The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom - Link touching a shrine, Link looking over Hyrule, and Link standing in front of a shrine

One of the key components to Nintendo’s phenomenal The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was the many shrines the player had to visit to level up Link’s health and stamina. While players could completely bypass these shrines, it would make playing the game incredibly difficult because Link couldn’t take any hits and would struggle to dodge with minimal stamina.


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The highly anticipated sequel, Tears of the Kingdom (TotK), has kept this mechanic intact. The shrines offer a wide range of puzzles and combat to teach players how to use the game’s mechanics and challenge their problem-solving skills. With over 150 shrines, many different types and challenges exist, but some stand out.

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10 Kyononis Shrine

The Kyononis Shrine is one of the shrines that most fans would agree is imperative to complete early in the game. Although the shrine is simplistic, it teaches players valuable combat skills that include how to dodge incoming attacks, how to use a dodge to create an opening to strike back, and how to perform a backflip that can create an opportunity to hit the enemy.

The shrine also teaches players how to parry incoming attacks with their shields and use charged attacks. These moves sound simple, but without knowing the proper commands to complete them, players may struggle to understand what to do in intense combat situations. Arguably, this may be one of the most useful shrines in the entire game to help guarantee Link’s survival.

9 Zakusu Shrine

Of all the shrine puzzles in Tears of the Kingdom, the Zakusu Shrine might be one of the most fun puzzles because it implements the extremely satisfying shield surfacing mechanic. It’s a little tricky to get to, though. The shrine is located right near the Spring of Wisdom, but to unlock it, players must launch themselves into the sky with the Mount Lanayru Skyview Tower and land on a floating platform in the sky map.

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There are a few shields and a shield already fused with a sled near the shrine’s activation point. Pick these up before activating the shrine, then shield surf down the snowy ramp. Link will land on the mountainside and sled through several glowing hoops in order to unlock this shrine. From there, Link will enter a proving grounds challenge that will strip him of all his equipment. These style shrines are particularly challenging because the player must beat powerful enemies with limited resources.

8 Sifumim Shrine

The Sifumim Shrine is another challenge that strips Link of all his armor and powerful weapons, leaving him with nothing but the simplistic equipment the shrine offers. What’s interesting about this shrine, however, is that Link gets to rely more on his gadgets than actual combat to defeat the construct enemies inside.

This shrine helps highlight how useful Link’s gadgets actually are in tight situations. Using ulterior methods is often much more efficient than engaging in head-on combat. There’s little point in fighting enemies that are more powerful than Link when Link can just remove the platform they’re perched on.

7 Ekochiu Shrine

Located near the Woodland Stable, Ekochiu is another shrine that teaches the players how to utilize a fundamental game mechanic. This shrine should be one of the earliest puzzles completed by the player.

This shrine highlights how efficient the Recall ability is and what situations it can be used for. It also shows how Link can combine multiple abilities to achieve a goal. In the Ekochiu Shrine, he uses Ultrahand and Recall to move platforms through the puzzle to get him across. Many shrines that utilize Recall use the ability to move around complex areas, but it’s also a great method for combat as well.

6 Yamiyo Shrine

This shrine renders all of Link’s attacks useless except for throwing objects at the construct. While this shrine sounds extremely simplistic (because it is!), it’s vital information for TotK. Back in Breath of the Wild, players had to buy specific arrow types like fire, ice, and bomb arrows. They could also farm for them by defeating specific enemies, but TotK changed all that.

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Now Link can simply farm for consumable items like Fire Fruit. As demonstrated in this shrine, Link can throw these items at enemies for considerable damage. He can also convert arrows into specific damage types by equipping these items to the arrows before firing them.

5 Ishodag Shrine

The Ishodag shrine is a relatively easy shrine to unlock early on in the game, but the challenge is deceptively tricky. This puzzle mainly revolves around learning how to use the fan Zonai device. First, players must place one flat on the ground to use the air current to glide up. Next, they will fix a fan to a wooden plank to create a makeshift raft, though different fan placements will result in different efficiencies of how well the raft works.

Finally, players will have to figure out how to affix multiple fans to multiple surfaces in order to reach both the treasure chest and the finish line. While the solution for this shrine is straightforward, if this is the first time the player has worked with the fans, it’s easy to get turned around. The lesson learned in the Ishodag shrine will pop up everywhere around Hyrule.

4 Susuyai Shrine

The Susuyai Shrine is another back-to-basics-style shrine that teaches Link how to utilize a basic mechanic in the game. For the Susuyai Shrine, it’s all about building constructs that can help Link travel. In truth, players can sort of cheat the system by taking a pre-built cart from the first section and moving it through the shrine with Ultrahand.

The pre-built carts are there to help teach the players how to make their own, though. This shrine also demonstrates how a built construct can be broken down into smaller parts again and utilized in completely different ways.

3 Orochium Shrine

The Orochium Shrine combines all the best parts of a fun-yet-challenging Legend of Zelda puzzle. This shrine forces players to use a wide range of skills in their arsenal, including multiple of Link’s abilities, combat proficiency, and critical thinking.

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Orochium also requires just a little luck because the puzzle is filled with lasers that will open the floor beneath Link’s feet. Most of these traps will send Link plummeting to his death, but there is an instance where that’s exactly what Link is supposed to do. Finding that sweet spot is the key to completing this shrine.

2 Jiukoum Shrine

The puzzle for the Jiukoum Shrine revolves entirely around building ideal shapes with basic slates to slide across grind rails without falling off. If Link’s creations can’t carry him from one side to the next stably, Link will fall off the rails and into the abyss below.

While the builds for this shrine are relatively simple, it demonstrates multiple ways in which a slate can be used effectively, and it doesn’t leave much room for error, meaning that the player must be exact with their builds in order to survive.

1 Mayaotaki Shrine

If anyone remembers the maze puzzle from Breath of the Wild, they might dread the Mayaotaki Shrine. This is one of the most complex and difficult shrines in the game that takes a lot of different skills to navigate successfully. Essentially, players must navigate a massive maze filled with obstacles, dead ends, notes to read, and lots of pinecones.

There are many ways to make it through the maze to eventually find the shrine and the rewards within, but the maze is challenging to navigate and might frustrate players. The chest within the shrine does reward a diamond, though, so it’s definitely worth the grind.

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