Top 62 Things to Stumble Across in Breath of the Wild

Method

These are the things that are eligible for this list:

• Shrines
• Quests
• Divine Beasts (NOT including the quests before you get inside the divine beast, I’d put those in the “Quests” category)
• Single Specific Koroks
• Minigames
• Puzzles
• Towers
• Cutscenes
• Secrets
• Combat sequences
• Explorable areas (Focusing on navigating it, exploring it, looking at it, doing normal breath of the wild stuff like fighting dudes, looking for koroks, looking for shrines/resources/secrets.)
• Towns (Focusing on the shops, dialogue with citizens, architecture, music, exploring it, stuff like that. Including quests that don’t make you leave the town.)
• And possibly more!

I’m not allowing entries like “The first time you find a korok”, or “The first time you fight a lynel”. I just don’t think that’s as fun of a list, that’ll just end up being a list of gameplay elements.

Criteria

I think when making a ranking list, it’s best to start with what factors we’re looking for:

• Surprise factor: When something catches you by surprise and makes you say “oh wow, really?” Huge points for that.
• Beauty/atmosphere factor: When something just looks really cool, or sounds really good, or just generally feels good, also huge points.
• Confusion factor: This is a fairly unique thing about Breath of the Wild: sometimes you enter a room and you’re just absolutely bewildered at what you’re supposed to be doing, or what you’re even looking at. You’re confused. It’s pretty fun.
• Saturation factor: Sometimes they just pack a ton of semi-interesting stuff in one small space, and you’re excited by the possibilities of what to do first, and that’s just super fun, as you interact with each bit.
• Legitimate puzzle factor: A puzzle that is legitimately well-designed, by traditional puzzle standards.
• Many-solutions factor: A puzzle that is fun because it has a lot of differing solutions, so the player feels like they found their own way. Good for the game’s feeling of a “personalized adventure”. I think a legitimate puzzle is slightly better, but this is fun too.
• Legitimate gameplay factor: A moment that feels like a video game, for example, an enjoyable test of skill, especially if the skills involved are the central skills in the game (e.g. combat, aim, movement).
• World riddles factor: When the game asks you to think about the world, or an environment. Like if you have to use your map and think about how to do a quest. Or when you have to think about what the heck Kass just said, instead of just interacting with highlighted things in the environment. (This is one of the most underappreciated parts of video games IMO. This is the main reason I love vanilla WoW so much.)
• Interesting lore factor: It doesn’t happen that often, but some of the story and lore in this game is pretty good. Most of it is fine, but some of it is great.
• Joke factor: Some things in this game are just funny. And that’s enough.

And these aspects would disqualify something from making the list:

• Poor replayability: If it’s not fun at all the second time you play through the game, that’s big minus points. There are shrines with simple fun physics puzzles, that are just a chore to play the second time because they’re so obvious and rote.
• Duplicate content: Fighting a lynel is fun the first few times, not so much the tenth.
• Annoyingly difficult: There are a few koroks in this game that are just obnoxiously hard. I do kinda respect it, but I don’t like it.

Why “Stumble Across”?

I think if someone tells you to go do anything on this list, and you go do it, you won’t be impressed at all. Because really, a lot of this stuff isn’t that impressive. But when you “stumble across” this stuff on your own adventures, it magnifies the fun. ‘Cause stumbling across stuff is what the game is all about! That’s my opinion, anyway.

Spoilers?

Yeah I mean, we’re gonna spoil a lot of stuff, to some degree. But for a lot of stuff, like shrines, I’ll try to link a video at the top of the writeup, and then you can scrub through it briefly to see if you’ve done that shrine yet. And if you haven’t done it, you can skip the post.

But yeaaah if you’re in the middle of a playthrough, maybe don’t read this.

Opinion on Weapon Durability?

Eh, it’s fine. I think there are probably better solutions to what they were trying to solve, but I respect this solution.

DLC?

Yeah, DLC stuff is eligible for this list. Lots of stuff from DLC2 is in here. BUT all of it is like, generic names of shrines and stuff, so it’ll be pretty easy to skip those posts.

The List!

62. Shrine: Katosa Aug Shrine: “Katosa Aug Apparatus”

Breath of the Wild might have the most Golf of any non-Golf video game.

And all of the golf in it is somehow really good! This here is the motion controlled minigolf-style shrine: you control a gigantic stone golf putter, and you slam it into a giant orb, to putt it into a hole.

This makes the list mostly due to Joke Factor. Well actually, I thought it felt pretty darn good, and it felt like it took a little bit of actual skill to complete the second hole, where the ball must follow a curved slope. So, giving it a few points for Legitimate Gameplay Factor.

And if you hate fun and silly things, well, there are only two holes, and the second is optional. So no big deal! I appreciate that they did not let shrines always follow the rule of threes. Sometimes, two is enough.

Honestly? More minigolf in video games please. It’s under-represented and better than real golf.

61. Explorable Area: Fort Hateno

Environmental storytelling is pretty trite, but I really enjoyed this use of it. Just by looking at it, you can tell some clearly important battle happened at this wall, perhaps somebody’s “last stand”. And then, there’s a great payoff, 100 hours later, when you learn who’s “last stand” it was. So, huge points for the Lore Factor here.

If you’re into scavenging every single dead guardian for parts, there’s a good chance you’ll get a surprise from the, like, one-ish that actually activate. That was pretty well done I thought, since you’ll probably approach so many of them without activating any. Good Surprise Factor.

I also really like the presence of that random professor guy in the tiny house on the other side of the wall. He’s a nice touch, just an interesting guy to talk to and learn some lore. Why the frig can’t he figure out this riddle of his.

I also really like the korok on top of the gateway, it’s a pretty tough bow challenge, where you hit the tiny pots flying above the treeline. Good Saturation Factor here with all the stuff to do!

60. Tower: Hateno Tower

The towers are one of my favorite things about the game. I love the atmospheric music when you get close to them, I love how each one is slightly different.

Really, these don’t particularly long on the list, because they aren’t that different from each other.

BUT I decided to squeeze this one barely onto the list, because I think the thorns wrapping around it look particularly nice looking, in a “wild” sort of way, earning some Beauty/Atmosphere Factor points. Plus the view of hateno village and its laboratory are great (but that’s true of most towers).

I’m also giving it some Multiple Solution points, because you get to decide how you want to burn the thorns (I like how they hint at this by putting a nearby cooking pot), or I’m pretty sure you can strategically climb around the backside and avoid the thorns (right?? or can you). You’re also very likely to come to this tower early, before you have very many cheat codes to get to the top.

