What Happens When You Permanently Softlock Nintendo Games?

There are several methods to softlock Nintendo games into unwinnable states. Let's test a few in this video.

1080p 60fps Gameplay recorded and edited by Nintendo Unity. Consider to like, share and subscribe to support the channel.

Games
Super Mario Bros.
Super Mario Bros. 2
Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island
Paper Mario: The Origami King
F-Zero
Fire Emblem
Golden Sun
Pokémon Red & Green
Pokémon Red & Blue

[ProtoMario]

Day 10 of being stuck behind this bush, the guy just keeps saying he is cool and has a girl friend, insane

[Obstagoon]

There's another softlock in Diamond and Pearl. This softlock requires that you do not get any fishing rods during your playthrough. Then you need to have someone trade you a Finneon that knows Surf, then trade it to the hiker in the isolated house on Route 226. If you have no other Pokemon that know Surf, Fly, or Teleport, you're stuck there forever!

[IvanFranco]

3:03 For anyone wondering, this softlock was patched on the GBA version, by editing the level layout slightly...

[rngsomeone]

You can survive the Lyn mode soft lock by repeatedly rigging RNG using movement arrows until Natalie dodges everything for the duration of the map. It's tedious, but not impossible, because brigands aren't very accurate.

[bubblebeampiplup]

The FE7 can get more sad or laughable tbh.

Sad because of the background changing and Lyn straight up becoming depressed, asking you if she can be alone for a while.

The hilarious part? There’s an enemy in that chapter (hint: his mutton was poisoned) who Lyn can recruit-who happens to be the husband of the NPC you have to protect. If Lyn’s the only one alive and you’re on Normal mode (where the game forces you to do what it says) the NPC is essentially doomed because the game was trying to teach you how to recruit her husband. On Hard? It’s possible for the game over to trigger if the husband attacks his wife.

[josht]

I have one from personal experience: You can softlock Oracle of Ages/Seasons by saving the game and reloading it after defeating the final boss, but before actually completing the game. The final boss won't respawn, and it won't let you finish as a result. I remember finding no way to fix my game of Ages, though I was young at the time.

[metleon]

In the original Paper Mario, you can use Lakilester to clip out of bounds in the volcano and beat Chapter 5 again. The game will go to the next Chapter's Peach story, so you can use this to essentially beat chapters 6 and 7 without actually doing so.

However, if you've already seen the Chapter 7 Peach cutscene, the game won't have any more to load. So you'll be promted to save, as usual, but then the file will be stuck looking at Bowser's Castle for eternity.

[mpr]

The soft lock at the end of golden sun was a heartbreaker

[MysticNinTorres]

You end up losing your sanity over just one glitchy mistake

[minifigamer]

The minus world glitch isn't too bad of a softlock considering you get to it from 1-2 and not say 8-3

[lyndislegion]

Wow... I didn't know about the Golden Fox being too slow of a machine. Thanks for clearing that up, honestly! This is the one instance where I can blame the game and be right about it lol

[IvanFranco]

In the 3DS remake of Bowser's Inside Story, you could lock up your save file, by perfoming an OOB glitch inside in one of the rooms of Peach's Castle, sometimes the game could warp Mario & Luigi inside the castle without defeating the Super Peach's Castle Of Fury boss. This bricks your save file if its saved on that room.

[abbatrombonelol]

In the Fire emblem example, it's not technically a soft lock. Even if you have Lynn drop her weapon. You only have to last a certain number of turns.

That games RNG is based off a seed. You can know which numbers you'll get, emulator have a feature for it. You can find a seed where no one hits the green NPC or Lyn for a game over. It's a survive map so you'll win.

The way to change the rng is by consuming the roll by moving the arrow, which way it rotates consumes 1 roll. Mounted units can usually consume more due to the higher movement.

[lankyguy]

Never saw you do GS content. Thanks for bringing attention to the best RPG series out there.

[Quenlin]

Here's a frustrating one. In Pokemon Sun & Moon, if you somehow manage to get out of bounds the game will refuse to open the menu to prevent you from saving yourself in a softlock. They had the foresight to ensure you couldn't save, and the means to detect being out of bounds, but didn't have the foresight to have it say "You appear to be stuck, do you want to warp to the Pokemon Center? Yes/No".

[catluvr]

You can softlock Mother 2 or Earthbound by going to Jeff's father's lab after using the spaceship the second time, but not having Poo in your party.

[TheChooseAName]

I think this is the first time a video surprised me with seeing bsnes-hd being used.
So cool when you see your work has become someone's default for something. Thanks
Interesting video as well. I'll look through the channel and probably subscribe.

[enochlee]

I did the death loop thing unintentionally myself and yeah the only way to get out of it as far as I know is to delete the save file and start all over again

[SomeGuyx]

I remember being annoyed at the Golden Sun one, because I really thought I was only about halfway through the story, as I had just completed only the second lighthouse out of the four. And then I saved when I got returned to Lalivero because I had just gotten past a very difficult boss and wanted to take a break, not knowing that it was actually the final boss of the game, and that the story would be continued in a future game.

Of course, there were still plenty of uncollected Djinn and unfinished sidequests that I could no longer access on that save file, with Lalivero now being my eternal prison there. (And yes, I played through the game again on another file and made sure to get everything, and kept a backup save just before the point of no return just in case.)

[Scratchman]

I've heard of a glitch in Mario and Luigi Dream Team that could softlock your save. You need to perform an out of bounds glitch to get rid of Luigi, and if you enter a battle or cutscene afterwards, the game will wait for Luigi to come to Mario, but since he isn't being controlled anymore, the game will softlock. If you saved at any point while Luigi is gone, your save file is doomed.