Nintendo details game-breaking Zelda: Skyward Sword bug

By Tom Phillips Published 6 December, 2011

Tells you how to avoid it.

Nintendo has confirmed the existence of a game-breaking bug in The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword.

Gamers will only encounter the glitch if they complete a very specific sequence of events late in the game.

Spoilers lie below.

"We have been made aware of the issue that results in being unable to progress in the Song of the Hero quest," Nintendo of America spokesperson Sharon Matheny said in an email to affected gamers (posted by ZeldaInformer).

"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. The only options at that point are to either start the game over or to use an earlier save file to continue."

The Song of the Hero Quest requires players to revisit the game's three main ground-based locations, each of which can be attempted in any order.

The bug only appears when the Lanaryu Desert portion of the quest is completed first.

Even then, gamers must have travelled to Lanaryu Mine to speak with the character Golo the Goron before receiving the song of the Thunder Dragon, and then returned there afterwards to speak with Golo again.

At this point, the remaining two locations will become unavailable, rendering the player unable to progress further.

"This issue WILL NOT OCCUR if the Fire and Water Dragon songs have already been collected before collecting the Thunder Dragon's song," Nintendo clarified. Simply talking to Golo in the Lanayru Caves at any other point in the game "will also not trigger the issue".

There's no word of a patch for the problem, although Nintendo is "documenting all feedback" on the issue.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Phillips

Tom joined Eurogamer in 2010 and has quickly made his mark writing news and columns and coming up with puntastic straplines. Questionable beard. @TomPhillips151 on Twitter.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Phillips archive page.

You may also like...

Comments (64) Latest comment 6 months ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • George-Roper #1 6 months ago

    Nintendo test all their software, do they?

  • kinky_mong #2 6 months ago

    I'm at this portion of the game at the moment and my blood pressure was rising. The relief on reading "This issue WILL NOT OCCUR if the Fire and Water Dragon songs have already been collected before collecting the Thunder Dragon's song" was immense. Thank god I went to the Water dragon first!

  • Murbal #3 6 months ago

    They can just patch it then. Oh wait...

  • eightbit #4 6 months ago

    Glitch and bitch.

  • Spong #5 6 months ago

    A game-breaking bug from an in-house Nintendo game? What is the world coming to?

  • levitate #6 6 months ago

    I'm only about an hour and half into the game so I have no clue what Nintendo is talking about. I'll ask Fi when I come home. Maybe she can also update me on Nintendo's latest stock price.

  • Cadence #7 6 months ago

    Twilight Princess had one too, in the canon room.

  • grussbarbar #8 6 months ago

    Oh, too bad they missed that. It does seem like a very specific sequence of events, so I hope not too many people have been or will be affected by it.

  • mowgli #9 6 months ago

    Nintendo getting a bit confused at fans wanting them to enter the new generation.

  • ubergine #10 6 months ago

    This is nothing, from what I read the game won't work at all on PS3. Shameful to release a game in that state.

  • ianegg #11 6 months ago

    They should have said "This issue WILL NOT OCCUR if the Fire and/or Water Dragon songs have already been collected"...

    Bit strage that one entirely optional conversation would mess up the other locations. I think most people would talk to that NPC before and after getting the Thunder song, but there's a side quest incentive to go down to the Fire area first and it's also kind of logical to go for the Water one first, since it's in the first area. So I don't think it will affect too many people, but you'd expect it to come up in testing unless it's not guaranteed to happen.

    Of course there's also an incentive to go for the Thunder dragon asap too, if you've been listening to the gossip stones...

    I'd clocked about 47 hours at that point, so I would be extremely irritated if it happened to me.

  • higgins78 #12 6 months ago

    While I'm surprised an in-house Nintendo game would suffer ANY bug I'm myself way past this apparent "game breaking bug" and am doing just fine. I think perhaps the title of this article is anyway not something 99.9% of people playing through Skyward Sword will in anyhow notice...not like say the problems PS3 owners are plagued with playing Skyrim. Yes, I'm speaking from experience, owning as I do Skyrim AND a PS3, my mate owns Skyrim on his 360 and I have compared...The PS3 version really does play like Bethesda just didn't give a f**k.
    Edited by higgins78 at 06/12/11 @ 10:34

  • silversun #13 6 months ago

    I still have my super paper mario game that had an even worse bug than this. but both games are avoidable which is good.

    worst bug i think i heard of in a game i own was Ar Tonelico - (the second one i think - 5 turns to kill a boss)

  • wizlon #14 6 months ago

    Phew, was just on that section but I went to the Volcano region first.