I also like that when you’re entering the Hateno valley, you’ve got an obvious choice between following the path to the village, or following the path to the Tower. Tough choice! So there’s kinda a little bit of Saturation Factor there. But I’m not even going to bold it.

I will admit this is not the only Tower on the list.

59. Shrine Quest: Master of the Wind (Kass)

Kass quests are a good example of World Riddles: quests or riddles that make you think about the world or environment, and therefore, make you roleplay a little bit. You have to read something, and then actually understand what the text said.

Games have drifted away from this, sadly. These days, they give you waypoints, and compass markers, and worse yet, they highlight the things in the environment that are important. You barely have to use your eyes!

Kass is one of several clever ways that Breath of the Wild has world riddles, in a way that fits the game’s lore…kinda. (But also, he kinda does not make any sense. Why is there this bird, with these 4 line songs, that give puzzles to our hero?? That’s ok, I’ll give him some Joke Factor points.)

Unfortunately, as much as I love Kass, a lot of his quests are a bit disappointing, in hindsight. It’s usually pretty obvious what you have to do, and you’re done in like 10 seconds. Or you just have to be somewhere at a certain time of day, and it’s just irritating. (Some are good though!)

I think this Kass Quest is pretty good, because of the Confusion Factor. What Kass said makes some sense…but what the heck are we even looking at? This structure of rocks in the area, require some studying, and some bomb placement, to figure out how it’s supposed to work. It’s fun!

I’ll throw in some Multi-Solution points, because some of those rocks are actually hard to bomb, because of all the wind blowing your bombs around!

58. Secret: Zora Helmet Treasure Chest

No picture for this one, just in case anyone hasn’t found the Zora Helmet, and wants to go look for it. Although if you keep reading, you’ll get some hints on how to begin to find it.

There are two ways to find this, and I love both ways (so, it gets Multi-Solution points.):

Solution 1: You are simply exploring, and you notice this chest, which is a little bit more difficult to get to than most chests. After doing some work, you finally get the chest, expecting a sapphire or some rupees…and it’s a Zora Friggin Helmet??? Just hidden randomly out here in the wild??? Now that deserves some Surprise Factor points.

What the heck kind of game, would hide such a valuable piece of loot in such a “random” spot? I love it–and the resulting implication, that any random chest you find could have something like this, is pretty awesome.

Solution 2: While you’re working on the quest to find the 10 tablet engravings across the Zora region, if you actually read and comprehend them (the quest doesn’t care if you do), they give an obfuscated clue to the location of this Helmet. This is that World Riddle stuff I’ve been talking about, and it’s so awesome that this particular riddle is not a quest itself, instead it is hidden within the content of another quest. You have to basically roleplay as Link, and actually think about the tablets you’re reading, to even notice the riddle.

57. Shrine Quest: The Two Rings (Kass)

I read Kass’s World Riddle, and then studied the strange rocks in the area, and it quickly dawned on me what he was asking me to do, and I got a big grin on my face. What a goofy fun thing for this game to ask you to do. In another game, this might be an achievement I don’t care about, but in this game, it’s part of the hero’s mystical journey.

And it takes some work, there are a lot of angles to think about about! So this is the first puzzle on the list to get Legitimate Puzzle points.

I remember this puzzle pretty fondly, and want to rank it higher, but I have to admit, it’s not as fun the second time…however my third time through, a couple years had passed, and I did have to re-figure it out again, so that was fun.

But I will throw in some tiny Beauty Factor points because the rocks do look cool and it’s a nice little meadow by that bridge.

56. Sho Dantu Shrine: “Two Bombs”

Most Breath of the Wild shrines are so hyper-focused on having multiple solutions, that they usually feel more a bit more like playgrounds, or lightly obstacled rooms, than puzzles.

So, it’s a real shock and delight, when a shrine does have a Legitimate Puzzle, like this one!

Is it an ingenious puzzle? Not really! But it will give you a pause, and make you say “wait wait. wait. but. ah crap, it’s not as easy as I thought.”

It also has a nice little design with the “simple puzzle”, “harder puzzle”, “actual puzzle”, following the rule of threes. Good job!

And last, I’ll throw in some Confusion Factor points, because you get into that third room and think “what the heck is going on in here, why is all of this necessary”. And then it turns out, it really all was necessary!

Honorable Mention: Divine Beast Vah Ruta (Zora Kingdom)

The divine beasts are practically made for this list, since they’re really good at achieving lots of the “factors” that this list is looking for.

BUT I decided not to put Vah Ruta on the list. It doesn’t have the cool views outside the divine beast like most of the divine beasts do. And it doesn’t have the saturation factor that other divine beasts have, because the puzzles are kinda shown in a linear sequence, instead of lots of them begging attention all at once.

Also I think a lot of the puzzles are simply “do you understand how to move the trunk”, but it’s so easy to forget that you can move the trunk, because they don’t teach it to you that well, in my opinion, and it’s such a weird mechanic, how it sprays water. It’s hard to even realize that it is spraying water.

The boss is pretty good though, and Mipha’s background story is neat, so I think it deserves an honorable mention!

55. Divine Beast: Vah Rudania (Death Mountain)

(This does not include the quests before the beast, such as the Yunobo stealth section, which I don’t like. I mentioned in the intro that the quests before the beast don’t count!)

Vah Rudania gets lots of Beauty points, especially for the crazy environment outside the windows–the fire in the air and the volcano itself is so intense, it’s exciting just standing still on the outdoor parts of the beast. Also, it feels really good to glide across the inner big room while it is flipping onto its side. That is really fun.

I’d also give it some decent Saturation points–when you’re in the main room, you look around, and there are so many puzzles to investigate! This is also good for replayability–you probably don’t do the puzzles in the same order every time. AND there is at least one very secret chest somewhere to find if you crawl around the outer shell a lot, if I remember correctly (I’ve only seen it in videos).

I’ll even throw in some Confusion points for the weird ball-in-a-tube contraption in the middle of the room, even though I don’t think it really turned out to be a great puzzle. Actually, none of the puzzles really turned out that great. The thing where everything is dark at first is potentially cool, but they don’t do much with it. Also the boss is pretty dumb.

Can only give a few tiny Lore Factor points: Daruk lore doesn’t have much going on, compared to other champions, I think.

54. Shrine: Myahm Agana Shrine: “Myahm Agana Apparatus”

One of the most widely despised shrines in the game! But hey, if you make a game that takes some risks, you’re bound to make some people mad!

This shrine invests heavily into its Multi-Solution Factor, because it has one obvious solution, but it is the worst solution by far, compared to the other solutions. You’re practically guaranteed to mess up the obvious solution once, since the controls are terrible.

