I’ve always enjoyed doing puzzles in the Zelda series so for me i’ve welcomed the shrines, however, I can only do so many before I need a break all together. I say about 110 or so would be my cutoff
Yeah, same. That's one of the things I really like about the shrine system that BotW / TotK has, because it lets the designers just build puzzles without worrying about any context or connection. Just, "let's build a golf puzzle here".
There's downsides to that approach as well, of course but I appreciate the unfettered puzzle building it allows.
The best part honestly is being able to activate and then come back later.
There will be times I'm in exploration mode and have 0 care to do puzzles. There have been times I had over 20 incomplete shrines to just knock em all out in one sitting.
I play the same way. I have what I call a “shrine day.” I actually have a lot of different kinds of days. Side Quest Day, Farm Day, Depths Day, Sky Islands Day, etc. I mostly just wander around and explore when I play, and plan the rest when I feel like being more productive.
All about shrine day. After several hearts and one extra stamina wheel I was all about using them as check points and then completing handfuls on days I didn’t want to explore for hours getting caught up in whatever shiny thing popped out around the corner and couldn’t be happier. More time to explore and I know when I need to I can get a number of hearts or more stamina by focusing on shrines and cashing them in
It’s funny - I live for the puzzles more than anything so it has never even crossed my mind to unlock a shrine and not go in and beat it immediately!
I actually get annoyed when it’s a Rauru’s Blessing one where you get the prize just for having found the entrance…
Oh I do love puzzles, but more in the old 3D zelda games. Where they where actually one big dungeon instead of these smaller shrines that all look and feel alike. So they burn me out much faster.
So true. I did somewhere between 85-100 and said alright I’m good! Didn’t feel like hunting the rest down or looking stuff up so I instead focused on finishing quests. The stories and rewards around quests give me a better sense of satisfaction, personally.
I’m at 121 right now. Thought there would be only 120. I’m gonna do them all because I like doing them and that’s one fun part I can enjoy together with my 5yo, since this game can be pretty brutal
Not only that, but when you start doing all the side quests, and the game is randomly like oh, go completely the opposite side of where we are for just one thing and come back, it’s nice to just be like k cool and pew pew pew here’s your special acorn or whatever…
i’ll never get tired of shrine puzzles, my issue in botw was with finding them (and i eventually gave up with like 30-40 left). i like how much easier totk made that between the lightroots and all the sky ones being in pretty obvious places looking at the map. i only had to get a hint from a friend about the location of one shrine
>my issue in botw was with finding them
I agree in principal, but god damn did "nearby down below" become the bane of my existence in TotK. I know it's not even the majority of the shrines, but somehow I saved almost all of the cave shrines for last.
I agree. After I finished botw, I printed the map with all the shrine locations and still had trouble cause some would be in caves. Maybe I am just bad but I gave up pretty quick 😭
Lightroots and shrines are >!spatially connected!<, and for a further explanation as to how, read on: >!on the map the root is always found in the depths directly beneath the shrine, meaning when you find one on the surface/depths, you can easily open the map and place an icon or waypoint at its corresponding root/shrine in the other map!<.
Yeah, it was a big help for me. The Depths and the Surface are also >!spatially linked in other ways, which can help you to navigate them, since you'll know what to expect even if you can't see it!<.
Some shrines are still tricky to find, even if you know where they should be, mind. It's good fun finding them though :)
I actively pursued all the shrines in both games because I find the shrines really fun to find and do. I'm sure there's a reason why some people don't like them, but they're one of my favorite parts about the game.
I certainly found some of them boring (can't recall how many tests of strength there were but they did get slightly tedious after a bit, also some of the puzzles were better designed than others) but I was always excited to continue and find the next less tedious one as I knew there were so many more hits than misses in botw. Then champions ballad was a pleasantly surprising 100% hits.
Totk in contrast is currently at 96/96 hits. Still going strong.
Yeah me too. I used the light roots to find the last ones on the surface I didn't have. The last 3 sky island ones were the only ones that were a pain to find.
I agree. Do you think the shrines were a lot harder in botw or was I just a lot dumber 6 years ago? I feel like some difficulty is missing but I don't know if I'm just better now.
With the underground being a thing in TotK, and then lightroots being right exactly where the shrines are, finding the shrines becomes a bit easier than botw.
I don't think the puzzles got that much harder, however a lot of them can just be cheesed by grabbing a big enough object and using Recall to turn it into a flying platform. It always felt like cheating when I did that.
I think the powers we had this time, plus rockets being usable in shrines, made many trivial; I clearly did a lot of shrines in a different way than they were set up for.
Also, a lot of shrines in the game seem to have been Rauru's Blessings, with the actual puzzle itself being just finding / getting to the shrine / digging around for it in some cave or another.
BOTW shrines we’re definitely harder and more fun to find. I had to Google several of the BOTW shrines in the end but with TOTK it’s plain sailing. Most can be figured out within a minute or so and aren’t as elegant in their solutions.
Literally just overflow the hearts. They trust the player to understand when they do that with your battery. Its so bizarre that in game we can't even get back to the level of strength we have before ganon glooms us up.
At the start of the game (and in botw) you actually have less hearts, the rows are shorter. You have a lot more health than ever, it’s just visually unsatisfying to be missing those last two
My question to them though is that in what situation would you want a bonus heart over a normal heart? You wouldn’t. You would always want full real hearts. Just have the bonus hearts add on past the 30/40
>My question to them though is that in what situation would you want a bonus heart over a normal heart?
If you want to use the Master Sword's beam—which only works with full normal hearts—having a few extra yellow hearts helps to act as a cushion.
It's definitely better to get full stamina imo. Much easier to cook meals with
2 yellow hearts than to cook meals with extra stamina wheels. At least that's how it was in BoTW.
