto quote glitterberri.com/staff-questi...
- In depth explanation of bug w/ Nintendo response www.ign.com/wikis/the-legend-...
- Skyward Sword early sales www.animenewsnetwork.com/inte...
SECONDARY SOURCES
- zeldawiki.wiki/wiki/Glitches_...
- kotaku.com/game-breaking-skyw...
- web.archive.org/web/201112071...
- web.archive.org/web/201201090...
- web.archive.org/web/201201091...
- web.archive.org/web/201201052...
- forum.starmen.net/forum/Gener...
- www.cheapassgamer.com/threads...
- web.archive.org/web/200704091...
- web.archive.org/web/200704251...
- zeldawiki.wiki/wiki/Glitches_...
- gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/...

[@ThomasGameDocs]

Thanks so much to Kit Ellis of @kitandkrysta for talking to me via email for this video! Check out Kit & Krysta's channel: www.youtube.com/@kitandkrysta And if you like my videos and want to help keep this channel afloat, then considering supporting Thomas Game Docs on Patreon! www.patreon.com/ThomasGameDocs As a Patron, you get access to bonus videos, polls and behind the scenes updates! Alrighty, I'll see you in the next video!! - Thomas :)

[@Jelly_shy_guy_man]

First

[@HypnoticVoid]

second.

[@TramiNguyen-oi3kp]

Kirby

[@novamarpo3]

You’re cool! ☺️

[@Cliffordlonghead]

​@@Jelly_shy_guy_man BOT STOP WITH THE BS

[@ODISeth]

Oh so THIS is the timeline that BOTW and TOTK are in. Link softlocks, Faron never floods, the Eldon volcano never erupts, a whole new Hyrulian history is written

[@Ev-wo7ev]

Heh, that's a good theory.

[@fenixphlame]

@@Ev-wo7eva GAME THEORY

[@JeremyBaconThe1st]

It is sad year​@@fenixphlame

[@akiradkcn]

​@@JeremyBaconThe1st a sad theory

[@LukeBowman-oe9iv]

@@JeremyBaconThe1st RIP matpat

[@SemiHypercube]

It's interesting how they decided to fix that issue, if this happened today it'd probably just be a patch that would come out in a few days or less and no one would think much about it

[@toumabyakuya]

That literally happened to X/Y.

[@Tails_The_Fox92]

Why do I see you everywhere? Undertale videos, minecraft videos, it's like I can never escape.

[@SquidPartyDude]

@@Tails_The_Fox92same. See this guy everywhere.

[@TrainerGre3n]

and release it as a DLC 😆

[@klonoafan2012]

The wii was notorious for having bad internet connectivity especially with game patches

[@cubicflan]

I actually fell victim to Skyward Sword's bug despite doing the dragon quests in the "intended" order. That goron was an absolute menace, and would halt your progress no matter when you spoke to him after completing the thunder dragon quest. XD

[@brandikins11]

How did it soft lock you? If you saw the other two dragons first, you were fine.

[@wingy6060]

@@brandikins11 My guess is that the flag mentioned would prevent you from doing any other quests at all, not just those other land quests. As was stated in the video, when you speak to the dragon, the quest flag is removed, but if you speak to the goron again, the flag is reactivated, with no way to deactivate it this time. Skyward Sword probably wouldn't allow you to do two quests at once, so if you were in the middle of one quest, you couldn't move on to another.

[@matthewhanf3033]

That Goron is more terrifying than every Zelda boss put together. That asshole got me my first time playing too. Had to look it up online that I was stuck. I was pissed

[@ThanhTran-gb4pw]

After you have the first three songs, the bug doesn't do anything because it doesn't stop you from getting the 4th from Levias.

[@MidoseitoAkage]

I didn't fell on that one because I did in the right order without realise that if you did the oppossed, you can softlock the game.

[@ls190v2]

Dang. Miyamoto had a vision!

[@ronan-outoftime]

had a whole premonition

[@WindowsGG]

@@ronan-outoftime bro's nightmare was real *A.K.A predicted the FUTURE*

[@TwilightWolf032]

"This is the power of the Monado!"

[@GSavel]

​@@TwilightWolf032if Miyamoto is Shulk, then who are Rex, Noah, and Mio?

[@zigaudrey]

Coincidence? I THINK NOT!

[@MrSantarex]

If Miyamoto knew back then that nowadays releasing video games with game breaking bugs is a normal thing he would have a heart attack instead of just a nightmare lmao smh

[@anotheryoutubeaccount5259]

I mean, nowadays games are also more complex, so ok

[@joemann7971]

​@@anotheryoutubeaccount5259 Excuses. Most of the complexity is really in graphics and physics, not gameplay progression, and most of that complexity is handled by the game engine. Back when Miyamoto was a programmer, games were primarily written in assembly, and they needed to optimize code since they didn't have that much memory to work with, or a powerful processor that could just deal with a bunch of redundant/useless code. A bug like this could have easily happened in A Link to the Past or Ocarina of Time. Not to mention, WInd Waker and Twilight Princess had already existed and neither had these kinds of bugs, and both those games were similar in complexity, since the Wii was not significantly more powerful than the Gamecube.