But then, you discover a new ball will spawn and drop into the maze. And if you’re lucky, you’ll realize you can pre-spin the maze and drop the ball right at the end! The 200 iq solution.And if you’re really lucky, you’ll get frustrated enough to spin the maze upside-down, where there’s no maze at all. 5000 iq solution.

This is a pretty early shrine, so you’re encouraged for the rest of the game to not simply look for the most obvious solution, in any situation you’re in. That’s pretty powerful!

I’ll throw in some Joke Factor points because it’s pretty funny. Also I like that there is that chest hidden in the maze, that’s a cool secret. It’s fun to have to crawl through the giant maze yourself.

53. Tower: Central Tower

This place is dangerous as heck! Big Legitimate Gameplay factor here. When you approach this tower, you’re getting aimed at by 2 or 3 stationary guardians, and you’re also worried about a couple other full guardians walking around, dangerously close. So it’s a really fun combat puzzle of making mad line-of-sight dashes to the tower.

Then when climbing the tower, you’ve got lasers pointed at you as you climb, and you always just barely make it to the next safe ledge, before getting shot.

Some decent Multi-Solution points here too. For example, you can build ice blocks if the ground is wet, and that’ll help you break line-of-sight to the various guardians. And since it’s a circle, there’s many ways to approach the tower.

Or of course, you can fight some of the guardians…but, there’s no evidence that you’re going to get any weapons back as a reward, so it costs a lot of resources to do this, especially if you’re early in the game.

Another thing cool, is that there’s a good chance you’ll come here early, since it’s so close to the plateau, and you might get scared and give up and teleport away. It’s a really fun thing in open world games, to be exposed to areas that feel “too dangerous”.

52. Explorable Area: Lanayru Promenade

This is something I think Breath of the Wild could have used a lot more of–more interesting big architectures to explore and fight in. Fighting in fields is all right, attacking the various enemy tree encampments is fun, but it all gets old quick. When you explore and fight, in big ol’ ruins like this, it is video game magic, I think.

Definitely need to award Beauty Factor points, I just love the look of the ruined bricks and arches. It’s just such a weird idea too–giant ruins in a river canyon? I’m fascinated by the idea of this place. Nice that they threw in a waterfall for good measure.

And because the walls are so tall, and there is so much water, you’re really encouraged to actually fight, unlike 95% of other combat areas in the game where it’s so easy to avoid combat. So I have to give some Legitimate Gameplay points here. Also some Saturation points because you just look around and see a lot of interesting nooks and crannies to check for koroks, chests, and shrines.

And there’s a good chance you’re walking through here to look for the memory that the paintbrush head guy tells you is on the other side. That memory’s Lore is pretty good, deserves a point or two. Also just the existence of this place feels like some lore, kinda.

51. Shrine: Etsu Korima Shrine: “Path of Light” (Champion’s Ballad, DLC Pack 2)

Champion’s Ballad (DLC Pack 2) has a lot of good shrines, including this one, in my opinion. This is a pitch black darkness shrine, which I’ll give some Beauty points for right away, because dark areas in this game feel weird and cool (and look terrible in pictures).

This is a “gauntlet” style of shrine, where there aren’t really puzzles, it’s simply a linear series of obstacles to get past. I like that style a lot, you feel Indiana Jonesy, as you get around each trap. Legitimate Gameplay! Furthermore, this is one of the 4 “One Hit Kill” shrines, where if you get hit by anything, you die instantly, making the traps more exciting!

The obstacles are all pretty easy to maneuver, but because it’s so dark, you end up walking extremely slowly anyway, so it’s tense.

After several fairly easy obstacles, you start to let your guard down…suddenly multiple Guardian Scouts drop from the sky! Pretty good payoff, worth good Surprise Factor points. If you think quickly, you might instantly come up with tactics to not get hit, but if you don’t, one of ’em will probably shoot ya, and then yer insta-ded.

50. Side Quest: Missing in Action (In the canyon path to Gerudo Desert)

On your way to Gerudo Desert, you’ll travel through these long and winding canyons that are really tall, and you’ll see all this rickety scaffolding in the sky. And if you’re like me, you’ll be like “oh my god I wanna explore and fight on those, that looks rad, there are so many little areas to explore up there!” (Deserves a few Saturation points and Beauty points.)

Sure enough, the designers end up giving you a good reason, with this side quest: someone at the end of the canyon reports that they got jumped by bokoblins and ran for it, but their 4 friends got captured somewhere in the canyon, and can you please go look for them (world riddle!). Turns out, they’re not on the ground anymore, they’re trapped all over the scaffolding areas!

Fighting all these enemies, while carefully balancing on these surprisingly narrow beams, is a unique Legitimate Gameplay environment. One wrong step, and you get a 200-foot fall! Although that goes for the enemies too, which is fun. I was saying this game needs more environments for fighting, besides fields…well I forgot about this one, this one is good!

Finally, the quest ends with a pretty good payoff joke: the friends have all decided not to be friends with the quest-giver anymore, since he totally abandoned his friends as soon as the bokoblins showed up. I’ll give ya some Joke Factor points for that.

49. Korok: Orange pinwheel bow challenge, on Floria Bridge, Lake Floria

Lake Floria is the realllllly pretty lake, surrounded by waterfalls, that’s in pretty much every 3d video game. Except this time, there’s a really cool rickety wooden bridge across it! Lots of Beauty points, although just beauty isn’t quite enough to make this list.

But I think what squeezes it onto the list, is that they gave you a reason to just hang out on the bridge and take it all in–they put an obvious Korok Pinwheel Bow Challenge right in the center of the bridge, can’t miss it. These are always fun I think, especially this one, in such a cool looking place.

Minigames like this always annoyed me in past Zelda games, where they’d often be inside an ugly shop in a town, and there’d be so much dialogue for each attempt. But here, they can just be built-in to the wild environments, a huge improvement I think. This is a great example.

And it’s kind of a hard one, where you’re shooting balloons really far away (slight Legitimate Gameplay points). I think the designers’ hope was, you’d be stuck attempting it long enough, that all of a sudden, Farosh will fly straight down in front of you, and go under your bridge, on one of his usual routes, giving you huge unexpected Surprise points.

Why does Farosh love bridges so much anyway.

48. Side Quest: Death Mountain’s Secret

I LOVE THIS BIDDLE GORON! He’s so cute and funny. He’s intentionally keeping his mouth half-submerged so you can’t understand him. Take all my cute Joke points, all of them. And he’s all like “ha ha I bet you can’t understand me right now, right? Good good, I have a World Riddle for you…”.

His riddle is really just: “hey I hid some treasure somewhere on the path ahead, if you find it, you can keep it.”

