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Skyward Sword Includes a Really Nasty Glitch

Following a particular sequence will stop you from moving forward in the game.

Unlike the other platforms, Wii isn't as suited to issuing things like patches and title updates.
Unlike the other platforms, Wii isn't as suited to issuing things like patches and title updates.

I’m about to put you in a difficult position if you haven’t played The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, but you should hear me out.

Rumors spoke of a game-breaking bug, and Nintendo has apparently acknowledged this in a support email received by Zelda Informer.

In order to know what to avoid, you have to tread a bit into spoiler territory--but it’s not that bad.

The glitch occurs during the Song of the Hero quest, if you follow this exact sequence:

  1. At the beginning of the quest, go to Lanayru Desert to retrieve the song of the Thunder Dragon.
  2. In the Lanayru Mine, speak with Golo the Goron.
  3. Complete the Thunder Dragon's event, and receive his song.
  4. Before heading to the forest or volcano regions, speak with Golo in the mine again.
  5. At this point, the forest and volcano events will no longer occur, making it impossible to continue.

Tackling the other dragons that are part of the Song of the Hero quest will ensure that the glitch doesn’t occur, however.

Nintendo does not appear to have a clear remedy for this at the moment. I’ve contacted the company about it, but options could include a bonafide patch or issuing fixed saves for users who are already glitched. I'll let you know what I hear.

Patrick Klepek on Google+

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patrickklepek

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Edited By patrickklepek
Unlike the other platforms, Wii isn't as suited to issuing things like patches and title updates.
Unlike the other platforms, Wii isn't as suited to issuing things like patches and title updates.

I’m about to put you in a difficult position if you haven’t played The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, but you should hear me out.

Rumors spoke of a game-breaking bug, and Nintendo has apparently acknowledged this in a support email received by Zelda Informer.

In order to know what to avoid, you have to tread a bit into spoiler territory--but it’s not that bad.

The glitch occurs during the Song of the Hero quest, if you follow this exact sequence:

  1. At the beginning of the quest, go to Lanayru Desert to retrieve the song of the Thunder Dragon.
  2. In the Lanayru Mine, speak with Golo the Goron.
  3. Complete the Thunder Dragon's event, and receive his song.
  4. Before heading to the forest or volcano regions, speak with Golo in the mine again.
  5. At this point, the forest and volcano events will no longer occur, making it impossible to continue.

Tackling the other dragons that are part of the Song of the Hero quest will ensure that the glitch doesn’t occur, however.

Nintendo does not appear to have a clear remedy for this at the moment. I’ve contacted the company about it, but options could include a bonafide patch or issuing fixed saves for users who are already glitched. I'll let you know what I hear.

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BannerThief

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Edited By BannerThief

Ugh. Thanks, Nintendo.

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Legendary

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Edited By Legendary

Patch it

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MooseyMcMan

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Edited By MooseyMcMan

Oh god. I probably would have talked to that dude again. I cannot thank you enough for this Patrick. That would have ruined one of my favorite games of this year (if not my favorite).

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MichaelEM3

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Edited By MichaelEM3

Apparently this glitch never happens if you save Lanayru for last in this Song of the Hero quest. So that seems to be the safest bet if you don't want to stress about this.

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spiceninja

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Edited By spiceninja

I remember something similar happened with Other M and they had you send in your Wii so they would unbreak the game. It's too bad there's no way of issuing a patch unless they could do it through a firmware update. Sony did something similar with Liberty City Stories on PSP.

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nintendoeats

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Edited By nintendoeats

What is this world coming too!? Has Nintendo ever shipped a game with a serious bug like this before? I mean, Bethesda I'll accept...but...

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petitfool

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Edited By petitfool

Sucks that it happened on a console where patches are not really common.

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MooseyMcMan

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Edited By MooseyMcMan

@nintendoeats said:

What is this world coming too!? Has Nintendo ever shipped a game with a serious bug like this before? I mean, Bethesda I'll accept...but...

If I remember correctly, Twilight Princess had a game breaking bug, and I know Metroid Other M did.

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Dreamfall31

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Edited By Dreamfall31

IGN says :"Skyward Sword is BROKEN " 10/10 Editors Choice

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DonutFever

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Edited By DonutFever
@BannerThief said:

Ugh. Thanks, Nintendo.

Yeah, Nintendo does stuff like this all the time. 
Wait.
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Beb

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Edited By Beb

Luckily I missed this bug. By that point in the game I was so trained to go to the different areas in a certain order that I kept doing it that way.

