Nintendo Switch Players Find Permadeath Glitch In ‘Kirby 64’

When you think of the Kirby franchise, I doubt you think of hardcore gaming modes like permadeath yet that’s what unlucky Nintendo Switch players have been faced with this weekend whilst trying to play Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards.

Originally released in 2000 for the N64, Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards is a 2.5D platformer. The platformer previously made its way to the Wii and Wii U’s Virtual Console before hitting Nintendo Switch’s Switch Online service earlier this week. Just days after its release though, players have already found an infuriating glitch.

If you're yet to check out Kirby and the Forgotten Land, take a look at Kirby's new Mouthful Mode below.

Reddit user keyblademasternadroj unveiled the “game-breaking bug” in a clip he posted to the site. Accompanying the clip, keyblademasternadroj wrote, “Kirby 64 has a game breaking bug in underwater levels on NSO. Getting hit by certain damage sources underwater causes you to enter hit stun forever, and you need to quit the level to fix it. I don't remember this happening on the original hardware.”

The clip shows poor Kirby endlessly floating along, unable to move. It looks like keyblademasternadroj isn’t alone in experiencing this glitch as others took to the comments to share their experiences.

Caught_red_wheeled wrote, “Happening to me too. I was able to get through it with the save states and a couple of retries, but still pretty frustrating,” while Yoshi_Loves_Ponyo said, “I'm glad I'm not the only one experiencing this b******t! I hope Nintendo fixes this soon.”

There doesn’t appear to be a patch for this glitch yet so if you were hoping to dive into Kirby 64, you better start preparing for this unexpected permadeath challenge. If that sounds like a nightmare, you could always check out Kirby and the Forgotten Land, which Mike called a “Game of the Year contender” in our review.