[@anotheryoutubeaccount5259]

@@joemann7971 Well, guess that's true.

[@tails230]

Have him spend a day at Bethesda and see how he reacts. XD

[@alternatecheems8145]

​@@joemann7971Nope, it is pretty excusable today since it doesn't work using a simple flag/state system but an extremely complex state pattern machine. Also since patches are very easy to deploy.

[@Disgustedorite]

Fun fact: Pokemon once had an issue like Twilight Princess, too, in X and Y, where saving in a specific location would leave you unable to progress! Fortunately patches were a thing by then, but I remember it took quite a while for patches to be sent out and since it was on the 3DS they weren't downloaded automatically back then so players would keep running into it for quite some time.

[@androidwarlock]

To this day I still won't save in Lumiose City, it was low key traumatizing for child me lol

[@Breeze926]

If you remember the image warning you where not to save in Lumiose City you deserve a veteran's discount.

[@junglejuicejuno]

weirdly enough I saved in the place where the glitch happens but I was fine

[@theoneandonly-qs1uw]

@junglejuicejuno patch i guess

[@ashleylightheart126]

Lumiose City:*loads gun as you enter their area*

[@finestcustard5647]

The worst glitch they had was that one glitch in twilight princess where your younger sibling deletes your save file as you’re on the second last dungeon…

[@ClaireSoelberg-op8id]

Oof, did that happen to you?! 😬

[@catscanhavelittleasalami]

Easy fix, just delete the sibling.

[@CRios25]

@@catscanhavelittleasalamiI wish, I’ll be in big trouble if I did that

[@computertutorials1286]

This is why we had separate memory cards, the closest feeling I had to that was all of my DVRs recordings of my favorite show being deleted.

[@purpletacofish]

So... how long did it take you're parents to get them shipped back from Siberia? 😆

[@user-ww6uo5dk7p]

Considering Nintendo had given the freedom to choose where to go in the first place, I'm surprised they hadn't found out about this bug while testing this game

[@gamerk316]

Remember that Skyward Sword is by far the most linear Zelda game. Which makes it more astounding Nintendo didn't find this at some point, given there's so much less they were required to check.

[@colin3ds1]

I think nintendo when designing the game realized it would be better to give the player a little bit of freedom before the end of the game It could have been a decision made late into development explaining the presence of the bug

[@Starcat5]

@@colin3ds1 On the other hand, confirmation bias is also a thing. Most of the testers are going to follow the prescribed path out of habit. That leaves a 50/50 chance of the remaining testers taking the problematic route. And those who did? They completed the quest, job's done, time to move on. It takes someone playing the game *for fun* to want to go out of there way to a no longer required NPC. Going through the steps, it is actually quite easy to see how this nasty bug was missed.

[@me2-684]

This is why nintendo hates giving us freedom

[@Kpsla]

​@@Starcat5Came here to post this. It's pretty likely to me that not all of the testers did Lanayru first or second, and the ones that did may not have spoken to the NPC again after verifying that the quest in progress flag was correctly removed.

[@tonycrimes]

what a coincidence, pokemon legends arceus had an issue just like this. you could catch cresselia before hitting the right flag, and you were softlocked on that quest until the next patch update

[@darrenmacqueen9884]

At least it got fixed by a patch update. On the Wii, it probably would have never been fixed.

[@tonycrimes]

@@darrenmacqueen9884 seriously. the soft lock was VERY easy to trigger too. flying around, see some pink glowing orbs? oh its cresselia let me battle or catch and well BAM now im softlocked ;w;

[@joe564338]

Scarlet and violet dlc corrupted some people's save files

[@ladynerd1877]

Did they actually fix it though? I accidentally triggered this bug a full year after the game came out. Lucky I realized I'd messed up before I saved

[@excalibur493]

I had no idea! Probably because I was invested in the story and catching everything I saw lol.

[@CaptainCat101]

I thought the worst glitch was Super Smash Bros Brawl completely crashing old Wiis

[@peluquin98]

Many friends had a problem with their discs. One friend had to resort to getting a completed savefile from the internet because the game always crashed when ness showed up or when a unlock match showed up. The problem got fixed when he got a new disc but he had to spend money again

[@Tony-lw5yp]

Oh damn this unlocked some memories. I never knew this was a glitch with the game, I thought my console didn't work with the disc or something....

[@TheRealBatabii]

I had a launch wii and I dont remember brawl ever crashing

[@PhirePhlame]

Yeah Brawl was always good for me. Y'all sure about the condition your discs are in?

[@FViola440]

​@@TheRealBatabiisame here. Never heard of this glitch

[@stungunnotapplicable1953]

If I recall correctly, there WAS a way to actually softlock Link's Awakening in one of the dungeons, by carefully using the pegasus boots to dash jump over water in JUST the right way you could gain access to a locked door you're not supposed to get to until you get the flippers, using up a key that you'd need for elsewhere. It's just really hard to do and most players aren't gonna stumble across it in casual gameplay.