Sort of funny, because that is like, the only point in the game where you have a bunch of objectives you can do in any order.

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Commisar123

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Edited By Commisar123

Well that sucks, I guess Sky games just don't work this year

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BBQBram

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Edited By BBQBram

Wow, that's pretty fucked up. How did they miss that in QA?

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Catarrhal

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Edited By Catarrhal

@nintendoeats: Miyamoto-san deserves forgiveness; Todd Howard, on the other hand, does not.

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deactivated-5a1d45de5ef23

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slow news day?

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Moonshadow101

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Edited By Moonshadow101

@Legendary said:

Patch it

Hahaha... Good one.

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boboblaw

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Edited By boboblaw
@Commisar123: Skylanders is coming out king of the Skygames.
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Edited By Little_Socrates

@Boboblaw said:

@Commisar123: Skylanders is coming out king of the Skygames.

Weird, too, as Skylanders is also the craziest technology.

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Monthenor

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Edited By Monthenor

@nintendoeats said:

What is this world coming too!? Has Nintendo ever shipped a game with a serious bug like this before? I mean, Bethesda I'll accept...but...

In Super Mario Bros, if you clipped through a wall a certain way and went down a warp pipe you'd get stuck in a glitch world that looped endlessly with no way out except to clear your save and start from the very beginning. I don't know how Nintendo got their reputation for quality with a game-breaking bug in their very first product.

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originalgman

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Edited By originalgman

Man, I'm SO glad I went with the obvious route of Forest -> Volcano -> Desert, even though I kind of wanted to mix it up when finally given the choice to do so. Also you can get a sweet item from doing the Desert one, but it turns out you don't really need it for the other two so it doesn't matter! Follow the expected path, people!

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Commisar123

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Edited By Commisar123

@Little_Socrates said:

@Boboblaw said:

@Commisar123: Skylanders is coming out king of the Skygames.

Weird, too, as Skylanders is also the craziest technology.

Activision can make game that works by magic, and Bethesda can't make dragons fly forward

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sawtooth

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Edited By sawtooth

Who would ever go to the thunder dragon first?

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SpunkyHePanda

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Edited By SpunkyHePanda

Oh boy. I foresee myself sleepily following this set of instructions before realizing that's what causes the glitch.

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Edited By nintendoeats

@Monthenor said:

@nintendoeats said:

What is this world coming too!? Has Nintendo ever shipped a game with a serious bug like this before? I mean, Bethesda I'll accept...but...

In Super Mario Bros, if you clipped through a wall a certain way and went down a warp pipe you'd get stuck in a glitch world that looped endlessly with no way out except to clear your save and start from the very beginning. I don't know how Nintendo got their reputation for quality with a game-breaking bug in their very first product.

Nintendo was started in 1889.

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AxleBro

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Edited By AxleBro

sorry.

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pyromagnestir

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Edited By pyromagnestir

@MooseyMcMan said:

@nintendoeats said:

What is this world coming too!? Has Nintendo ever shipped a game with a serious bug like this before? I mean, Bethesda I'll accept...but...

If I remember correctly, Twilight Princess had a game breaking bug, and I know Metroid Other M did.

Was gonna say Twilight Princess as well, if I remember it was if you saved and quit in a certain room when you reloaded you couldn't trigger what you needed to in order to progress.

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Edited By musubi

See, people complain about games and how patches ruined everything and games no longer ship "complete"  but here is a prime example of the benefit of patches.    In the old days yeah... seemed games were QA tested much more throughly  but two things.... 
 
#1 Games weren't nearly as complex as they are today 
 
#2. When a bug did slip by  you were stuck with it... period.

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algertman

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Edited By algertman

There's also a glitch in Skyrim. It's called Skyrim.

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Jackalol

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Edited By Jackalol

It's a huge oversight and really shouldn't be a problem in the first place, but it only happens if you follow this exact sequence of events right?

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Edited By averagegreg

I too went the route that I figured the game wanted me to go so I luckily avoided it; it's a shame that some people won't finish this game because of this though.

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Edited By steelknight2000

Must have been a frustrating couple of hours for the unfortunate players caught in that hell.

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Edited By Gunrun

I don't know if I'm at the song of the hero quest yet, can someone tell me if I am? Spoiler tags to avoid spoiling locations.

I'm at a dock, trying to find how to get to an invisible ship. I just learned a new song, is this part of the song of heroes quest or is that later?
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Edited By Sevan

@algertman said:

There's also a glitch in Skyrim. It's called Skyrim.

lol i know about 30 people who would kill me if i said this to them, but i really want to...