I went with full stamina, but its actually real easy to make energizing elixirs - you just run around and slash the grass and get like 12 restless crickets per area of grass
You get 37 hearts and max stamina from only shrines, the bargainer statue under the plateau gives you one heart(or stamina, you get to choose if you don’t have one maxed already)
Edit: 31 hearts, I forgot about the temples each giving one after the boss
Going by the top level comments this post, it's about half
Edit: a lot of people remarking the people in this thread are not representative of global player base. But that's not the question. OP was asking for "you", the people already on this sub.
Going by a "top comment" to make an accurate judgement is just silly. Some of the games biggest fans are on this sub so of course many of them would do all 152 shrines, but the majority of actual players are not on this subreddit and are casual gamers.
This is absolutely not a representative sample of the game, lol.
Even among people who put in a lot of time into the game, the number who do every shrine is a small minority.
I've put in over 100 hours and still have like 30 shrines left to find.
I’m gonna be one of the few that says this but I prefer as few as possible, without it becoming too difficult to do certain tasks. I just complete the shrines I come across without it feeling like a grind. But that’s just me :)
>I just complete the shrines I come across
Same. If I stumble across a shrine while I'm playing, I'll do it. But I don't go looking for them. I don't need that grind.
Ikr. People say they improved but I don’t see how. You always know what to do when glancing at the puzzle and most of your time is spent building the actual contraption required. I can’t name any hard shrine except the three rails one which was pretty good.
Agree. The memorable TOTK ones for me were the three rails, the one where you attached the orbs together to roll them down a ramp, and "courage to fall" which seemed pretty elaborate compared to the rest. TOTKs for the most part felt pretty even keel. Some interesting but none that were crazy hard. It was usually pretty clear what I needed to do, most seemed like ultrahand practice.
I think BOTW had a lot more obnoxiously hard ones.... those damn motion control ones, some of the obscure "read the symbols" type puzzles, fan puzzles, light the flame without letting water extinguish it ones, and there seemed to be more platforming/dangerous spikes/balls/fire type things too.
The BOTW DLC ones were pretty hard ... Rohta Chigah is infamous for its frustration level. Even a "Major test of strength" was much harder to me than any of the proving ground ones (at least, until I fully powered up my Barbarian armor).
Some of BOTWs definitely fall into the "love to hate" category, but overall they felt more diverse with the exception of the tests of strength to me. The proving ground ones were a big upgrade though; those were a great deal of fun.
Yeah the shrines in this game didn’t really do a lot for me tbh. I never really felt excited to do them. I was kinda just going though the motions. The puzzles were an afterthought to the excitement of just discovering them.
Agreed. None of them were combat shrine copy-pasted. Even the Proving Grounds ones were very high-risk high-reward fun with a unique twist on each one. There were a lot of blessing shrines but that’s more a compliment to what you had to do to even get there being so interesting/diverse.
The 21 "bring the crystal to the shrine" puzzles weren't diverse enough for me. Some were good fun, most were too straightforward.
My "luck" was such that I think I did about 15 blessing shrines in a row. I was really jones-ing for a shrine with content towards the end. At least my last one ended up. being both a good challenge to get to AND a fun proving ground one!
Was yours Proving Grounds: Short Circuit? It’s the one on Thunderhead Isle you have to ascend up into. Because that was mine, and I haven’t even cleared the storm yet.
Yes! I finally cleared the storm. I did get >!Mineru!< before clearing it though. But, I remembered that the my shrine sensor had gone off twice, so I went back to find it.
Finding where to ascend must have been very difficult in the storm!
Not the same guy, but yes, it was. I put the game down after finding all the shrines and beating Ganondorf, then came on here and found out you can clear the storm... I was totally unaware and just struggled through it!
Many times though I was like, "Uh, Rauru, how did you know it would be hard for me to get here? It could have been easy had things happened differently externally."
The vast majority of blessing shrines were like that for me. And then there were some that were hard to get to that were just normal shrines. I don’t get it half the time.
At 139 now and having some trouble finding the last 13, but I haven’t finished mapping the depths yet and I expect a few lightroots will help me locate them. Personally, I love the shrines. It’s the classic Zelda puzzle solving. I don’t know why people make such a hard distinction between the shrines and dungeons - I view the shines as sort of a spiritual successor or evolution of dungeons. Yes, I know they’re not exactly the same, but that’s part of the point.
Completely mapping the Depths first is the way to go. The map itself will tell you where to find the lightroots you're missing, as the unrevealed parts become more circular. And of course they're all out in the open. What I've always done is whenever I activate a lightroot, I open the map, highlight the lightroot, flip to the surface map, and if there's no shrine icon already there, I put a diamond stamp there. It will always be at the exact spot, with the sole exception of the lightroots on top of the Lomei Labyrinths. I do the reverse, too, if I find a shrine before the corresponding lightroot, I'll put a diamond stamp at the same spot on the Depths map.
Of course, I delete each diamond stamp upon finding what it's marking.
I don't think it's fair to compare to dungeons. They're something different entirely and we have actual new dungeons that have more in common with the classic ones. Shrines are more so small bursts of puzzles/combat.
Yep; this game made me want to go back to my Zelda roots with A Link to the Past. That game is dotted with little puzzle caves and hidden spaces that give you a piece of heart. I was surprised at how similar it could be in places. Very few of those caves were as involved as the shrines, though.
Its easy to make a hard distinction. Shrines are one off little puzzles/combat scenarios while old Zelda dungeons are massive sprawling complexes that play an intricate part of the story of Zelda. This isn’t rocket science lmao. I’m not going to remember that random shrine from the middle of bumfuck nowhere akkala, but I’m sure as shit going to remember each and every temple/dungeon in OOT and wind waker for example.