And in Breath of the Wild, sometimes that’s all you need! A good excuse to get out, and explore every inch, of some little area. If it wasn’t for this dumb side quest, I probably wouldn’t have explored that particular part of Eldin of as closely as I did, as it didn’t look very notable–but I’m glad I did, because it was fun–there were enemies to fight, koroks to notice, shrines to find, more quests to uncover, etc.

I’m gonna give some Legitimate Gameplay points too, because all 3 times I played this puzzle, I walked right past the treasure several times before finally finding it. You really gotta flex your observation skills with this one, in my opinion. There’s not really a puzzle here, but man, just fair effective camouflage going on.

47. Shrine Quest: The Bird in the Mountains (Rito Village & Hebra Mountains)

In this quest, a young Rito Village citizen points up to a tree, way up in Hebra Mountains, and says their grandpa was up there a long time ago, and saw a huge white bird, flew toward it, and saw “something really important” in its belly.

This is like, the perfect World Riddle side quest. It points you to where you should go, not with a UI waypoint, but just by pointing to an actual object far in the distance. Then you have to go on an intense Legitimate Gameplay adventure into the bitter cold, through the mountain passes, filled with ice lizalfos and confusing harsh terrain, probably without a map.

Then, once you’re there, you’ve got to think hard about what the grandfather’s story actually meant, and look very closely around at your surroundings, to figure out the riddle. (Without getting distracted by the Beautiful vista you’re seeing, another reward for your harsh adventure.)

And once you figure it out, it’s a pretty nice Surprise twist. The mechanic at play here, is one of my favorite adventure game mechanics, ever since I first saw it in Riven (as well as another recent popular point-and-click adventure game I super love), and personally I was hoping this game would have a lot more of it. But maybe they’ll come back to it in the next game.

Decided not to put it higher on the list, only because the replay value isn’t great.

46. Explorable Area: Bridge of Hylia

Bridge of Eldin was my favorite stage in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and I always thought, man there should be a bridge this huge and epic in a real Zelda game! I uhh never played Twilight Princess.

And maaaaan this one is so Beautiful and huge. Probably one of the best-looking things in the game. The first time I saw it from the Great Plateau, I was shocked, I could barely believe it was in the game, and that I would actually be able to go touch it and cross it. It looked like the sort of thing you only ever see in the background of some video game level.

And this thing is absolutely Saturated with koroks. Possibly the highest concentration of koroks in the game. One of them I quite like, is a “teleporting flower” korok that forces you to climb way too far upside-down under the bridge, making me cringe from extreme vertigo.

And also one of the most hilariously hard to find koroks in the game, I’m afraid to even spoil it, but who cares it’s just a korok: on one of the support structures, there’s a tiny ledge with a random tree branch, the kind you can pick up as a weapon. If you go down there and pick it up…boom, korok. What!!

And lastly, this is a good example of forced combat, which I think this game should have more of–you can’t really get around fighting these lizalfos, unless you reaaalllly want to. So adding some Legitimate Gameplay points.

Yeah but anyway, mostly the beauty.

45. Shrine Quest: The Stolen Heirloom (Kakariko Village)

This is a story quest that I bet most players don’t find, because it’s gated behind some other quests in Kakariko, that are also hard to find. This is the quest that finally deals with that glowing Ball, next to Impa, that you’re not allowed to touch, even though you’ve wanted to so bad, for the past 100 hours, when the heck is Paya gonna let you touch it, it’s clearly meant for Link, come on Paya I need to touch that ball with everything I have.

(Big Joke points for Paya, love that character a lot.)

The gameplay of the quest is pretty on-rails, it’s much more about the story, and the Surprises during it. You keep having to do forced stealth, to follow suspicious villagers at night, only to find out they were not the thief, even though the game intentionally made them look ridiculously suspicious.

Then, it is revealed what is really going on, and honestly I thought it was a pretty good dark twist, for such a random obscure story in the game. It ends up doing a really good job of building out more Lore of the Yiga clan.

Lastly, it doesn’t overstay it’s welcome, it gets all of this done very quickly. I like Breath of the Wild because you don’t get stuck in on-rails story sequences much. Hiding one like this, and making me get invested first, made it totally more fun.

44. Cutscene: Urbosa’s Champion’s Ballad Cutscene (Champion’s Ballad, DLC Pack 2)

I thought this cutscene was sick as hell. Do I have a way to give Sick as Hell points? Crap I forgot to add that category to my spreadsheet. Definitely the best of the 4 Champions’ cutscenes added in Champion’s Ballad. (Other 3 are kinda bad.)

Well, I can give high Beauty points, I’m thinking it’s probably the best-looking cutscene in the game. Look at that picture above, for example–that’s some pretty cool composition!

And I can give some Surprise points for the events of the cutscene itself, which I won’t bother to analyze further, because you could just watch it instead.

And I can give some Lore points: I thought what was shown about Urbosa and Zelda’s relationship was pretty interesting, like the contrast of their intense formality in the throne room, but intense friendship outside of the throne room.

43. Shrine: Ne’ez Yohma Shrine: “Pushing Power”

This is the shrine in the Zora city, so most people are going to do it, and I think this was a good shrine to put there, because it’s kinda the epitome of Breath of the Wild shrine design:

You get in there, and it’s got that cool Confusion Factor where you don’t quite know what you’re looking at. Then as you walk around and study the pieces, it starts to make sense, you see what the challenge is: get the ball at the top past all the physics obstacles to the goal at the bottom.

And, there are a surprising number of Multiple Solutions to get the ball past each obstacle. Personally I felt like I had to use some creativity throughout the shrine. Then I watched someone else play the shrine, and their solutions were indeed pretty different!

There are actually a bunch of shrines where you “rube goldberg” a giant sphere, down a waterfall, into a hole, but I like this one more because you’re inside the puzzle the whole time, rather than manipulating it from a distance like usual. So I’ma give it some Beauty Factor points because it just feels cool to be inside the puzzle.

Not my favorite shrine, but I think it objectively deserves credit.

42. Explorable Area: Thyphlo Ruins (Pitch black forest ruins)

A lot of people call this one of their favorite parts of the game! And that makes sense, because it gets points tons of this list’s criteria types:

Beauty points because the darkness in this game looks so cool, and this is likely to be your first encounter with it. The dim torches scattered about, are a really cool mood too. Feels good to light them (if you think of it…which I totally did not think of during my current playthrough). I’ll give it some Multi Solution points for that (I kinda just stumbled around with Magnesis on).

I’ll give it some Confusion and Saturation points, because you have no idea what you’re even looking for at first, you’re just stumbling around investigating every little thing that catches your eye. I respect that they don’t light up the area once you’ve finished it–so you’re never quite sure you understood the layout whatsoever…

The actual challenge you have to do here, could have been more interesting I think, you just have to find and take down a particular enemy. It’s the Surprise Factor of stumbling across what you have to do, and being mad about it, that’s the fun part. And just, the surprise factor of walking in to this random forest and realizing it is pitch black.