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Edited By JuggaloAcidman

WTF is with the game killing glitches lately... Seriously! My Fable 3 charector has been stuck in a room for months! They aren't going to fix it either... Guess they dont want me to buy they products!

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Monthenor

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@nintendoeats said:

Nintendo was started in 1889.

Yeah, but my post was already getting pretty long. And I bet their first run of hanafuda cards weren't that great, either.

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Edited By averagegreg

@Gunrun: It's after that run of temples, you'll know it when you get to it, just remember to go to the desert last and you'll be fine.

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Edited By mr_faraday

Welp Skyward Sword cant be in the running for GOTY anymore the games not perfect. :/

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Gunrun

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Edited By Gunrun

@AverageGreg: Cheers AverageGreg, more like AboveAverageGreg.

All you people saying this is something that should have been caught don't really know much about testing. There are probably hundreds of different combinations of things to do during this quest, and out of all of those they missed one breaking combination. It's actually pretty impressive that the game only has 1 game breaking bug.

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Three0neFive

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Edited By Three0neFive
@Monthenor said:

@nintendoeats said:

What is this world coming too!? Has Nintendo ever shipped a game with a serious bug like this before? I mean, Bethesda I'll accept...but...

In Super Mario Bros, if you clipped through a wall a certain way and went down a warp pipe you'd get stuck in a glitch world that looped endlessly with no way out except to clear your save and start from the very beginning. I don't know how Nintendo got their reputation for quality with a game-breaking bug in their very first product.

It's not a bug, it's a feature.
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MormonWarrior

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Edited By MormonWarrior

@nintendoeats said:

@Monthenor said:

@nintendoeats said:

What is this world coming too!? Has Nintendo ever shipped a game with a serious bug like this before? I mean, Bethesda I'll accept...but...

In Super Mario Bros, if you clipped through a wall a certain way and went down a warp pipe you'd get stuck in a glitch world that looped endlessly with no way out except to clear your save and start from the very beginning. I don't know how Nintendo got their reputation for quality with a game-breaking bug in their very first product.

Nintendo was started in 1889.

I was gonna say that too. Even just counting their first video game, that was Sheriff I believe...but I can't remember.

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Marz

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Edited By Marz

I did the Thunder Dragon last.... so guess i missed the glitch :O

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Edited By Video_Game_King

Wasn't there a similar glitch in Twilight Princess? Why wasn't that in the back of Nintendo's mind while they were developing this?

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Edited By nintendoeats

@MormonWarrior said:

@nintendoeats said:

@Monthenor said:

@nintendoeats said:

What is this world coming too!? Has Nintendo ever shipped a game with a serious bug like this before? I mean, Bethesda I'll accept...but...

In Super Mario Bros, if you clipped through a wall a certain way and went down a warp pipe you'd get stuck in a glitch world that looped endlessly with no way out except to clear your save and start from the very beginning. I don't know how Nintendo got their reputation for quality with a game-breaking bug in their very first product.

Nintendo was started in 1889.

I was gonna say that too. Even just counting their first video game, that was Sheriff I believe...but I can't remember.

According to Wikipedia it was a game called EVR Race.

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Edited By kashif1

@Monthenor said:

@nintendoeats said:

Nintendo was started in 1889.

Yeah, but my post was already getting pretty long. And I bet their first run of hanafuda cards weren't that great, either.

Those card games are still being published, someone must have liked them

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Edited By fenixrevolution

I heard about this, thankfully I did the volcano first, I would've been frustrated having put 45 hours into this game already.

Didn't they have a similar problem with Metroid: Other M and had some complicated way of fixing it?

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Edited By jacksukeru

I did the whole thing in Forest -> Desert -> Volcano order, no problems there, also I didn't talk to that guy afterward so there's that. I could see people wanting to go to the Desert first though considering one of the NPC's hints at a treasure the Thunder Dragon is keeping earlier in the game.

By that part of the game I was pretty stoked to meet the other dragons and see if they were going to make me jump through as many hoops as the Water Dragon did just to help me. Turns out, no, the Water Dragon is just a dick.

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Edited By GrahamMaster

Didn't the same thing happen in Metroid: Other M? I could've sworn I heard a thing about a door locking in a fire section, preventing you from progressing.

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Edited By RE_Player1

Random question but can the 3DS receive patches? Going forward I would assume Nintendo would at least support an update system, avoid cases like this or that Other M situation where people had to actually mail in their SD card.