[@GoldenH]

There are game ending soft locks in both eagles tower(ball can go Missing) and slime grotto (more doors than keys, depending on the order you open them). Not familiar with the one you are talking about.

[@Aasoko]

​@@GoldenHI watched a video talking about what this other person mentioned recently. It's a video titled "is it possible to get permanently stuck in a Zelda dungeon" or something like that by a KZbinr called "Press A!"

[@GoldFinalStarmanDXJr]

​@@GoldenH "slime grotto" is called Key Cavern and has a Slime boss. There is actually an extra key which prevents soft locking. Angler's Tunnel (D4) actually does have a softlock that was fixed in the DX version. If you jump over water to a door with a floor switch, then go up one room to a key block you can use up a key too early.

[@renakunisaki]

LA has tons of glitches. Thankfully most are harmless.

[@trebmal587]

Pretty sure I also softlocked myself in oracle of seasons back when I was a kid. In the dungeon where you get the slingshot, there are some switchs you can actually activate with the boomerang instead of the dungeon's item, which was apparently not intended. You then get access to a part of the dungeon where you can use your keys in such a way that you end up incapable of progressing.

[@mrcombustiblelemon2902]

Another infamous bug in Twilight Princess is the fact that they didn't implement input sanitation when naming Epona, which was used to hack the Wii and allow piracy on the console 😮

[@Rin_404]

what 😭

[@mrcombustiblelemon2902]

@@Rin_404 "input sanitation" is a programming practice where you make sure the user input doesn't have any text that could have unintended effects on the code (for example, if you're inserting the user's name into a database by just formatting it inside an SQL query, a malicious user could take advantage of that by making a username with semicolons and quotation marks and whatnot that changes the query into anything they like - including deleting the entire database). So in the case of TP Epona, Nintendo didn't make sure the name doesn't have those special punctuation marks that affect the code, so hackers could take advantage of that and jailbreak the console.

[@Rin_404]

@@mrcombustiblelemon2902 that's insane lmao

[@Hiatric]

@@mrcombustiblelemon2902 If you all don't understand this, here's how it works. You put code in name, the game reads the name and executes the code. Boom, there and done. You now have an executor.

[@merc2210]

bro had a premonition 😭

[@groom_of_the_stool]

The Metroid Other M door bug made me cry. It's the only Metroid game I never finished. Never went back to it, either.

[@Metroid250]

That one was such a bitter moment, i remember it all too well. I couldn't even send my Wii cuz I hacked it. But I eventually got the patched game later in life and completed it. This system was truly a Nintendo only issue. PS3 and Xbox handled these issues so much better.

[@kevinfromsales9445]

I mean, I'd understand Skyward Sword, but Other M can literally be finished in a couple of hours. (10 hours max)

[@Falkuzrules]

I mean, Metroid Other M existing is enough to make a grown adult cry...

[@NightmareRex6]

just commented i heard of other M destoying wiis on updates, while only 40% rhese reports were lefit users and about 60% were modded users, still, terrable!

[@scaryhobbit211]

@d250The Wii was a shockingly flimsy piece of hardware. The disk drive breaks easily if you play it vertically too long, but on top of that... WiiConnect24's stand-by function overheats the motherboard, frying the system's gpu. ...and of course, the Wii did not allow for game patches to fix bugs like this one.

[@Jelly_shy_guy_man]

As a kid when this happened to me that made me so mad I threw my Wii remote

[@Nevir202]

So, one of the only people to break the thing on purpose, instead of occident? LOL

[@sahaprocks7751]

@@Nevir202 they didn't say it broke though

[@ElectroBlastLuigi]

@@sahaprocks7751 Still, throwing the Wii remote can potentially break it.

[@Mrnotpib]

@@sahaprocks7751I get it. I too am built like Forky from Toy Story 4.

[@TheTheninjagummybear]

I threw my DS lite across the room once. She's still fine.

[@CwapPlatinum]

This bug HAD to be at the best region in the game lmao

[@MysticNinTorres]

I never fully understood the purpose of the Save Data Update channel years ago, but it’s now easy to know that it patches a small, yet massive game-breaking bug in the process.

[@calelkestifer3570]

I mean, at least this one was only triggered by specific means that not so many people ran into. The save corruption on the launch of Pokemon X&Y was way worse imo

[@LilacMonarch]

at least for XY that was on the 3DS which had patches so people just had to wait for it to be sent out

[@alternatecheems8145]

​@@LilacMonarchWii was easily capable of patches too. Nintendo was just too lazy to implement it.

[@David-ln8qh]

@@alternatecheems8145 It's never laziness, I promise you.

[@MLennholm]

@@alternatecheems8145 No it wasn't, the Wii had no way of patching code that ran off of a disc

[@TwilightWolf032]

Nintendo didn't find this game breaking bug before launch despite the game giving players the freedom to do it in any order they wanted. But when they found it, they figured a way to patch the game. But when it came to Other M, the exact same type of game breaking glitch happened for the opposite reason - the game is extremely linear and doesn't let the player explore anything until the post game, so nobody bothered to go back one room and save before moving forward, and as a result that glitch exists to this day. They never patched it online, you had to send your disc to Nintendo so they would burn the patch on the disc, limiting the number of people that could get their games fixed to only those who live somewhere where Nintendo offered that service.