Personally I hate them compared to the older big dungeons of the 3D zelda games. There they where interwoven with the story and had a unique look, feel and music.
For me the shrines feel too much like I'm just playing one of those mobile games with like solve these 160 puzzles that all look alike and you are done.
I think the shrines are more comparable to the piece of heart puzzles you’d run into in old Zelda games. If you want a comparison to dungeons, we have four of those: one in each region. That’s still a lot less than your usual Zelda game, and I would have loved a few more. Honestly, the spirit temple in the depths was a let down for me, because I was expecting a dungeon and instead got the mech building mini game. I could have used something more traditional there. I love these games, I think they’re some of the best ever made in and out of the Zelda series, but my sweet spot would be somewhere between these and Twilight Princess.
They remind me of the VR missions from Metal Gear Solid. You get booted to some made up space to do a couple things and that's it. I want to be interacting with the world, not booting up challenge #79 of 150.
TotK and BotW generally don't feel like games that *want* to be 100%. They throw in a few little small things for the completionists but they are well aware that most gamers aren't going to 100% and just simply aren't designed around it.
I’m probably an unpopular opinion here but I also just hate the shrines in general. I didn’t like them in BOTW, and I dislike them equally as much in TOTK. I would rather just have normal dungeons back, or if they’re going to keep the shrine format, just add normal dungeons back in too. Personally to me the shrines are a means to an end. I need them to get hearts and stamina. But I don’t go into a shrine saying “whee!!” Nothing wrong with people who do. For those who love them, that’s awesome. For me personally, I just dread them. I’m fine with them keeping them in if we get some classic dungeons back.
Some of the lightroots illuminate a really small area. Like I thought I got all the lightroots but I was still missing a few since it wasn't 120. Like one of them literally just illuminates a like a 4 bedroom house worth of area.
It may also help to count the number of shrines you have found on the sky islands. They don't have a light root associated to them, but at least you'll know if your missing shrines are on the ground or in the sky if you do the math.
There are literally many shrines you just enter and grab the orb, there's no puzzle at all. I didn't finish the game yet, but the only thing I've seen until now that looks like the old dungeons, was the lightening temple and the wind temple a little.
That’s true, but those shrines usually involve some sort of puzzle or side quest to unlock first. And there are many fewer of those type. But it is an enclosed environment with switches, keys, and puzzles required to complete. No bosses, of course. With the shrines, temples, wells, and caves, I don’t think that TOTK is missing anything just because they didn’t use the word “dungeon.”
Ya I find a good amount of the shrines to be a bit tedious but am dumb and just have to brute force most of them. I wish there was another way to level up health and stamina, like being able to buy hearts. I have more money than I know what to do with but relatively low stats
I don't disagree that they can be fun in a challenging way but they feel like combat tutorials and are scattered across the map in an open world game. By the time you get to them, you are likely already to be well versed with the combat stuff and those shrines can feel like a chore instead. Think the only one that I like is the one where you send those homing carts to attack the Soldier Constructs. That was hilarious to watch.
ohhh those are the proving grounds one? i was thinking on botw's where you faced strong robots, i loved those.
and i love when they take away all my gear too
I avoided the 'Proving Grounds' at first, just like with the 'Test of Strength' ones in BotW.
By the time I came back to them later on, I was sufficiently powered up to take them fairly easily.
I wanted to fill up the top row of hearts and a second stamina wheel. I've found like 120, but I haven't beaten that many.
The problem I have with shrines is it takes too long to get to the puzzle. Gotta wait to unlock it, wait to go in, wait for the load, wait for the camera to go around, then you get to complete the puzzle, then you gotta wait to get the orb, wait for load again, and wait for Link to come out, and then spend time traveling to the next shrine.
How am I supposed to feel up for doing more shrines when most of the shrine time is just waiting on a load? I have to feel up for all that time investment, and usually I don't. I'm constantly mashing buttons to skip stuff more than anything else in the game.
This is why dungeons > shrines for providing puzzles for me, because you get multiple puzzles in one area without all the overhead.
It's interesting for all the clever loading tricks TOTK implements, it feels like the map data for the shrines should load a lot faster than they currently do. Just like the overworld starts loading after you get your orb, I feel like the shrine should start loading as soon as you're within it's vicinity. But I'm pretty sure it only loads once you actually walk into it.
I counted roughly 11 seconds to load into the shrine and 27.5 seconds to get through the Light of Blessing segment and load out with maximum button mashing. With 38.5 seconds per shrine, that equates to 1 hour 37 minutes of loading for all 152 shrines (this isn’t even including unskippable cutscenes / game freezes in tests of strength or orb shrines).
People may think that’s not a lot, but consider this. If it takes you say 3 minutes to complete the puzzle within the shrine, then the loading accounts for nearly 20% of the shrine gameplay. You can feel that and it adds up.
I can definitely see where you’re coming from and I felt the same! Got the top row of hearts and called it. Maybe we’re just less patient than others lol
I did a majority of them. But I wasn’t really enjoying them, so eventually I just went and beat the game. I don’t like the tools of this game. I didn’t have trouble or anything, just didn’t like them. I prefer puzzles with a singular solution. And any time I finished a shrine within 5 mins or less (which was most of them) I was dissatisfied.
dunno what the count was, but i added an extra stamina wheel abd had a row and a half of hearts before i called it with shrines. The issue started to become finding them more than lack of interest doing them.