  • Toothball #15 6 months ago

    Oh, I think I'm coming up to that part. Was likely going to go through them in the traditional order so I think I'd have been fine.

  • orangpelupa #16 6 months ago

    atleast the bug only triggered in very specific condition

  • Rogueywon #17 6 months ago

    @Silversun - yes, it's Ar Tonelico 2 - though it only affects the US release of the game (Japanese and European releases are unaffected). Basically, they broke the data for one of the second-to-last boss's attacks. If it tries to use that attack, the game hard-locks - and the boss is coded to use the attack on its 4th attack turn, meaning you have 3 turns to beat it.

    Fortunately, the boss is an easy one and, if you are at or, for preference, slightly ahead of where the game expects you to be in terms of your level, you can take it down comfortably within that window. Unfortunately, the boss is a repeatable one - you can (optionally) fight harder versions of it to unlock extra artwork. Once you've scaled the fight up a few times, the 3 round limit becomes seriously challenging.

    It's a pity, really, because like the other installments in the Ar Tonelico series, it's actually a much, much better game than you would expect (with a soundtrack to die for). However, the bug was - quite rightly - well publicised and picked up by most of the US reviews at the time - as was the fact that the US port was in general a bit of a train-wreck with a number of other localisation issues, which severely hurt the game's sales.

    Perhaps in a joking reference to this bug, there is a fight in the third game that has an invisible time limit - if you don't beat the boss quickly enough (again, not challenging), the game locks you onto a plot path that only lets you access the "normal" and "bad" endings.

  • Ror1984 #18 6 months ago

    Metroid: Other M also had a rather game-breaking bug, let's not forget.

    I haven't started Skyward yet, so this is good to know. And knowing is half the battle!

    /coat

  • Pacman8MyGhostkart #19 6 months ago

    Post deleted at 09:50:32 12-12-2011

  • CaptainTrips #20 6 months ago

    Metroid other M being a steaming pile of turd was not a game-greaking bug, Ror1984. :p

  • Bennicus #21 6 months ago

    How do they expect you to go back to an earlier save when you only have 1 save per profile?
    Edited by Bennicus at 06/12/11 @ 11:36

  • Biker_Bob_1971 #22 6 months ago

    Post deleted at 16:59:10 06-02-2012

  • Subdominator #23 6 months ago

    Thank god it only breaks the game and doesn't let dragons fly backwards.

  • Der_tolle_Emil #24 6 months ago

    Oddly enough I have no idea if I am already past that point or not. I am about 30 hours in and revisiting the locations but I was pretty sure that the order in which I had to revisit them was fixed.

    It's too bad something like this found its way into the game. Hopefully there will be a way for Nintendo to fix the savegames like with Metroid Other M. It's not a very elegant solution but it's much better than replaying 20 to 30 hours of the game.

  • Canyarion #25 6 months ago

    The only thing that's breaking the game for me right now is playing that song at the Pumpkin Pie. I've tried more than 25 times, I got the rythm down perfectly.............. but I'm still doing it wrong.
    It makes me want to snap the game in two and smash that controller into the wall. It's almost as bad as the Ocean King Temple in Phantom Hourglass.

  • Donaldthescotishtwin #26 6 months ago

    Nintendo,i'v always loved you and always will,but for fucksake start doing DLC you'll be able to patch this.

  • King_of_Hyrule #27 6 months ago

    Reminds me of the original Broken Sword game, I still have the sentences "Don't go to Spain before you go to Syria" and "don't leave Ireland without the plaster" stuck in my head and have consequently applied those words of wisdom both in my game as in real life.

  • HerrQwerty #28 6 months ago

    I havent bought it yet. Might wait for the classic edition.