[@PhirePhlame]

They didn't burn a patch onto the disc. Rather, you'd send in your SD card or Wii console containing the affected save file and they'd apply the fix to that.

[@lpfan4491]

"Burning a patch onto the disc". That is not how the medium works. Once it is physically written, it cannot be rewritten.

[@TwilightWolf032]

@@lpfan4491 Well, I got that art wrong, it was the save data file they updated, but still the point I made still stands.

[@renakunisaki]

They just sent back a new disc.

[@mostlyghostey]

This happened to my sister. Fortunately she played slowly and ran into the glitch after there was already a patch released but boy was it scary!

[@asimpleuser8570]

I remember that I wanted to say hi to that Goron before progressing with the story but my little brother was so excited to see what would happen next in the quest that he forcefully made us avoid any distractions, Goron included. He basically saved our game from that glitch without knowing it. We still laughs about it today.

[@elli_senfsaat]

The QA ream really cannot be blamed for neither of the glitches talked about here. It's such a specific way to trigger them, the chances are so low, ofc only the masses of players will find it first. I would like to know what game breaking glitches are being found and removed before release. In the end, only a fraction of crazy bug and glitches shit makes it into the final game. What do we know 😂

[@MucepheiCustoms]

There's a team in companies for fi.ding bugs, and this one is ridiculously easy to trigger that it baffled people as to how it got past the testing team

[@MLennholm]

Of course they can be blamed for this. That's their entire job, to find bugs like this. Though I will commend Nintendo's QA for the good job they do in general. As a developer myself, knowing how easy it is for bugs to slip through the cracks, I find it impressive that Nintendo games don't have more of these.

[@DeadmanDave]

When playing through Skyward Sword, I did the Song of the Hero quest in the Faron, Eldin, and Lanayru order, therefore avoiding the bug without even knowing of its existence. When I first played through Twilight Princess, the walkthrough I used alerted me of its bridge bug and cannon bug. My Twilight Princess is on Gamecube, but I still took precautions to avoid any chances of triggering the bugs.

[@thedoglovinggamer5825]

0:10 For a sec I thought he said that he found a bag.

[@Dodgingwalnuts]

she* Edit: Tried to reply but my replies keep getting removed, it's listed in her twitter bio!

[@XaviSanAAA]

@@Dodgingwalnuts WHAT, MIYAMOTO IS A GIRL?

[@ArtemisAYO]

​@@XaviSanAAAreferring to Ms Thomas

[@joranfokker7477]

​@@ArtemisAYO I am not sure that has been confirmed

[@Dodgingwalnuts]

@@joranfokker7477 it's listed on her twitter bio!

[@OmegaX5000]

I find it hilariously ironic that my browser crashed at the 3:00 mark where you were describing how the game becomes unbeatable.

[@SKCro.]

I love how the thumbnail has a Windows 3.1 window with the Windows 7 warning icon over it

[@garygreenlee]

Ok, talk about irony.. I was watching the video till around 12:40, and there was the line about players being able to send the Twilight Princess disk back to Nintendo of America. the video stopped playing. I was like, "Ok, that was a funny joke." With no sign of buffering I wondered what went wrong. For some reason, and never doing it before.. My computer just froze fully at that time.. So a video about a the worst glitch in Nintendo history caused my computer to glitch and hard lock..

[@wio1]

This reminds me of one time where I was watching a Super Mario Bros. TAS without glitches and the video started randomly glitching out because I had a graphics card error. I thought it was just a joke video at first, lmao

[@BlackMaleLion]

timestamp 13:50 That’s a short term fix, not a long term fix. Eventually, the ability to download updates for games will be ceased permanently. And if someone were to buy a physical copy of the game for the first after that happened (or someone who owned the game had their Switch break and and to buy a new one), he or she would be out of luck. (In fact, I can name two Switch games that can’t be updated.)

[@ffreeman413]

As someone who saved their game in the Cannon Room in Twilight Princess on the Wii, I’ll tell ya… This wasn’t the first time :0

[@autonomous2010]

Seconded. The Cannon Room seemed like a sensible place to save after a long series of tasks leading up to it. Sadly I too got hit with that bug in very early copies of the game.

[@madmanhimes]

i'm upset he didn't mention the flipper skip in original link's awakening, where you jump a gap and use a key on a door you shouldn't access, or the giant ball glitch where you could throw it onto a fence if you threw it just wrong, both of which soft lock the game, with the latter even being present in the deluxe version for the game boy color. Miyamoto's dream was unfortunately true for the very game he dreamed about.

[@SomeGuy712x]

@@madmanhimes I remember one time I threw the iron ball in such a way that it rebounded off of the wall behind a pillar, then came to rest exactly overlapping the base of the pillar, without having knocked the pillar down. The ball was completely ungrabbable at that point because of the pillar being in the way, and totally halted my progress.