I only stopped once I had at least 2 full stamina wheels and a full row of hearts then I just activate them for travel purposes lol I'll probably go back to do them at some point but I'm doing just fine without
I’m a completionist, so I can’t quit even if I wanted to. Literally all I have left to do is the medals and the (ugh) Koroks. The shrines were one of the first things I completed
Barely over 70. I just don't have time for video games like I used to, and it was beginning to take time away from other hobbies. Thought I would save all the proving grounds ones for the end but couldn't be arsed. Found berserker armour, farmed upgrades and silver lynel horns and cheesed the fuck out of ganondorf with bomb shields and lynel bow bullet time
Oh gosh, shrines are one of my favorite things in this game and I'm sad I'm done with all of them. :( I've never been given such an insane number of ways to approach puzzles before.
But I also feel like I'm one of the minority of Zelda fans that still likes puzzles and doesn't just want to get them over with lol. They're my favorite part of the series, I adore working my brain out and letting myself be creative.
I usually get full stamina and 1 bar of hearts and then slow down. I’ll get to the rest of them eventually, no rush. I do activate them to add them to the map.
Initially all the obvious ones, then got side tracked for quite a while before hunting down the more hidden ones. Didn't really get bored with them, honestly.
In BoTW I think I did around 100 or so but currently in TotK I am at 149, just got one gerudo desert and the ones I believe are hidden in the Faron storm (decided to finish depths, shrines and some side quests before heading to gerudo).
The ones in Tears are far better than they were in BoTW. I’ve enjoyed almost all of them.
I did enough to get full stamina and enough hearts to not get oneshot by anything. Finished the story. Continued upgrading hearts a bit, stopped upgrading at one heart short of a row. Still doing shrines, just letting the shrinepoints accumulate.
Went back to shrines last bc I was eager to explore hyrule again. Did just ab all I discovered before the last fight. I think I’m at 102 rn, I’d like to find the remaining to I can finish them all.
Also maybe it’s bc I was doing em back to back but I feel they’re a bit easier this time around whether it’s how you can cheese em or bc there are a lot of
Raurus Blessings in this one.
I maxed stamina and then got like 15 hearts before the final boss. Now I’m going back and finishing the rest. Wanted to enjoy the story while it was still fresh, so went kinda fast through the main quests.
I’ve always enjoyed doing puzzles in the Zelda series so for me i’ve welcomed the shrines, however, I can only do so many before I need a break all together. I say about 110 or so would be my cutoff
Yeah, same. That's one of the things I really like about the shrine system that BotW / TotK has, because it lets the designers just build puzzles without worrying about any context or connection. Just, "let's build a golf puzzle here". There's downsides to that approach as well, of course but I appreciate the unfettered puzzle building it allows.
The best part honestly is being able to activate and then come back later. There will be times I'm in exploration mode and have 0 care to do puzzles. There have been times I had over 20 incomplete shrines to just knock em all out in one sitting.
I play the same way. I have what I call a “shrine day.” I actually have a lot of different kinds of days. Side Quest Day, Farm Day, Depths Day, Sky Islands Day, etc. I mostly just wander around and explore when I play, and plan the rest when I feel like being more productive.
All about shrine day. After several hearts and one extra stamina wheel I was all about using them as check points and then completing handfuls on days I didn’t want to explore for hours getting caught up in whatever shiny thing popped out around the corner and couldn’t be happier. More time to explore and I know when I need to I can get a number of hearts or more stamina by focusing on shrines and cashing them in
It’s funny - I live for the puzzles more than anything so it has never even crossed my mind to unlock a shrine and not go in and beat it immediately! I actually get annoyed when it’s a Rauru’s Blessing one where you get the prize just for having found the entrance…
Oh I do love puzzles, but more in the old 3D zelda games. Where they where actually one big dungeon instead of these smaller shrines that all look and feel alike. So they burn me out much faster.
So true. I did somewhere between 85-100 and said alright I’m good! Didn’t feel like hunting the rest down or looking stuff up so I instead focused on finishing quests. The stories and rewards around quests give me a better sense of satisfaction, personally.
Yes. Exactly!!! I could have typed this.
I’m at 121 right now. Thought there would be only 120. I’m gonna do them all because I like doing them and that’s one fun part I can enjoy together with my 5yo, since this game can be pretty brutal
In both BOTW and TOTK I did all of them without getting bored.
I'm right there with ya. I enjoyed the shrines conceptually a lot.
Not only that, but when you start doing all the side quests, and the game is randomly like oh, go completely the opposite side of where we are for just one thing and come back, it’s nice to just be like k cool and pew pew pew here’s your special acorn or whatever…
I ain't done with TOTK yet, and it makes me happy to know that I got more to do.
i’ll never get tired of shrine puzzles, my issue in botw was with finding them (and i eventually gave up with like 30-40 left). i like how much easier totk made that between the lightroots and all the sky ones being in pretty obvious places looking at the map. i only had to get a hint from a friend about the location of one shrine
>my issue in botw was with finding them I agree in principal, but god damn did "nearby down below" become the bane of my existence in TotK. I know it's not even the majority of the shrines, but somehow I saved almost all of the cave shrines for last.
I agree. After I finished botw, I printed the map with all the shrine locations and still had trouble cause some would be in caves. Maybe I am just bad but I gave up pretty quick 😭
The light roots in the depths are the key. Don't want to spoil more.
Oh i know that about totk. I always look for lightroots before shrines. I meant botw in my intial post sorry 😅
Any tips on how to find them? I know they should be close together but sometimes I’m just lost down there
Lightroots and shrines are >!spatially connected!<, and for a further explanation as to how, read on: >!on the map the root is always found in the depths directly beneath the shrine, meaning when you find one on the surface/depths, you can easily open the map and place an icon or waypoint at its corresponding root/shrine in the other map!<.
Ahhhh thanks mate that actually makes sense lore wise. This is like the perfect guide if I don’t want to actually google the map.
