I have a different problem...
The "gold" colors are translucent black. Silver doesn't work either (all silver keys are grey), and red has trouble (red heart containers look like slightly pink glass...not that "ruby" effect).
That's all with the default package (1.6, XP Pro SP2, GeForceMX onboard graphics). Is there some setting that can be tweaked? I'm not looking to just switch plugins, because the default 1.6 plugin is pretty good, especially since it's the best one I've used that can display smoke correctly (like in the intro where Epona runs through the field).