[@lpfan4491]

As people mentioned, there are several gamebreakers in LA. Most were fixed in DX, but the ball I think was not.

[@alex_zetsu]

A lot of softlocks in console games relate to save features. I guess this is why some older games have save points. Just test 30 points in the game to see that you can go forward, OK, no one is getting stuck here job done.

[@bird_obsession]

I'd argue the Lumiose City Save Glitch from Pokemon X and Y is the most unfortunate and game-breaking glitch from a Nintendo game. WIth the Lumiose City glitch, if you saved in the wrong parts of the city and reloaded your save file, no matter your progress in the game, there was a chance you'd be hard locked, unable to do anything. Your only option would be to delete the entire save file and start anew. The difference here is that this glitch could be triggered even after you'd completed the game, so players could fall victim to this bug even if they'd spent hundreds of hours in the postgame.

[@lpfan4491]

I once heard there was actually a way to unstuck yourself. I think it had something to do with suspending the game repeatedly with standby mode or sth like that until the broken load corrects itself, idk anymore.

[@therinv]

havent gotten many of your videos in my recommended fr like 2 years so i thought you mightve stopped uploading! glad to see youre still making vids

[@SPac316]

It was a good thing I was informed of this big glitch before I made it to that part of Skyward Sword, so I made sure to do it in the proper order to progress. I also thankfully never encountered those two glitches in Twilight Princess.

[@CoconutsX38]

French viewer here, loves your work as always. Just was caught off guard when you read your patreons' names because Cyprien Iov is actually the 3rd biggest KZbinr in France lol

[@Ramonetable]

There was another game breaking glitch on Twilight Princess: When you go to the Hylian Lake for the first time, you can go to the minigames in wolf link without activating the portal in the middle of the lake islands, the ones connected by bridges. If you do that, when you try to transport the cannon to the lake to go to the Sky Temple, you encounter that you are unable to do so, because there is no portal there. This happened to me in one of my playthroughs, and it is awfull, because it is near the end of the game and you have to start it over.

[@ringmastermodels]

A bit late, but: I’m fairly certain you can just activate the portals at a later date? Done that myself on a few runs of Twilight Princess when I initially avoided them.

[@Manabender]

This also happened in Metroid Prime 2. There's a certain room with multiple (Three, IIRC) shootable echo buttons. If you enter the room, shoot some, but NOT all, then leave and save, that room becomes softlocked. The room is coded to trigger an event once three echo buttons have been shot since last entering, but each echo button permanently saves its shot/not-shot status. It happened to me, back in the day. (Technically, this doesn't render the whole game uncompletable. Like any Metroid, there's plenty of advanced speedrun tech that can bypass the room completely, but casual players are not going to know about this.)

[@Parappadarappa2]

Hearing you talk about kit and Krysta was a unexpected rush of nostalgia I wasn’t expecting

[@lemon66111]

me fr bro i haven’t heard those names in at least 4-5 years

[@Duqustar]

Fun fact you can still get that channel. I just got the channel the other day and patched my data.

[@Bryce_the_Woomy_Boi]

Sometimes foreshadowing is relatively obvious.

[@nerdboy628]

Anyone else notice that the Suika Game music sounds similar to the "Going Up" theme from Super Mario Bros Wonder?

[@aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa283]

There are actualy two softlocks in links awakaning one where you diagonaly jump over water in the water dungeon and one in the tower dungeon where you can get an iron ball stuck in a corner

[@lpfan4491]

There is also another one where you use keys wrong. LA may just have the most diffrent unique gamebreakers in the series. And I am pretty sure the ball was not even fixed for DX.

[@alternatecheems8145]

In oracle of ages, seasons, and links awakening, the pause screen is very poorly implemented and can be used to break the game in a lot of ways.

[@PretendingToBeAHuman]

I was unfortunate enough to run into that cannon room glitch in one of my Twilight Princess playthroughs. I'd preordered the game, so I had one of the buggy launch disks (I still have it, as a matter of fact!) I remember being bummed at the time, but I've played through the game so many times by now that one lost playthrough feels like nothing, haha.

[@quakquak6141]

I'd be so interested in seeing someone try to undo that softlock, I know speedrunner do mess with bit flags using various glitches, so maybe it's possible

[@zero9112]

This was fixed fairly quickly with Ocarina cheats on Wii.

[@quakquak6141]

@@zero9112 I meant without anything external, like just the original game and nothing else

[@lpfan4491]

@@quakquak6141 Depends on what kind of flag it is and how it lines up. Not every flag can be written arbitrarily, there is a method to the madness.

[@quakquak6141]

@@lpfan4491 yup, which is why I'd be so interested if it's possible, I know that in the speedrun they do a lot of shenanigans in order to access different places while on the title screen in order to have access to different flags though, so as convoluted as it could be there's a chance

[@chypredust]

It should be noted the Skyward Sword patching channel has remained available on the Wii eshop, even after its shutdown. The only other thing available there is the Wii manual.