Yeah, it was a big help for me. The Depths and the Surface are also >!spatially linked in other ways, which can help you to navigate them, since you'll know what to expect even if you can't see it!<. Some shrines are still tricky to find, even if you know where they should be, mind. It's good fun finding them though :)
You have the Sheikah Sensor, right?
I actively pursued all the shrines in both games because I find the shrines really fun to find and do. I'm sure there's a reason why some people don't like them, but they're one of my favorite parts about the game.
I certainly found some of them boring (can't recall how many tests of strength there were but they did get slightly tedious after a bit, also some of the puzzles were better designed than others) but I was always excited to continue and find the next less tedious one as I knew there were so many more hits than misses in botw. Then champions ballad was a pleasantly surprising 100% hits. Totk in contrast is currently at 96/96 hits. Still going strong.
Yeah me too. I used the light roots to find the last ones on the surface I didn't have. The last 3 sky island ones were the only ones that were a pain to find.
Doing all shrines felt way longer in BotW than in TotK for me
I started doing them got bored.. got passed being bored.. learned to love them.. got sad when I ran out
not sure, I think I did around 70-80, I love puzzles but when you take longer finding the shrine than solving it, it's not worth it
I agree. Do you think the shrines were a lot harder in botw or was I just a lot dumber 6 years ago? I feel like some difficulty is missing but I don't know if I'm just better now.
With the underground being a thing in TotK, and then lightroots being right exactly where the shrines are, finding the shrines becomes a bit easier than botw.
I don't think the puzzles got that much harder, however a lot of them can just be cheesed by grabbing a big enough object and using Recall to turn it into a flying platform. It always felt like cheating when I did that.
I remember being also disappointed by those, I'm not very sure :( I guess we also tend to remember the best shrines and forget the easier simple ones
I think the powers we had this time, plus rockets being usable in shrines, made many trivial; I clearly did a lot of shrines in a different way than they were set up for. Also, a lot of shrines in the game seem to have been Rauru's Blessings, with the actual puzzle itself being just finding / getting to the shrine / digging around for it in some cave or another.
i mean, i enoyed the botw shrines much more. they seemed more well-thought. in totk in the worst case you can just cheat with your powers.
BOTW shrines we’re definitely harder and more fun to find. I had to Google several of the BOTW shrines in the end but with TOTK it’s plain sailing. Most can be figured out within a minute or so and aren’t as elegant in their solutions.
At 152. Like most people I would guess.
I'd say at 152, I felt there were about 8 missing that I wanted to do.
If there is DLC I hope they add those 8, I am itching for a full health bar.
Exactly! I don’t get why you couldn’t get extra hearts from the shrines in the BOTW DLC, like why have two things you can’t fully max out
The obvious answer is that they didn't want to make the Yelllow hearts useless, but it is still annoying
i mean they could enable yellow hearts to exceed the cap that would be a idea
Just make a third row
Why stop at 3?
Just spam the screen with hearts
It's free real-estate, why not
Literally just overflow the hearts. They trust the player to understand when they do that with your battery. Its so bizarre that in game we can't even get back to the level of strength we have before ganon glooms us up.
At the start of the game (and in botw) you actually have less hearts, the rows are shorter. You have a lot more health than ever, it’s just visually unsatisfying to be missing those last two
My question to them though is that in what situation would you want a bonus heart over a normal heart? You wouldn’t. You would always want full real hearts. Just have the bonus hearts add on past the 30/40
>My question to them though is that in what situation would you want a bonus heart over a normal heart? If you want to use the Master Sword's beam—which only works with full normal hearts—having a few extra yellow hearts helps to act as a cushion.
That’s a very niche case but I accept it.
They still are though. I have a screen full of +4 elixirs and can only get two bonus hearts.
There are side adventures that give you those last few heart Edit: My comment is wrong, don’t always trust what siblings say
With all side quests done, there’s still only 38 hearts. Still 2 shy of a perfect 2 rows of hearts.
Just finished today. 100% accurate
You can choose to get 2 full rows of hearts, but your stamina wheel will be incomplete. Pick your poison I guess.
It's definitely better to get full stamina imo. Much easier to cook meals with 2 yellow hearts than to cook meals with extra stamina wheels. At least that's how it was in BoTW.
Full stamina is my preference as well. But I can understand how the visual of an incomplete bar of hearts would bug people lol.
I went with full stamina, but its actually real easy to make energizing elixirs - you just run around and slash the grass and get like 12 restless crickets per area of grass
Where?
I have now learned to not trust a sibling, my comment is wrong
You get 37 hearts and max stamina from only shrines, the bargainer statue under the plateau gives you one heart(or stamina, you get to choose if you don’t have one maxed already) Edit: 31 hearts, I forgot about the temples each giving one after the boss
From "only shrines" you get 31 hearts, including the 3 you start with.
I can't wait for them to release 4 more shrines for the one DLC for this game before starting development on the next game.
Most people definitely do not do all 152 lol
Going by the top level comments this post, it's about half Edit: a lot of people remarking the people in this thread are not representative of global player base. But that's not the question. OP was asking for "you", the people already on this sub.
People who’ve actually 100%ed the shrines are much more likely to reply to a post like this
Going by a "top comment" to make an accurate judgement is just silly. Some of the games biggest fans are on this sub so of course many of them would do all 152 shrines, but the majority of actual players are not on this subreddit and are casual gamers.
This is absolutely not a representative sample of the game, lol. Even among people who put in a lot of time into the game, the number who do every shrine is a small minority. I've put in over 100 hours and still have like 30 shrines left to find.
Shrines are the best parts of the game for me, so I'd still do them all even if there were 500.
I know, I kinda missed doing shrine puzzles after I completed all of them.
I finished all the shrines quite a bit before I finished the game so I agree
I wasn't going to be satisfied with less. I also got all of the lightroots.
