Nintendo has fixed Kirby 64’s game-breaking bug on Switch Online

Nintendo has updated its Switch Online N64 app with a patch that fixes the game-breaking bug in Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards.

Switch Online’s 15th and latest N64 release arrived on the service on May 20 but users quickly started reporting a major bug which was soft locking players during gameplay.

The bug resulted in Kirby 64’s underwater levels sometimes causing players to become stuck in a stun animation, which could only be solved by quitting the level.

Nintendo apologised for the issue late last week and promised to fix it in an update, which has now been rolled out.

According to OatmealDome, who regularly provides extra datamined information on Nintendo’s updates, the new update is solely designed to fix the Kirby bug.

“Version 2.3.1 is out with the bug fix for Kirby 64,” they tweeted. “That’s about it.”

The Kirby 64 bug is the latest in a line of issues players have discovered with Switch Online’s emulated N64 ports. Most of these have been graphical issues, but at least one other bug caused Paper Mario to crash.

The Paper Mario crash was eventually fixed two months after the game was added to the service, but graphical issues remain in Star Fox 64 and Yoshi’s Story.

Further reading

Nintendo says it will continue to expand Switch Online ‘throughout this year’

Furukawa promises to ‘expand services’ and create new content for subscribers

Switch Online’s Expansion Pack tier launched in October 2021 and was met with frustration from some players due to emulation issues and a lack of features including button mapping.

Since January, Nintendo has been releasing occasional updates which appear to be fixing some of these issues, most notably the graphical ones.

The Water Temple room in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, for example, originally looked nothing like it did on the original console, until subsequent patches fixed the water transparency and added fog.