[@SkylightCiel]

To be clear, at that time game updates were completely standard and normal. The Wii was the only console that couldn't do it.

[@smackdownsoup]

There was a similar bug in Spyro 3 that prevented getting 100%. I had to send my memory card into Sony and when I got it back it had another save slot with everything I had plus the bugged items. I still don't know if they were able to just load the data in, or if someone had to play through Spyro 3 for every memory card that got sent in.

[@lpfan4491]

Reminds me of how I couldn't get everything in Cadence of Hyrule because the items(A closed chest in a dungeon containing a weapon and a heartpiece) just never spawned again after I had to leave their locations.

[@renakunisaki]

Had to send in my Pokémon Ruby to have the clock glitch fixed.

[@ghb323]

bdsp had a lot of bugs, unfortunately, including getting permanently stuck, like using diagonal movement in the snowpoint gym can get you stuck, then save in the center.

[@excalibur493]

That's partially because they copied and pasted a LOT of the original games' codes. Like Suction Cups not working for fishing. And the game checking if you have a GBA game inserted because of the special encounter mechanics the originals used (which was an awesome thing I wish they kept doing until XY).

[@Melchirobin]

14:19 Tears of the Kingdom sorta did at point. If you went into the depths after completing the great sky island before talking to Impa and getting the paraglider you could get soft locked in the depths since the autosaves could be filled up after a while and for some reason you were not able to fast travel to the shrines in the great sky island.

[@lemoncakeslemonade5430]

Without the paraglider it'd be really hard, but you could try to get onto a dragon, or there are some places where you can use zonai devices to get out, or a couple of places where you can ascend to the surface, so *technically* there's always a way out- it's just that those ways are really hard. So a soft-softlock?

[@danwithaplan3742]

There's actually a couple ways to get out of the Depths even if you got there directly after GSI (saw these methods proven on SimplySnaps 100% Depths only run) 1) There are several solid stone structures (typically found near the four corners of the map) that you can Ascend thru to get to the Surface 2) If you build a flying machine and get close to the Depths ceiling, you ought to be able to load the Surface from below, which fixes the map and allows you to warp back to GSI

[@EtheRenard]

I remember, in 2012, I was following a french Twitch player, and the chat warned about the Goron glitch, so a whole small group was safe! (At that time, people read the chat lol)

[@superzigzagoon]

They had a crazier time trying to fix the berry glitch in Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire.

[@excalibur493]

Knowing just how many ways they offered to fix that tells it all. I think ALL of the GameCube titles offered to fix it, and they had mailing options if I remember.

[@SomnusLucisCaelum]

Even in the remaster of the game I was TERRIFIED of talking to that Goron 😂

[@kevinwheeler4061]

The funny thing is, consoles did support game updates and patches at that point. The Xbox 360 and PS3 (The other two big conesoles from that generation) had ways to update games, but for some reason Nintendo did not implement this feature when designing the Wii.

[@Yubfan69420]

*Laughs in Castle Crush glitch*

[@Yesenn]

Meanwhile Pokémon Scarlet and Violet were... not even ready when released.

[@shadesoftime]

Nintendo had actually done something like the UK's solution of mailing the console to Nintendo before. In Japan, you could mail your Nintendo 64 save card and your GameCube save card to them to transfer your town from Animal Crossing for N64 to Animal Crossing for GC

[@renakunisaki]

In Canada I sent in Pokémon Ruby because of the clock glitch.

[@Dfortblox]

Wow! That’s crazy! Love ur content keep up the good work :)

[@NZsaltz]

Why do you repeat stuff in your scripts like that? I get padding the video for time, but I think that you said you can't progress in the other two areas if you talk to the Goron at least 3 or 4 times, and then repeated the thing about save files. I understood the first time.

[@despair_bear]

Literally this.

[@StormyThunder]

Dramatic effect

[@NZsaltz]

@@StormyThunder It's not said or treated dramatically... it's the same things reworded minutes apart lol

[@atlev]

GIRLIE YOURE SO PRETTY :))

[@adambyte256]

There's one in Metroid Prime 2 as well. In the room, "Main Research," in Sanctuary Fortress, you're supposed to shoot three sonic locks to open the door blocking your way. If you shoot one or two but not all three, and then leave and de-load the room, then the state of the locks won't be recorded correctly and the door can never be opened. This is casually a softlock, although you can do a developer-unintended movement technique called a "Kip Dash" to bypass the problem. IIRC Nintendo invited affected players to mail in their memory card, and they would edit the save file to remove the effects of the glitch and then mail it back.

[@mickkelley3776]

Oh, the Skyward Sword glitch. I thought you were going to go into the softlock in Angler's Tunnel, and how it was fixed in all future versions of the game, including the DX and Switch remakes.

[@isoceptic]

I still have PTSD from those STUPID TADTONES.

[@aqple]

I always wondered why there was an update on the wii shop channel

[@saria6742]

I remember these! The general advice I remember at the time was "just do Lanayru last" for Skyward Sword, and to avoid save/quitting in niche spots in Twilight Princess (i.e. save wherever, but don't quit until you're out at Hyrule Field or one of the main towns or whatever)

[@baneuntaned2546]

That was nice. glad to have heard and seen you in your true voice and way. So interesting!