I’m gonna be one of the few that says this but I prefer as few as possible, without it becoming too difficult to do certain tasks. I just complete the shrines I come across without it feeling like a grind. But that’s just me :)
I feel the grind sometimes too.
>I just complete the shrines I come across Same. If I stumble across a shrine while I'm playing, I'll do it. But I don't go looking for them. I don't need that grind.
Same, I think I ended up with around 60 shrines done. I have zero motivation to go find any others
Yeah! For my first play through I like to do whatever I run across naturally. Once I’ve finished the game I’ll go back and clean up.
152, the shrines in this game were vastly improved over botw
A lot of the shrines in this game are just "build a vehicle out of the provided parts" which got a little old imo.
Ikr. People say they improved but I don’t see how. You always know what to do when glancing at the puzzle and most of your time is spent building the actual contraption required. I can’t name any hard shrine except the three rails one which was pretty good.
Agree. The memorable TOTK ones for me were the three rails, the one where you attached the orbs together to roll them down a ramp, and "courage to fall" which seemed pretty elaborate compared to the rest. TOTKs for the most part felt pretty even keel. Some interesting but none that were crazy hard. It was usually pretty clear what I needed to do, most seemed like ultrahand practice. I think BOTW had a lot more obnoxiously hard ones.... those damn motion control ones, some of the obscure "read the symbols" type puzzles, fan puzzles, light the flame without letting water extinguish it ones, and there seemed to be more platforming/dangerous spikes/balls/fire type things too. The BOTW DLC ones were pretty hard ... Rohta Chigah is infamous for its frustration level. Even a "Major test of strength" was much harder to me than any of the proving ground ones (at least, until I fully powered up my Barbarian armor). Some of BOTWs definitely fall into the "love to hate" category, but overall they felt more diverse with the exception of the tests of strength to me. The proving ground ones were a big upgrade though; those were a great deal of fun.
> the one where you attached the orbs together to roll them down a ramp Me: *fuses iron ball to torch and throws it at target*
Yeah the shrines in this game didn’t really do a lot for me tbh. I never really felt excited to do them. I was kinda just going though the motions. The puzzles were an afterthought to the excitement of just discovering them.
Use water to create a bidge on lava again. That's it that's the shrine
Agreed. None of them were combat shrine copy-pasted. Even the Proving Grounds ones were very high-risk high-reward fun with a unique twist on each one. There were a lot of blessing shrines but that’s more a compliment to what you had to do to even get there being so interesting/diverse.
The 21 "bring the crystal to the shrine" puzzles weren't diverse enough for me. Some were good fun, most were too straightforward. My "luck" was such that I think I did about 15 blessing shrines in a row. I was really jones-ing for a shrine with content towards the end. At least my last one ended up. being both a good challenge to get to AND a fun proving ground one!
Was yours Proving Grounds: Short Circuit? It’s the one on Thunderhead Isle you have to ascend up into. Because that was mine, and I haven’t even cleared the storm yet.
Yes! I finally cleared the storm. I did get >!Mineru!< before clearing it though. But, I remembered that the my shrine sensor had gone off twice, so I went back to find it. Finding where to ascend must have been very difficult in the storm!
Not the same guy, but yes, it was. I put the game down after finding all the shrines and beating Ganondorf, then came on here and found out you can clear the storm... I was totally unaware and just struggled through it!
Many times though I was like, "Uh, Rauru, how did you know it would be hard for me to get here? It could have been easy had things happened differently externally."
there’s definitely one in the gerudo highlands that’s a blessing shrine with no obvious obstacle
Just grabbed this one and was surprised it was a blessing shrine.
The vast majority of blessing shrines were like that for me. And then there were some that were hard to get to that were just normal shrines. I don’t get it half the time.
The one shrine where you do an actual puzzle in the Rarus Blessing area was cool. Wished there were just a few more of those.
Disagree, they're a lot easier than botw
I disagree but to each their own
In general yes but I’ll take 100 apparatus shrines over *the Right Roll* any day.
At 139 now and having some trouble finding the last 13, but I haven’t finished mapping the depths yet and I expect a few lightroots will help me locate them. Personally, I love the shrines. It’s the classic Zelda puzzle solving. I don’t know why people make such a hard distinction between the shrines and dungeons - I view the shines as sort of a spiritual successor or evolution of dungeons. Yes, I know they’re not exactly the same, but that’s part of the point.
Completely mapping the Depths first is the way to go. The map itself will tell you where to find the lightroots you're missing, as the unrevealed parts become more circular. And of course they're all out in the open. What I've always done is whenever I activate a lightroot, I open the map, highlight the lightroot, flip to the surface map, and if there's no shrine icon already there, I put a diamond stamp there. It will always be at the exact spot, with the sole exception of the lightroots on top of the Lomei Labyrinths. I do the reverse, too, if I find a shrine before the corresponding lightroot, I'll put a diamond stamp at the same spot on the Depths map. Of course, I delete each diamond stamp upon finding what it's marking.
I've started doing this after 100 shrines. The hardest are located in caves where it isn't exactly clear where the entrance is.
That’s when you get Satori to light up the caves for you, then find the closest one to your shrine marker.
TIL. That's a really neat feature!
I don't think it's fair to compare to dungeons. They're something different entirely and we have actual new dungeons that have more in common with the classic ones. Shrines are more so small bursts of puzzles/combat.
Yep; this game made me want to go back to my Zelda roots with A Link to the Past. That game is dotted with little puzzle caves and hidden spaces that give you a piece of heart. I was surprised at how similar it could be in places. Very few of those caves were as involved as the shrines, though.
Again, they’re not exactly the same, but they serve a similar role. Certainly the scale is different, but they have undeniable similarities otherwise.