Deserves Legitimate Gameplay points too, because dark ruins are indeed a cool environment to blindly fight in. I said this game didn’t have enough cool environments to fight in, but I forgot this one.

41. Shrine: Bareeda Naag Shrine: “Cannon”

First of all, the cannons in this game are awesome. The sound and power…mmm.

In fact, anything to do with bombs in this game, feels super good, these shiekah bombs are just so satisfying. I guess it’s the sound effect. And, it’s so clever that you put bombs in things to, like, “ghetto power” them, like these cannons, and the minecarts, and stuff.

OK, anyway, the shrine. It’s actually really hard! You have to shoot a cannonball at the target, but, there are all these barriers moving back and forth, in the way, at different speeds. So you have to shoot at exactly the right time, but sometimes it feels like you have to wait 30 seconds, until the cycle repeats. Massive Legitimate Gameplay points, loved the challenge of this.

And then after that… they give you an even harder optional one, with more barriers! Rad.

And here’s the twist, which I did not figure out, but I saw someone else do it, and it blew my mind…you can stasis a barrier, to make the whole thing easier. So, definitely giving Multiple Solution points for that.

40. Combat Sequence: Forgotten Temple

If you haven’t been in here yet, maybe go check it out first!

Similar to the Thyphlo Ruins, this is a regular looking set of ruins you stumble across randomly, and it looks pretty tame and harmless, so you walk in…and suddenly, you discover a big Surprise: it’s a huge indoor gauntlet of guardian turrets, as far as you can see–up high, down low, to the side, on balconies, they’re everywhere…and they’re all waking up to look at you. Either take action, or run for your life.

Very cool and unique. I love that there is no ceremony here, this isn’t a dungeon, this isn’t a shrine, it’s just a doorway you stumble upon, with a ridiculous amount of danger, and presumably, some reward on the other side.

I thought it was exciting as hell to try to get through it–there’s no simple trick to it, you’ve got to take it one step at a time, plotting out your next movement. You can fight them, or just run from safe spot to safe spot, although nowhere really feels that safe. Gonna award a ton of Legitimate Gameplay points, I would say the most of anything on the list so far.

Deserves a lot of Beauty points in my opinion as well, the indoor architecture is really interesting and intricate. I also love how old it looks, and how the entrance is so run-down, that you have to climb up to get to the doorway, there aren’t stairs or anything.

39. Shrine: Kaam Ya’tak Shrine: “Trial of Power”

This is probably the most universally loved shrine, and it’s not my favorite but I definitely love it as well. If you don’t remember which one this is, it’s a really really long shrine in hyrule field, with like 7ish puzzles in a row, usually involving stasis, usually to make boulders bust open giant stone doors.

This is one of the only things I put on the list that doesn’t really fit the criteria factors. The puzzles aren’t very clever or interesting or funny, and they’re only slightly multi-solution.

I think why it’s so good is just that the puzzles just keep coming. Don’t like the current puzzle? Who cares, you’re already on the next one. And the next one.And just, watching those boulders bust down doors feels good.

Admittedly, this one puzzle below is pretty memorable. It’s not hard to figure out, but it takes some orchestration to get it to work, which feels pretty good.

38. Puzzle: Getting through the Lost Woods

I’m actually not sure how most people feel about this puzzle! But IMO, there are two extremely good reasons to put this on the list:

Beauty: The atmosphere is fantastic. It’s magic, how you walk 20 feet on the trail into the forest, and suddenly it’s like you’re in another world, a spooky misty world. And every little detail looks GOOD and you wanna stare at everything forever, like the torches so bright and orange. The music is especially bewildering, even more than usual.

Legitimate Puzzle: I thought it was brilliant! I thought they gave the right clues, and performing the solution is exciting, unlike some other Zelda game Lost Woods puzzles, which are just tedious I think.

And the theme of the solution is so smart, it feels like you’re following a secret hint of nature itself, it doesn’t feel like a game puzzle. And it’s especially clever, considering the name of the game itself, Breath of the Wild… So yeah, all-time great video game puzzle I think.

Replay value isn’t so great, otherwise I would put it higher. Also the loading screen when you fail is annoying I admit.

37. Shrine: Takama Shiri Shrine: “Dual Purpose” (Champion’s Ballad, DLC Pack 2)

You know this is a good shrine, because it has electricity, and because it is in the Champion’s Ballad DLC. I’m thinking any shrine with electricity should get a couple Beauty points right away.

This is a 3-puzzle shrine with a clever theme: you need to walk on some metal blocks, but the metal blocks also need to transmit electricity somewhere, hence the name “dual purpose”. Very cool.

The puzzles are Legitimate Puzzles. They’re not hard, but they’re clever. The second one has some Confusion factor because it’s a very odd layout of blocks, and it’s hard to see which directions they slide. The third one (the picture above) raises the complexity a bit, and the electricity needs to go somewhere else than where Link is going.

Each puzzle definitely has several solutions–it’s not about the solutions, it’s about discovering the theme, and learning the new ways to think about it. It reminds me of Portal 1, where the solutions are really the mechanics you’re learning, not the specific places to put portals. So, giving it Multi-Solution points.

Just generally well-designed!

36. Shrine: Keive Tala Shrine: “Big or Small” (Champion’s Ballad, DLC Pack 2)

Never mix electricity and water. Except in this game, where it is awesome. Here’s another Champion’s Ballad DLC electricity shrine.

Not much to over-analyze here, it’s just a very hard Legitimate Puzzle. Honestly, maybe it is THE hardest puzzle in the game. My current playthrough, I definitely got stuck for about 5 minutes before figuring it out. It’s been a long time since my first playthrough, but I feel like I might have had to look up a solution, at the time. As soon as I walked in this time I was like “oh no, not this one.”

I do enjoy the fact that you can cheat a lot of these electricity shrines with metal weapons, so I’ll give a couple Multi-Solution points.

Then, after the puzzle is done, there’s a motion controls challenge that is atrocious to control. The absolute worst.

35. Minigame: Hebra Mountain Shield Surfing Through Hoops (Champion’s Ballad, DLC Pack 2)

I love shield surfing in this game. The physics and controls are great, the feel of the speed is awesome (Beauty points)…but it’s hard to have reasons to do it, because usually, you can just glide to wherever you’re going.

The shield surfing minigame from Selmie was okay, but flawed: it takes a lot of dialogue to retry, it’s kinda just a basic straight path, and also, it’s better to exploit it by gliding straight to the end.