[@user-xf5xg3zt7l]

Just saw this come out! So glad for a new video!

[@MmeCShadow]

Thanks for actually explaining what's going on under the hood. I'd heard about the glitch, of course, but hadn't been able to find any information about *why* it happened as far as the code went.

[@marthacherry5]

Love the videos. Amazing job as always!

[@istaffa]

There was another Zelda with a game breaking glitch. The legend of Zelda: link's awakening on game boy. In eagle tower if you throw a sphere in a specific place you can't grab it again and if you save and quit, it will remain there. These sphere is needed to destroy some pillars and progress through the dungeon.

[@AgentAnderson01]

Also the key door you can barely get to without the flippers will cause a softlock scenario

[@Radien]

Thomas, I have a story in a similar vein that may interest you! Once, in September of 2002, Sega was releasing a remake of the popular Phantasy Star Online, originally for the Sega Dreamcast, this time ported to the Nintendo GameCube. It released in Japan months before a proper western release. I had a region-modded GameCube, and the JP version of the game already has a functional English setting, so like many western PSO fans, I imported the game. Unfortunately, there was a problem. Like many an online game, players discovered (almost immediately) a duplication glitch that allowed them to replicate their rare items. Sega rushed to fix the bug for future releases, but the GameCube had even worse download functionality than the Wii, and patching the bug was impossible. Sega put a plan in place to quarantine the bugged version of the game - deemed version 1.0 - on its own server, allowing players the choice to either continue playing in an online environment flooded with duped items, or request a copy of the fixed version 1.1 disc. Despite the game's online element, however, Sega was not terribly concerned with customers who had purchased the game from overseas. They did not allow anyone to enter a delivery address into the website's exchange form if they were not located within Japan. I was one of those people, unable to exchange. The quarantined “duping” server was gradually being abandoned, and a rift was forming. Many saw it as the “cheater” server that no one wanted to be on. Since the ver 1.1 server was going to be used for the North American release, in order to play with all my friends I'd have to either buy a replacement copy or find a way to apply for the replacement disc. I was very lucky. Unlike most American importers, I had coincidentally already applied to study overseas in Japan a couple of months later. So I took my copy of the game with me and hoped for the best. With a guide written by a more fluent player, I filled out the very specific form and directed them to deliver to my dorm. Service to people living in Japan was fantastic, as it turns out. A private Sega courier service brought the replacement disc directly to the international dorm's front door. I got the impression that Sega was unreasonably resentful towards importers for sticking their nose in before the domestic release was finished. But Sega never did finish translating all the Japanese quest content into other languages, so many quests were only accessible by changing the language setting to Japanese and stumbling through it that way (though, I think they eventually blocked that as well, even though it didn't harm anybody). Under Sega, all versions of Phantasy Star Online had effectively zero moderation, until Microsoft paid for the right to manage and service the Xbox 360 release themselves. If you are interested in any other details, feel free to contact me! Take my username, RobynBetween, and address it to the house of Goog. You know the one. ~Robyn

[@chackbro1]

I remember the insanity on forums when this was discovered. I never saw something like that with a newly launched game before that point

[@LoganRexus]

I remember running into this glitch. Having to wait a couple of weeks before the release of the Save Data Update Channel really sucked. It didn’t help the the Song of the Hero quest felt like so much extra padding using recycled environments.

[@chondontore]

I love how BOTW and TOTK both have a generous auto save feature that allows you to revert back to any of those saves at any point. It's like the developers said "but just in case theres another game-breaking glitch, nobody has the 'one save file' excuse anymore."

[@renakunisaki]

Okay, but Donkey Kong Country 2 had a glitch that could "destroy" the cartridge. It corrupted save data, then the game would crash at the title screen trying to read it, so you couldn't do anything. The only fix was to remove the battery, which required soldering, or use an external device to erase it. But few even knew it could be fixed at all.

[@theterribleclaw4285]

I never approached this glitch when I played Skyward Sword but I do remember my friends talking about it they never told me how to do it properly for the best but it was interesting.

[@Sly88Frye]

And I thought it was weird when I had some unexplained glitch in A Link to the Past when I did a normal thing by using the running boots and running into a tree and as soon as I bounced off the tree, the screen went pitch black and the only sounds I could hear were the thunderstorm from the beginning of the game and the flute playing at the same time. So weird, but fortunately if I remember correctly, I didn't lose my save data.

[@will8243]

There was a similar bug in I believe the Wii version of Twilight Princess. If you save and quit your game in the room where you launch yourself to the City in the Sky, you hard lock yourself into that room as an NPC prevents you from leaving and another NPC prevents you from progressing. The only way to fix it is load up another save or star over. 12 year old me learned this the hard way…..