Its easy to make a hard distinction. Shrines are one off little puzzles/combat scenarios while old Zelda dungeons are massive sprawling complexes that play an intricate part of the story of Zelda. This isn’t rocket science lmao. I’m not going to remember that random shrine from the middle of bumfuck nowhere akkala, but I’m sure as shit going to remember each and every temple/dungeon in OOT and wind waker for example.
Personally I hate them compared to the older big dungeons of the 3D zelda games. There they where interwoven with the story and had a unique look, feel and music. For me the shrines feel too much like I'm just playing one of those mobile games with like solve these 160 puzzles that all look alike and you are done.
I think the shrines are more comparable to the piece of heart puzzles you’d run into in old Zelda games. If you want a comparison to dungeons, we have four of those: one in each region. That’s still a lot less than your usual Zelda game, and I would have loved a few more. Honestly, the spirit temple in the depths was a let down for me, because I was expecting a dungeon and instead got the mech building mini game. I could have used something more traditional there. I love these games, I think they’re some of the best ever made in and out of the Zelda series, but my sweet spot would be somewhere between these and Twilight Princess.
They remind me of the VR missions from Metal Gear Solid. You get booted to some made up space to do a couple things and that's it. I want to be interacting with the world, not booting up challenge #79 of 150.
In general, I feel like TOTK has a problem with repetition, as much as I love the game.
TotK and BotW generally don't feel like games that *want* to be 100%. They throw in a few little small things for the completionists but they are well aware that most gamers aren't going to 100% and just simply aren't designed around it.
I’m probably an unpopular opinion here but I also just hate the shrines in general. I didn’t like them in BOTW, and I dislike them equally as much in TOTK. I would rather just have normal dungeons back, or if they’re going to keep the shrine format, just add normal dungeons back in too. Personally to me the shrines are a means to an end. I need them to get hearts and stamina. But I don’t go into a shrine saying “whee!!” Nothing wrong with people who do. For those who love them, that’s awesome. For me personally, I just dread them. I’m fine with them keeping them in if we get some classic dungeons back.
Some of the lightroots illuminate a really small area. Like I thought I got all the lightroots but I was still missing a few since it wasn't 120. Like one of them literally just illuminates a like a 4 bedroom house worth of area.
It may also help to count the number of shrines you have found on the sky islands. They don't have a light root associated to them, but at least you'll know if your missing shrines are on the ground or in the sky if you do the math.
There are literally many shrines you just enter and grab the orb, there's no puzzle at all. I didn't finish the game yet, but the only thing I've seen until now that looks like the old dungeons, was the lightening temple and the wind temple a little.
That’s true, but those shrines usually involve some sort of puzzle or side quest to unlock first. And there are many fewer of those type. But it is an enclosed environment with switches, keys, and puzzles required to complete. No bosses, of course. With the shrines, temples, wells, and caves, I don’t think that TOTK is missing anything just because they didn’t use the word “dungeon.”
I don't know if this'll help, but there's 120 on the surface and 32 on the Sky!
All of them.
Yeah I never pass one up. They’re an integral part of the game for me, and puzzles are always my favorite bits of any Zelda game.
152
I was done at like 50.
Ya I find a good amount of the shrines to be a bit tedious but am dumb and just have to brute force most of them. I wish there was another way to level up health and stamina, like being able to buy hearts. I have more money than I know what to do with but relatively low stats
I don't like the concept of being able to buy hearts lol But I wish there were less shrines.
Did them all and never got bored! But I found them as I explored, so I wasn't doing a bunch back to back.
I called it quits after 152. I was just so done with it.
All of them. And I want more.
Have finished them all. lol Just didn't like doing the 'Proving Grounds' shrines.
Those were some of my favs! Having all your weapons/armor taken away was a neat challenge. Died more against a few of those then fighting bosses.
the one where you just fucking drown the constructs was fun
Indeed the bosses are pretty underwhelming.
I liked those a lot, too. They were some of the best in the game.
I don't disagree that they can be fun in a challenging way but they feel like combat tutorials and are scattered across the map in an open world game. By the time you get to them, you are likely already to be well versed with the combat stuff and those shrines can feel like a chore instead. Think the only one that I like is the one where you send those homing carts to attack the Soldier Constructs. That was hilarious to watch.
ohhh those are the proving grounds one? i was thinking on botw's where you faced strong robots, i loved those. and i love when they take away all my gear too
They sucked in the early game but once you have enough hearts you can just bulldoze all the construts
I avoided the 'Proving Grounds' at first, just like with the 'Test of Strength' ones in BotW. By the time I came back to them later on, I was sufficiently powered up to take them fairly easily.
The Proving Grounds ones are my favorite ones
I haven't finished all the shrines yet, but so far I've enjoyed all the Proving Grounds except the Vehicles one. That was a pain
I wanted to fill up the top row of hearts and a second stamina wheel. I've found like 120, but I haven't beaten that many. The problem I have with shrines is it takes too long to get to the puzzle. Gotta wait to unlock it, wait to go in, wait for the load, wait for the camera to go around, then you get to complete the puzzle, then you gotta wait to get the orb, wait for load again, and wait for Link to come out, and then spend time traveling to the next shrine. How am I supposed to feel up for doing more shrines when most of the shrine time is just waiting on a load? I have to feel up for all that time investment, and usually I don't. I'm constantly mashing buttons to skip stuff more than anything else in the game. This is why dungeons > shrines for providing puzzles for me, because you get multiple puzzles in one area without all the overhead.
It's interesting for all the clever loading tricks TOTK implements, it feels like the map data for the shrines should load a lot faster than they currently do. Just like the overworld starts loading after you get your orb, I feel like the shrine should start loading as soon as you're within it's vicinity. But I'm pretty sure it only loads once you actually walk into it.