However, Champion’s Ballad forces you to do this new surfing challenge, down a narrow cliff on the southeast side of the mountain.

This time, there are tiny glowing “hoops” you must surf through. The hoops are on short timers, so if you lose control and miss one, or if you go too slow, you’ll fail and have to start over. I thought it was really well timed, so that you’ll barely reach each hoop on time, and it excitingly feels like you’re on the verge of failing. I loved the Legit Gameplay here, and wish it let you do the challenge again after beating it.

They also work in some rad Surprises you have to think fast for, such as putting a gap in the path that you have to jump across, enemies on the path, boulders falling, etc.

My #1 biggest dream for BOTW2 is for them to just cover the game in movement-based and vehicle-based challenges like this. It would be so easy to add more content like this, and so fun to master. (One of my other favorite video games “Steep” is basically an entire game of this… it doesn’t have a motorcycle though!)

34. Shrine: Yowaka Ita Shrine: “Collected Soul” (Champion’s Ballad, DLC Pack 2)

Everything about this shrine is really funny to me.

First, you run down this ramp, dodging streams of little spike balls, flying out of tubes. Which is harder than it sounds, because this is one of those “one-hit-kill” shrines.

Then at the bottom, there’s this “infinite waterfall of junk”, being launched out of tubes, into an abyss below. Hidden within the junk, are various good stuff like chests, and an Orb that you need.

So what you have to do is Magnesis this little “bowl”, and catch stuff you want out of the waterfall of junk. This is pretty hard, but also extremely silly, as you keep dropping stuff or catching too much stuff and spilling it all out.

Then, this is my favorite joke, you now realize you have to carry the Orb back up the slope, past the flying spike balls…except now it’s even harder because you can’t run while holding the Orb! And also, you’ve definitely forgotten this is a “one-hit-kill” shrine by now, so you’re going to let a spike barely scratch your leg, killing you instantly by surprise.

So all in all, big Joke points, and silly Legitimate Gameplay are gettin’ it up on this list (although, the replay factor is good too, just a fun creative shrine).

33. Shrine Quest: The Seven Heroines (Gerudo Desert)

This is a playful light little puzzle, that keeps making you ask questions (Confusion), that you have to study the environment for the answers (World Riddle):

• You see this strange structure, from a distance, and decide to check it out.
• “But what am I supposed to do here?” You look a little closer…and find the sockets for orbs.
• “But where are the orbs?” You run around, and eventually start to find them.
• “But which orbs go where?” You study the statues closely, and eventually notice the hidden icons.

And it does all this without dialogue, words, tutorials, not much hinting of any kind. Video games are so great when they can speak for themselves!

I’ma also give this Beauty points because it looks cool.

Also Legitimate Gameplay points because the last few orbs and icons are very hidden, making you climb and glide all over the statues to find them which is fun, and, because you’ll take a while, you’re going to have to do BotW stuff like fight off skeletons and spawns, take off your metal gear during storms, and change clothes once or twice to keep the correct temperature (or try to stay in the shade of the statues during the day).

32. Shrine Quest: Watch Out For the Flowers

This is that ridiculously silly Joke shrine quest, where a shrine is surrounded by a tiny maze of flowers, and if you touch any flower, this lady teleports you out, and tells you “omg don’t you dare touch my flowers.”

It’s easy enough, but just as you’re getting comfortable, they start to Surprise you with spawns of chu chus! So you gotta fight ’em while being really careful not to do anything to disrupt the flowers. Kinda an interesting Legit Gameplay idea! A little too easy here, would have liked to see more of it!

But something a lot of people probably missed, is that if you touch the flowers enough, she gets real mad, and beats you up. Seriously! Extra joke points for this.

This is the sort of random creative stuff, where you know the developers had a great time making the game. It reminds of stories about Symphony of the Night, where the artists and developers were free to just come up with random one-off ideas, and just go ahead and implement them, like the telescope in the outer wall, or the background eyeball watching you from the background windows.

31. Main Quest Segment: Carrying the blue flame, to Hateno Ancient Tech Lab

I can’t make a strong argument about this part, but I know I like it. I think it has something to do with some symbolic Beauty going on here, but it’s really subtle, or maybe I just made it up.

Purah used to do this torch run, and lately she hasn’t been doing it. But Link has come to town, to bring back normalcy to the world, and bring back the routines to this town, the traditions. I’m a routine-oriented person, so maybe I get a special kick out of re-establishing one.

Or maybe the idea the developers were going for here, is the idea of Link “carrying the torch” of Links of past ages. Or maybe they were going for the idea of relighting the torches from darkness, being like bringing life back to Hyrule, or bringing hope back, or something. Or maybe these are all coincidences and they just got lucky.

Or maybe they just knew there’d be something satisfying about carrying a beautiful super bright blue flame a long distance. A clue to this, is that they put these lanterns all over, and there’s no reason to light them all, but they put them everywhere because they knew you’d love lighting them.

My favorite aspect of this quest, is that nearly every person in town has unique dialogue if you’re holding the blue flame, talking about how they’ve missed it, or how they’re worried about Purah, or how pretty it is, or asking what you’re doing with it. The kids in town all follow you around saying “wow!!”

30. Shrine: Shorah Hah Shrine: “Blue Flame”

I would be shocked if anyone didn’t love this masterpiece of a shrine. This is a long obstacle course gauntlet, indiana jones-style, which is always a fun type of shrine…

…But this time, it has an extra theme to it: you have to keep transferring this magical blue flame, from torch to torch, past each obstacle. It’s like “Trial of Power” but way better and really pretty (Beauty Factor).

I love how you enter the shrine and you can immediately tell it’s long and complicated, the paths are everywhere, intertwining with themselves, and you’re excited to explore everything here. The variety of obstacles is great. There’s some platforming, some combat, some Surprises like a button that makes a giant spike ball roll toward you. Should give Saturation and Legit Gameplay points for all of this.

There’s even a silly obstacle where there’s water spraying onto the path, and you have to hold your torch in ways that avoid it getting doused. Or maybe you can just shoot an arrow instead of using a torch, or any other solution–the obstacles are open-ended and enjoyably Multi-Solution.

And, a satisfying ending, figuring out one last Legitimate Puzzle to light up several torches at once.

29. Shrine: “A Major Test of Strength+” (Champion’s Ballad, DLC Pack 2)

Test of strength…plus?? This shrine has 3 separate combat sequences, each one better than the last.

The first room looks like a typical test of strength, but then you realize, this is a one-hit-kill shrine, so it’s a little more interesting! Sure enough, on my current playthrough, I had my first death of the run, like 80 hours in, forgetting to block the projectile spam.

