Nintendo to repair buggy Zelda: Skyward Sword save files

While Bethesda scrambles to control unforeseen events born from thousands of characters, objects and dragons interacting with each other in the sprawling land of Skyrim, Nintendo addresses a game-breaking error that occurs if you complete one of three quests in the wrong order ... and then talk to a guy twice.

"If you are experiencing this situation, we are able to repair your saved data," Nintendo writes on its support page for The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. If you couldn't avoid triggering the bug (here's how), you can now send in your save file to be repaired. The company also intends to release "a program that will repair save data for those who have their Wii connected to the Internet." That sounds almost like a patch, filtered for technical terminology, but Nintendo only refers to it as a "program." (Aside: The mythical Wii game patch does exist in some cases!)

We'll let you know as soon as we hear more about this restorative download. If, in the meantime, you feel paranoid about Link's bugs, you can keep up to two duplicates of your save file -- just select "copy" from the main menu every now and then.

Reader Comments (31)

I think the Amish patch their video games in a similar way. And by "video games" I mean "quilts." And by "patch" I mean "literally patch."

@Once known as Shadsy

Boo'd off stage.

Dammit. Is that actual text from the game? What are they doing?

@Zoot Suit Jedi Grammar Hammer En

Its probably because the picture itself than the game. The wavy lines seem to imply that the screenshot was taken from a camera rather than something that captures Direct-feed footage.

@Zoot Suit Jedi Grammar Hammer En

I believe he meant the actual text as in the wording of the conversation.

@Captaindrek1
Yeah, it is. You sell him your bugs.

Zelda characters are pretty weird sometimes.

@Captaindrek1 He meant it in a good way.

Hey, a post written by Ludwig. Let's have more of this.

I like how he says "unforseen events" in Skyrim. Sure, a game of that size will have some stuff slip through, but this was clearly rushed out the door. I guess what I'm trying to say is stop giving Bethesda a free pass because the game is so awesome. Yes, Skyrim is one of the best games ever made, but that's only when it works properly.

@Sylath

Yeah, but Bethesda says gamers like bugs, and bugs are fine so they don't need to fix them.

@Sylath

Really doubt they expected Skyrim on PS3 to get laggy as hell when you play for many hours and attain a game save over 11 MB. That took a fair amount of time to achieve

@Faenix
I don't doubt that journalists and the gaming community didn't expect it, but Bethesda didn't? Come on.

Mr. Joystiq, sir, your information about patching Wii games is incorrect. The Wii version of Modern Warfare is built to accept and understand downloadable "update" files when online. This is a workaround created by Treyarch to solve the problem of no standard game patching system. Unless Nintendo built such feature into Zelda (doubly so), there is no way of "patching" the game itself.

@Dark Archon PSN Archonik XBL Dar

I don't think it's incorrect. The point is that there are examples of effective patches being issued. I'm not implying this game is or isn't equipped to handle it in the expected way.

It doesn't sound like a patch to me. A patch would modify the game so the problem doesn't happen anymore. This sounds like a program that can run on Wii (or perhaps on PC, I dunno) that alters the save file to correct the situation Link is stuck in after the bug occurs.

@spin cycle You've just described patching the save file. Same action, different files (since it can't modify the CD). "Patch" is not dependent of when in the chain the error occurs, it simply fixes the error by altering data.

I can't wait till they "let let" me know!

Developers must design in the style of the last gen for the Wii, which is known to all by now, but their philosophy must be to check every single little corner for within every single bedroom, attic, hallway, kitchen, living room, basement, and staircase for those dastardly bugs.

Seems primitive to have such vocabulary consisting of the word "patch" seem so primitive. But it's for the better--maybe we're spoiled by online infrastructures fixing all of our problems. Maybe devs have become lazy in this day and age? Day one patches still irk me like no other.

@Shadowbender

*seem so foreign" Not primitive again. Aargh.

It's not a patch. They aren't saying anything about the bug being fixed, just that they will repair save data that has been affected by the bug.