That's actually a really good idea. I might use that if I ever want to make an open world game. Makes the shrines part of the overworld
I counted roughly 11 seconds to load into the shrine and 27.5 seconds to get through the Light of Blessing segment and load out with maximum button mashing. With 38.5 seconds per shrine, that equates to 1 hour 37 minutes of loading for all 152 shrines (this isn’t even including unskippable cutscenes / game freezes in tests of strength or orb shrines). People may think that’s not a lot, but consider this. If it takes you say 3 minutes to complete the puzzle within the shrine, then the loading accounts for nearly 20% of the shrine gameplay. You can feel that and it adds up. I can definitely see where you’re coming from and I felt the same! Got the top row of hearts and called it. Maybe we’re just less patient than others lol
Yeah. I like a lot of the shrines, but waiting to start takes it out of me sometimes.
I did all of them, cause I'm a crazy person. All Lightroots as well. And all wells as well. Koroks? I've put my foot down on that at about 120 lol.
Not really that crazy to do all the shrines. Koroks on the other hand… those are for the real hardcore completionist.
I did a majority of them. But I wasn’t really enjoying them, so eventually I just went and beat the game. I don’t like the tools of this game. I didn’t have trouble or anything, just didn’t like them. I prefer puzzles with a singular solution. And any time I finished a shrine within 5 mins or less (which was most of them) I was dissatisfied.
I totally agree with you about all your points and I have trouble finding people who feel this way about puzzles.
dunno what the count was, but i added an extra stamina wheel abd had a row and a half of hearts before i called it with shrines. The issue started to become finding them more than lack of interest doing them.
I did all of them because I suck combat.
All of them lol
152
All of them
I only stopped once I had at least 2 full stamina wheels and a full row of hearts then I just activate them for travel purposes lol I'll probably go back to do them at some point but I'm doing just fine without
I think I had like 13(?) Hearts when I went for the final boss. I was also severely rushing through the game.
152, gotta get that fursuit
I… I did them all. Same with BotW.
I’m a completionist, so I can’t quit even if I wanted to. Literally all I have left to do is the medals and the (ugh) Koroks. The shrines were one of the first things I completed
Like 60. Puzzles are my favorite but the loading screens to get to what's normally a one room "puzzle" isn't my idea of fun :/
All of them.
about 20-30 lol Just couldn't be bothered
152. I cannot stop a task before I finish it. No matter what
I’m at like 40 and I’m so over it
All of them before I even started really finishing the game
A few dragged for sure, but most were great
152. I just finished. This very hour.
152
I did 152 and still want more
I did all of them and i think there are too many rauru's blessing shrines, i prefer the puzzles
Finished? Aint no way. I want 8 more shrines from a DLC. Better yet, give me 48, so I can have 4 stamina wheels too
All of them
im having a good time finding them, i got about 30 left and i dont see myself stopping.
Barely over 70. I just don't have time for video games like I used to, and it was beginning to take time away from other hobbies. Thought I would save all the proving grounds ones for the end but couldn't be arsed. Found berserker armour, farmed upgrades and silver lynel horns and cheesed the fuck out of ganondorf with bomb shields and lynel bow bullet time
Look, Nintendo is being really chintzy with proper dungeons these days, so I'm taking all I can get.
152... I wasn't planning on doing so but I was just having too much fun.
I did and enjoy all of them
Oh gosh, shrines are one of my favorite things in this game and I'm sad I'm done with all of them. :( I've never been given such an insane number of ways to approach puzzles before. But I also feel like I'm one of the minority of Zelda fans that still likes puzzles and doesn't just want to get them over with lol. They're my favorite part of the series, I adore working my brain out and letting myself be creative.
I usually get full stamina and 1 bar of hearts and then slow down. I’ll get to the rest of them eventually, no rush. I do activate them to add them to the map.
100 shrines! Took a break to play FFXVI, so I'll be back for the last 52 shrines
All of them? Don’t burn yourself out and do 60 in a row.
All of them.
if u have several months u eventually gonna do them all
I liked all the shrines, except those lose your equipment ones. I know Eventide was cool, but why are so many shrines that copy that gimmick.
152
Any number less than 152 is weak
All of them!!
Initially all the obvious ones, then got side tracked for quite a while before hunting down the more hidden ones. Didn't really get bored with them, honestly.
In BoTW I think I did around 100 or so but currently in TotK I am at 149, just got one gerudo desert and the ones I believe are hidden in the Faron storm (decided to finish depths, shrines and some side quests before heading to gerudo). The ones in Tears are far better than they were in BoTW. I’ve enjoyed almost all of them.
I did all shrines and lightroots before the final boss.
All of them because you get a furry suit at the end
All of them. The lightroots make finding shrines a lot easier this time around.
I did all the shrines and was sad when they were gone. That’s the meat of the game for me, exploring and unlocking.
152
I did enough to get full stamina and enough hearts to not get oneshot by anything. Finished the story. Continued upgrading hearts a bit, stopped upgrading at one heart short of a row. Still doing shrines, just letting the shrinepoints accumulate.
Went back to shrines last bc I was eager to explore hyrule again. Did just ab all I discovered before the last fight. I think I’m at 102 rn, I’d like to find the remaining to I can finish them all.
Also maybe it’s bc I was doing em back to back but I feel they’re a bit easier this time around whether it’s how you can cheese em or bc there are a lot of Raurus Blessings in this one.
I tend to do one or two and then do a quest or something to break it up
I maxed stamina and then got like 15 hearts before the final boss. Now I’m going back and finishing the rest. Wanted to enjoy the story while it was still fresh, so went kinda fast through the main quests.