And then, Surprise! There’s no monk! You must go down the elevator and explore a pac-man-like combat maze, carefully approaching each enemy, since one-hit-kill still applies. It’s simple, but fun. How great would the “Test of Strengths” shrines have been, if they just put this little bit of effort to make them not the one same fight every time.

Finally, the best part of all, the final room (in the picture above). It’s a fascinating tiny combat puzzle, where you’re free to look around first, and plan out your attack. There are platforms, and bridges, and shooty guardians scattered on them, and getting shot once means you’re dead.

Huge Legit Gameplay points, and also some Multi-Solution points for that last room.

28. Combat Sequence: The Winding Path to Zora’s Domain

I dunno man it’s just a really cool path. It goes along rivers, up hills, through short tunnels, across a ton of bridges, down hills, between trees, along cliffs, around mountains. It’s complicated! And very cool, needs Beauty points, and Saturation points too.

I think areas in open world games tend to be mostly, well, open, obviously. Lots of open plains, open forests. They generally save the intricacy for buildings and villages. But, through this cool path, this huge area manages to achieve intricacy for an entire mountainous region!

And it’s a really fun combat gauntlet, it feels like a mini-adventure. It gives you a chance to really get some fighting experience in, the entire path is pretty much nonstop enemies, and many kinds of enemy encampments. Good Legitimate Gameplay.

I thought the way they funnel you in here with the various Zoras directing you to it, and Prince Sidon checking in along the way, was pretty clever. Good way to help you find this mini-adventure they’ve set up, and just some good Lore Factor by helping you understand the Zora personalities.

They do funnel you, but you’re still free to ignore the path, and get to Zora’s Domain however you want to. Actually in my first playthrough, I climbed to Zora’s Domain from east of the Reservoir, through the rain. I didn’t even find this gauntlet until much later.

27. Shrine: Rota Ooh Shrine: “Passing of the Gates”

This one is the shrine with the weird little room in it, and you hit a switch, and the room rotates onto its side.

It’s the ultimate Confusion shrine. All three times I’ve played this shrine I’ve had the same experience of stumbling through it. Several times during the shrine I say “…wait, what?” followed by “OH I see what I was missing” and then “wait…how the hell did that help me?”. Finally when I finish the shrine I…still don’t understand what I just orchestrated, but it was rad.

Totally a Breath of the Wild specialty.

I also assume this deserves some Legitimate Puzzle points or Multi-Solution points but hell if I know.

26. Side Quest: Misko’s Treasure

This has a similar formula for quality as “48. Side Quest: Death Mountain’s Secret”, but just a little bit juicier.

The quest givers are these funny treasure hunter dudes who wanna trick you into paying them for their riddle. Then, they don’t even believe you when you solve it! Good Jokes from these guys. So many of Breath of the Wild’s throwaway characters have really cute or charming writing, it’s yet another great thing about the game that’s easy to underappreciate!

And it’s another great World Riddle to get out and have an adventure, searching for some hidden treasure, except actually a riddle, this time. I’m a sucker for this sort of thing where you have to look at the world, or at a gorgeous map, and figure out what to do, no cheaty UI giving you instructions. The ol’ vanilla world of warcraft charm.

And one more little sprinkled in twist: once you find the treasure, there’s a little “secret within a secret” there, in the cave. Love that.

25. Explorable Area: Forest of Spirits (on the Great Plateau)

I found most of the forests in the game pretty disappointing, and I’m now thinking it’s because this huge forest on the Great Plateau spoiled me.

It’s really well-Saturated with little things to do and see. Several enemy camps with chests, some pretty good koroks, a pond, a Talus that’s easy to be surprised by, there’s the little campfire camp with the old man, on the west side there’s that field with the dry grass that all gets set on fire, on the east side there’s that swamp with the chests on a platform… Lots of good stuff!

I also really liked hanging out with that old man here, and learning how to survive. If you talk to him here, he tries to teach you to hunt in the forest, and it’s really fun for several reasons:

• The hunting is pretty challenging, those boars are tough to hit once they’re running around.
• You don’t have many arrows, so each arrow counts.
• It’s a big forest, so it’s fun to sneak around and feel like you’re hunting in a forest.
• The hunting is actually worth doing early in the game, since you probably need some food.
• You need the meat if you want to cook that meal for the old man (which is very worth doing to get that Warm Doublet so early in the game!).

Very Legitimate Gameplay.

In fact, I might say that this forest also spoiled me on the “survival gameplay” of Breath of the Wild. The survival feels pretty decent here, but once you get off the Great Plateau, it breaks down quickly (for example, there’s no reason to hunt, when you just naturally get more resources than you could ever need).

24. Shrine Quest: Test of Wood

This is the challenge in the korok forest, where you have to fight your way through an outdoor combat gauntlet, using a wooden sword shield and bow, and you’re not allowed to break any of them, which actually adds surprisingly interesting pressure.

You’re tempted to skip past enemies to save durability, especially because it starts off so easy, just bats and chu chus on an open path… But all of a sudden it gets much harder, there are skeleton archers perched on rocks, some with ice arrows, and then a series of big swamps that you must improvise a way across–really hard if you didn’t take out any archers–also while you’re figuring this all out there are constantly annoying little enemies spawning to distract you as well.

So, it’s not terribly hard, but it takes some quick thinking and tactics! Good Legit Gameplay here, I’d put it in the top 5 combat sequences in the game, maybe even 2nd or 3rd.

And the environment adds a lot as well, with all the mist and spookiness and swamps and trees obscuring your vision–you feel like you’re stumbling through, having trouble making decisions, not knowing how long is left. And also it just looks cool as hell (Beauty points).

Also this part totally held up on my subsequent playthroughs, and deserves bonus points for how they let you re-do the challenge with a timer for extra pressure, and earn some rupees for doing so. Rad!

23. Explorable Area: Abandoned North Mine

This is the lava lake, north of Goron city, which you have to explore to look for Yunobo.

What really gets it this high on the list? The fudging cool as hell roller coaster you can find here, that is powered by your bombs. IT RULES. Roller Coaster Factor.

Besides that, it’s a really intense-feeling combat area, it’s pretty sick. You glide from island to island, conquering them one-by-one, looking for Yunobo, with tons of Lizalfos shooting elemental arrows at you from all directions. I always find myself hiding behind rocks or at the bottom of hills to catch my breath, and figure out which direction is best to go next.

The extra unique thing about this combat sequence is that the islands have several of the awesome “Cannons” like in the “Cannon” shrine. You can just casually walk up to any of them, and freaking blow entire towers of lizalfos to smithereens, even the towers themselves crumple down!

Yes please, more casually destructible buildings in video games!! This whole part should be way longer!