[@NairbNroh]

The nostalgia of the Windows 3.1 era box in the thumbnail

[@SVLF5287]

Okay

[@TheTheninjagummybear]

​@@SVLF5287🪵

[@greatestcait]

The Skyward Sword game breaking bug was in the back of my mind the whole time I was playing A Link Between Worlds a couple years afterward. I got stuck in the Temple of Darkness, and I was terrified that I found a gamebreaking bug, but it turned out I had just missed a bombable spot near the top of the dungeon. I felt really silly after figuring that out.

[@reuseful2839]

Reminds me of the bug in DK64 where, if you save right before proceeding to the final boss, the door won't open

[@waymonstoltz5001]

There was one in Twilight Princess that stopped game progress. Of course I found it on my first playthrough

[@sorrel_leaf_vespers]

How I imagine it happened Link: - starts assembling the song of the hero - Ghirahim: Golo, I have a proposition for you. If you speak to the hero and keep him from making any progress, I will reward you handsomely. Do we have a deal? Golo: Sure. And thus the softlock was born

[@Morgil27]

I thought this was gonna be about the cannon glitch in Twilight Princess.

[@gawbe]

The canon room softlock happened to kid me. At least it takes less time the second file since you know where things are and you dont have to read.

[@ZombieLemon3]

You should do a video on the similar lock in Metroid Other M

[@liatrisblossomheart4013]

this reminds me of a certain game bricking bug in Pokemon X/Y when one saved their game in Lumiose City

[@Eatitup86]

Wii U WindWaker has a game breaking bug as well. In the earth dungeon you can get the bird girl permanently stuck in a room and as far as I know it was never fixed.

[@midnightcoffee6463]

Oh gosh, I remember the gamebreaking Skyward Sword glitch :O I was fortunate enough to never experience it, but when my BFF told me about it I was paranoid through the entire game (and even made backup save slots) thankfully there was a special recovery thing on the Shop Channel for people who had that issue

[@Some-guy-on-the-internet]

"Remember, this was before you could easily patch games on consoles!" Kinda odd of Kit to say this in reference to a game from 2011 when the Xbox 360 and PS3 had already been out for years. The Wii was the odd one out in not having a way to update games.

[@Alice_Rikky]

The save of Twilight Princess reminds me of that time in which there was a similar bug in Pokemon X and Y, in which if you saved in the main town of the game, it would corrupt your savefile or something like that, they patched that pretty soon, but I still remember my friends having that problem the very first day of release and quickly informing me to not save "inside of the pokemon center of Lumiose City"(if I remember correctly) it was a pretty big "oopsie" at the time 😆

[@markflakezCG]

Great Video. As a hobbyst game programmer myself I know how easy it is to create such gamebreaking bugs. Video games have so many layers of code interacting with each other. It's really easy to mess something up.

[@ng65gaming]

I love how literally no one ever mentions the Wii U release of BOTW, like it basically doesn’t exist anymore

[@bassplayerbyrne]

i have such core memories with botw wii u

[@JaneTheDoe-id2vx]

i had a game breaking bug in alan wake 2 when a roller coaster blocked my path preventing me to continue on with the game but thankfully patches exist now and it was fixed

[@Bukki13]

Hearing about this when I was 8 made sure I backed up my savefile before every session

[@narutosbelievin]

I’ve never experienced these glitches but I have experienced a rare one in Twilight Princess. I was outside of Iza’s house in Upper Zora’s River and it triggered the shadow beast fight. I always like to fight them as a wolf so I transformed, which is strange because I’ve never been able to recreate this. I defeated them and the cutscene took place inside of Iza’s house only with wolf Link. In my inventory I had one water bomb bag, two bomb bags, and in place of my bow was the image of a Rupoor. Nothing happened when I tried to equip it. Unfortunately for me this was right before I went to the Temple of Time, so I had to restart the entire game. I’ve tried to recreate the glitch again but have never been able to.

[@NFITC1]

This reminds me of the Metroid Other M glitch that could softlock a player if they backtracked in a specific area to another save location thereby getting locked out of progressing.

[@deoxysoverlord8710]

Myamoto: "I had a nightmare that there was a huge bug that stopped you from progressing in the game!" 🥺 The bug: "Well now I'm becoming real!" 😡🐧

[@DBTGAMER]

Great video. There is one more time this happened. In The legend of Zelda link's awakening. I the Angler’s Tunnel Dungeon. Only on the Game Boy colour and original Game Boy version. There is an area that you can jump to. With a combination of the Pegasus Boots and the Roc's feather. Also if you collect the keys in the wrong order. Then do this specific jump. This will stop from getting back so you can get the keys that you missed. Thankfully this was fixed in the switch version.

[@thchaoticcorporation]

Yes there was a game breaking bug in Link's awakening, you could actually erase one of the instruments if you used the select warp glitch.

[@kennethkay7226]

Anybody remember how unstable final fantasy seven remake was when it first came out? People would fall through the floor during the ghost boss fight, or games would freeze during the air duct scene. Knowing about those glitches made me terrified to progress even though my copy was fine. I never knew Skyward sword had similar problems.

[@Sarcose]

I was sure the bug would be the Twilight Princess horse name overflow exploit that let you softmod your Wii. That one was epic.