  • higgins78 #29 6 months ago

    @Biker_Bob_1971

    Skyward Sword "crippled by a bug"? Erm, I think you are perhaps over-estimating the "problem". This is a bug which 99.9% of players will never run into, hardly the same as Skyrim (PS3), lag in which 100% of players will encounter. Please, lets not compare Bethesda to Nintendo.

  • higgins78 #30 6 months ago

    @HerrQwerty

    WTF!? "Classic" edition!?

  • GamesConnoisseur #31 6 months ago

    Likenhood of the game breaking bugs will multiples the bigger and more sophisticated the games get, Nintendo supposedly have the best Q/A processes and don't believe in patching a lazy Q/A as many publishers guilty does.

    Whhee looking who talking?!!!

    Patchings is a necessary evil, and a must in today world but please do keep a strong Q/A processes and patches for where things are missed out. Skyrim's PS3 memory bug aint spotted in Q/A are do massive in scale of a difference to this orders of quests bug in Zelda.

  • TonyHarrison #32 6 months ago

    You guys know they can actually patch games on the Wii now, right? It was implemented initially after the release of one of the COD games a couple of years ago if I remember right.

  • Toothball #33 6 months ago

    @Canyarion

    I found that part a bit vague, especially since you've no idea what the song is supposed to sound like. I got luck and passes, although the audience wasn't impressed. No need to go back I hope.

  • HerrQwerty #34 6 months ago

    @higgins78 Lol, yeah the one with the red border that comes out about 8 months after a game comes out on the wii.

  • dennett316 #35 6 months ago

    @higgins78 Yes, I believe it's the Nintendo equivelent to a Platinum release, in other words he'll wait till they release it cheaper and may well have that bug fixed.

  • Lemming81 #36 6 months ago

    You see? And all you haters had to have your 'different' Zelda game and look what happens?? ;-)

  • Canyarion #37 6 months ago

    @Toothball Yeah that's what I hear a lot on forums: people get lucky and pass without having a clue of what they're doing.

    I can get to the end of the song, but I get no reward and they're all telling me how bad I played.
    And I've learned the rythm by heart. Ugh.

  • scouserfuller9 #38 6 months ago

    This is nothing, from what I read the game won't work at all on PS3. Shameful to release a game in that state

    Having Zelda released on the PS is something many people want but are never gonna get.

  • scouserfuller9 #39 6 months ago

    @Bennicus Copy your game to another file. I won't spoil things for you in case you're currently playing it, but it's shortly after you finish the sixth dungeon.

  • GiarcYekrub #40 6 months ago

    Wasn't there a bug in Ocarina with the 1st boss something to do with the stun seed thing

  • FuzzyDuck #41 6 months ago

    @HerrQwerty

    8 months? Didn't Twilight Princess just go 'Classic', the same week as Galaxy 1?

  • Darren #42 6 months ago

    Paper Mario (Thousand-Year Door?) on the Wii had a known bug in it that caused the game to freeze as I experienced that very issue. With that and the Zelda bug it really does highlight the need for the Wii to have had some kind of patching system. Hopefully, the Wii U will.

    That said, Nintendo games are generally a lot less buggy than most PS3 and Xbox 360 games, partly because the games are simpler anyway but also because Nintendo's Quality Assurance is generally the best around IMO.

  • Inmediasress #43 6 months ago

    From the headline it seemed they are offering it as DLC.

  • bdc #44 6 months ago

    Patch it then... oh wait. LOL

  • HerrQwerty #45 6 months ago

    @FuzzyDuck I was being optimistic lol.

  • OneClassyBloke #46 6 months ago

    Don't want spoilers... But want to be able to complete game...

  • orangpelupa #47 6 months ago

    btw Nintendo have "Seal of Quality" sticker in them right?

    it seems nintendo QA (and the collaboration between QA and the DEV) is the best in this industry and nintendo are proud of it.

    they even very openly admit a bug like this and openly suggest the workaroud.

    not like bethesda...
    maybe Bethesda was a good game maker with no bug until they took an arrow in their knee...

  • vert1go #48 6 months ago

    *sigh...* Here goes again to attempt to educate those still making the "highlarious" Seal of Quality comments; Warning - fact incoming...