They are going to release an app that will repair save files. The game itself will not be patched and the bug won't be fixed.

Agreed. If it's not an MMO this shouldn't be accepted, period. I know friends who can't buy Skyrim at all because they don't have wireless internet in their homes, thus they couldn't patch the game. I myself just got wireless a year or two ago.

No... it's not a bug... it's BEN! Oh god, help us! BEN has returned!

Even Skyrim's patches have bugs!

why the hell cant they just release a PC utility as an option so people can do it themselves?

Lamp oil, rope, bombs, you want it?

Damn this glitch. Really caused me a lot of trouble. Glad I pirated this one.

@SlyBeast
Yeah, karma's a bitch, ain't it?

@Sylath

Obviously the 30+ hours of bug free entertainment he already enjoyed before the glitch and a free program to fix said glitch, since he didn't hear about it in time and failed to find out how easy it is to avoid it, is absolutely worthless. Worse than that, it is a travesty. Someone should fire everyone even peripherally involved in the making of this game and force them to hand write apologies and send them wrapped in thousand dollar bills to everyone who was so grievously harmed by playing this atrocious life ruining "game".

Well known games that have had patches on Wii:

Call of Duty Black Ops
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3
Tatsunoko vs Capcom
Wii Sports Resort
Conduit 2

@Nolan North
What did the Wii Sport Resort patch fix? I'm curious. I have (or rather, my father have - long story) that game, and I've never found a glitch, I think. At least nothing game breaking.

@yoshi95
It was the health and safety warning, it had a special one that showed up and it was only supposed to do it once, but the glitch made it show up everytime. It was fixed in a Wii system update, so some people may not have noticed it.

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

Nintendo to repair buggy Zelda: Skyward Sword save files

Reader Comments (31)

Posted: Dec 16th 2011 11:53AM Once known as Shadsy said

Posted: Dec 16th 2011 5:03PM SlyBeast said

Posted: Dec 16th 2011 11:58AM Zoot Suit Jedi Grammar Hammer En said

Posted: Dec 16th 2011 12:17PM JMC611 said

Posted: Dec 16th 2011 1:24PM Captaindrek1 said

Posted: Dec 16th 2011 4:33PM ripvanwinkle said

Posted: Dec 16th 2011 5:20PM Solar Jetman said

Posted: Dec 16th 2011 12:03PM Brian333 said

Posted: Dec 16th 2011 12:08PM Sylath said

Posted: Dec 16th 2011 12:30PM Copybass Ah jeez zombies said

Posted: Dec 16th 2011 4:11PM Faenix said

Posted: Dec 16th 2011 5:01PM The Great Cornholio said

Posted: Dec 16th 2011 12:09PM Dark Archon PSN Archonik XBL Dar said

Posted: Dec 16th 2011 5:25PM Ludwig Kietzmann said

Posted: Dec 16th 2011 12:10PM spin cycle said

Posted: Dec 16th 2011 6:03PM Solar Jetman said

Posted: Dec 16th 2011 12:30PM Shockwave said

Posted: Dec 16th 2011 12:50PM Shadowbender said

Posted: Dec 16th 2011 12:51PM Shadowbender said

Posted: Dec 16th 2011 1:21PM KentBrockman said

Posted: Dec 16th 2011 1:26PM Vic Fontaine said

Posted: Dec 16th 2011 1:38PM MrPistachio said

Posted: Dec 16th 2011 1:46PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Dec 16th 2011 4:10PM singleandlovinit said

Posted: Dec 16th 2011 4:30PM Mrguy you know that guy said

Posted: Dec 16th 2011 5:04PM SlyBeast said

Posted: Dec 16th 2011 5:36PM Sylath said

Posted: Dec 16th 2011 9:34PM Kimochi said

Posted: Dec 17th 2011 12:03AM Nolan North said

Posted: Dec 19th 2011 5:06PM yoshi95 said

Posted: Dec 20th 2011 4:26AM Nolan North said

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