Switch Online's Latest Nintendo 64 Title Is Broken
The Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack has been a subject of controversy since it was first announced. After months of rumors that the Nintendo 64 was coming to the online service, Nintendo finally revealed the console, along with a small selection of games. Shortly after that, Nintendo shared that the service would be exclusive to a higher paid tier, resulting in Nintendo's most disliked announcement on YouTube. Now, fans have had to deal with a slow release schedule, with Nintendo dropping one new game for the service every month. This crawling cadence has made Nintendo Switch owners try and savor the monthly Nintendo 64 titles, but the latest one has made it hard to do that.
The most recent addition to the service is "Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards," which apparently includes a game-breaking bug that some believe to not have been in the original game. Spotted by Reddit user keyblademasternadroj, the bug makes some underwater damage sources cause Kirby to get stun-locked, making it so the player cannot move and must quit the game to fix it. They said in the title of their post that they don't believe this bug was present in the original game and is perhaps a result of emulation. Many other Nintendo Switch fans hopped into the comments to share their experiences.
Fans aren't happy about Kirby 64 or the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack
As you might imagine, fans who paid the extra money to get access to the Nintendo 64 catalog aren't thrilled that another game is a bit broken. Considering that the service launched with low quality emulation (via The Verge), its understandable fans are frustrated with similar issues popping up months after release.
"Happening to me too. I was able to get through it with the save states and a couple of retries, but still pretty frustrating," one commenter said. Another user jokingly wrote, "You can't blame Nintendo, they are just a starving indie developer."
Others pointed out that the ROM version of "Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards" that you can find online doesn't have these issues. This has led some people to believe that whatever updates and changes Nintendo made to the game prior to release must have created the glitch. With more Nintendo 64 games slated to come to the service, and the possibility of more games in the future like the 5 Nintendo 64 games we want to see the most, fans hope Nintendo can smooth things out.