    It was NEVER about game quality. NEVER. The Nintendo Seal of Quality was invented during the NES/Famicom era because of the amount of counterfeit or unlicensed games being made for the system. It related not to the games but the carts themselves and stated they had met the technical requirements/were proper Nintendo produced cartridges that would not go bang, cause your system to catch fire, not have been produced by some kid with a soldering iron, would actually work in the system, would physically fit in the system, etc.

    That is all the seal ever meant. As it does today.

  • FuzzyDuck #49 6 months ago

    @HerrQwerty

    Haha, no worries, i'm just sore from it because i was waiting for Galaxy 1 and TP to hit the Classics range for so long, as the only places in my home town that were still selling them were asking for their RRPs!

  • Ror1984 #50 6 months ago

    @FuzzyDuck - Amazon were flogging the Classics version of Twilight Princess for £7.99 yesterday. For a few hours. It jumped back up to £14.99 less than 3 hours after I ordered it in the afternoon!

    @CaptainTrips - I really enjoyed Other M. Granted, it wasn't on par with the Prime games, but I thought it was very good.

  • HerrQwerty #51 6 months ago

    @FuzzyDuck I know! It's ridiculous. Hopefully the WiiU steaming over the horizon will lead to a load of recent Wii releases being put on the Classics list. Fingers crossed lol.

  • orangpelupa #52 6 months ago

    @vert1go but counterfeit games also have seal of quality.

    Sold completely with the packaging etc, minus the manual book.

    at least that what the counterfeit gamecart looks like in my country...

  • evnewell #53 6 months ago

    not fair. A bug that breaks your game late in the story and I have to read spoilers in order to avoid it!?!

  • smelly #54 6 months ago

    Having completed the game, and reading the bug report, that sounds like a VERY VERY obscure situation...

  • smelly #55 6 months ago

    And wtf is it with you lot comparing zelda's bugs to skyrims?

    Sky rim is a totally different style of game (Rpg compared to action adventure), and sky rim is a hell of a lot more complicated than zelda.

    I wouldnt forgive the same level of game breaking bugs skyrim has in zelda - because zelda is a simpler game (in comparision), but I can forgive the number of bugs that skyrim has because it's so massive and complicated.

    Now stop being such fanboy bitches going on about zelda this or skyrim that.. They're different games.

    Next you'll be comparing Modern Warfare to Rayman origins....

  • whatthefu #56 6 months ago

    so its not worth 10/10 lol

  • smelly #57 6 months ago

    >I have to read spoilers in order to avoid it!?!

    Its a zelda game.. The princess is kidnapped, you have to rescue her. If you're playing zelda for the plot - you're doing it wrong.

  • ajaxpliskin #58 6 months ago

    Come on folks, don't complain. All games have bugs. Games are never finished, they are just abandoned due to time and money constraints.

  • OJSlaughter #59 6 months ago

    Oh well, a major glitch in a near perfect game: I didn't expect otherwise :p

  • Phishfood #60 6 months ago

    I didn't even read, I don't want to read spoilers!!

  • Mazrim_Taim #61 6 months ago

    So Ocarina of Time, Majoras Mask, Twilight Princess and now this. Game breaking bugs are becoming as much a part of Zelda as the green tunic.

  • scouserfuller9 #62 6 months ago

    @smelly Have you played the game yet? If yes you should know by now she isn't a princess in this one. It's more 'save Zelda (or should I say the Goddess) from the villain'

    This is why some people want to avoid spoilers. There's a huge storyline in Zelda titles and they (like myself) find the game far more enjoyable when they don't know what to expect.

  • Dave52 #63 6 months ago

    I look forward to endless EG articles about this. "Does Nintendo's Ocarina Of Time explain the Skyward Sword Bug", "Digital Foundry Vs The Skyward Sword Bug", "SwordBreak Bug, How to Avoid It" etc etc...

    Oh no wait, it's not a PS3 issue. We'll leave it be.

  • wanderingkid #64 6 months ago

    Well considering the first of the trial songs you get is the water dragons one (in Faron Woods) and you are instructed to go straight there then the Lanaryu desert I don't see many players coming across this situation