Also it just all looks sick, because it’s “extra extra hot” here–and you can feel it, everything is super blurry from the heat. The extra heat affects the combat too, because you probably have to drink extra potions, adding some time pressure, or wear extra fire armor, likely meaning fewer armor points (unless you somehow upgraded it a lot already).

22. Korok: At the tippy tip top of Hyrule Castle, waaaay up there

If you want to, you can climb up Hyrule Castle, and get on the roof, and then keep climbing up, and up, and just keep going, and going.

It’s actually a lot of work. Why are you doing this? It’s been like several minutes of climbing now. Well crap, can’t turn back now, you’re more than halfway. Ugh, you’re gonna have to use a stamina potion. Wait no, this ledge is big enough to rest on. OK, keep going.

Oh god. I just looked down. It’s too high. This is scary. Don’t look. Just keep climbing.

…Finally, one final, extremely long needle to climb, at the top… And OH! It’s a korok! They knew!!! They knew we couldn’t resist climbing this!

OK, well, now what should we do… …wait… …Oh my god, this view! This is insane! The wind! The music! Everything is so small! This has to be the highest point in all of Hyrule!

Soon we will take the longest glide of all time…but, wait, let’s just stay here, and enjoy this, for a few minutes. It’s…nice.

21. Shrine: Rohta Chigah Shrine: “Stop to Start” (Champion’s Ballad, DLC Pack 2)

I LOVE THIS SHRINE! This is the epitome of the actiony-gauntlet-style of shrines. It’s a long linear string of obstacles, and the theme is SPIKES. Somebody spilled an absolutely silly amount of SPIKES all over this shrine. And then a manager looked over their shoulder and said “what are you doing? This needs more spikes. Move over, I’m you from now on.”

Adding to the hilarity, is that this is a One-Hit-Kill shrine. So there are some spikes on walls, minding their own business, and if you so much as graze them with your elbow, you’re DEAD INSATANTLY.

Honestly, a lot of the obstacles are a good challenge, unlike the other good gauntlet shrines like Blue Flame where they’re kinda just for fun. You have to have some pretty skillful movement, like in this conveyor belt section:

I could go on but I’ll just say one more thing: cleverly, just about every obstacle in the shrine, can be made slightly easier, with some good use of Stasis, if you remember it exists.

So, big Multi-Solution points, Legitimate Gameplay points, and Joke points too. I wish it were longer!

20. Shrine Quest: The Perfect Drink

This is perhaps the silliest quest chain of the game, in both story and gameplay.

You find Pokki of Gerudo Town, passed out on top of a shrine’s entrance button, from dehydration! The only thing that will restore her is…the Perfect Drink. So you go back to the Gerudo Town bar…but they’re out of ice!

So you need to carry an oversized block of ice through some ruins covered in enemies….But the gameplay twist is, it melts really quickly, unless you keep it in the shadows. Luckily, the ruins have all sorts of shadows! But since the game has a fast day/night cycle, the shadows are constantly changing, so you better not put down the ice for too long while you fight.

This is a unique thing this game is really good at, where it comes up with some Joke of a ridiculous plot, to make you do a Legitimate Gameplay sequence, but with some sort of “floor is lava” style twist. I love this recipe!

Also, the ruins and shadows are just really cool looking! Great for a sneaking mission like this one. Beauty points for good use of ruins.

19. Shrine Quest: Recital at Warbler’s Nest

The first half is a pretty fun scavenger hunt. You have to hunt down all the bird kids in Rito Village, and interrogate each one (sneak up from behind and hold RT), to get hints about how to make Genli’s favorite dish, so you can bribe her into going to singing practice

Cooking quests like this are really fun, because they’re a good thematic reason to hunt/gather specific things, as opposed to normal cooking, where you just grab any of the thousands of resources in your backpack.

Then the final step: they’re finally all practicing their song at Warbler’s Nest…but wait. Where’s my shrine?? I did all that work! And why are they singing this specific melody repeatedly?

So you look around and quickly figure it out, and the solution is thematically awesome. It’s a musical solution, so it fits the theme of birds, who sing. And it’s a wind solution, which fits the wind theme of the Rito region. And of course wind solutions are also great in a game called Breath of the Wild.

Huge World Riddle points for letting the player figure out that final step, I love that they don’t even say “hey there’s a puzzle here”, it’s just obvious there’s something left to do.

And, have to award Beauty Factor points for how wholesome this family is…ughh I love them.

18. Korok: Kakariko Village: The arrows on the entrance archways

When you’re walking into Kakariko Village from the south, one of the archways randomly has some arrows sticking out of the upper golden medallion. If you notice this, and if for some reason it inspires you to also shoot an arrow at the medallion…a korok pops out!

It turns out, if you’re gonna put 900 secrets in a game, you can make some of them really hard to find… But that fraction of players who do find it, are gonna have their jaws drop, and Surprise points are going to vomit out of their mouths.

Beyond the surprise, the implication here is really powerful: that these koroks really could be anything, any slightly weird thing you “notice” could be a korok. This is part of the power of koroks: with each new type of korok you find, your paranoia massively grows; you look at every object differently from then on.

And that’s true immersion, when you’re inspired to really pay attention to every little thing you see. Koroks like this make the whole game a World Riddle.

(Unfortunately, it turns out, there are barely any unique koroks like this, which is a bit of a disappointment. But better to inspire and disappoint, than to never inspire at all!)

17. Shrine: Hawa Koth Shrine: “The Current Solution”

For some reason I find the first room of this shrine extremely aesthetically pleasing, so I made that the first image, above. (Beauty points.)

There’s also a pretty funny middle section of this shrine, where you carry an electric orb across bridges, and if you carry it too close to some receptors, the bridge gets activated and flips over and you fall. OR you could do it on purpose, from a distance, and make the tiny guardian enemies on the bridge get flipped instead! It’s a pretty silly section.

But the real beauty of this shrine is this extremely Legitimate Puzzle at the end:

I’m not sure what to say to analyze it, it’s just a really good video game puzzle. You have to use your powers, but that’s not all there is to it, you also have to use them smartly. I think I would rank it as the #2 best legitimate puzzle in the game, off the top of my head (#3 would be “Passing of the Gates” from earlier in the list, and #1 is still coming up later).

Even more impressive is that it manages to have Multiple Solutions, some being a bit cheaty, but multiple are pretty elegant. That’s really hard to do, usually having a “good puzzle” means it has just one elegant solution. This is Breath of the Wild magic right here.

16. Shrine Quest: The Crowned Beast (Kass)

This is the Kass World Riddle where he talks about mounting a beast with a crown of bone, or something like that. That’s all he says, the rest is up to you.

It’s such an awesome feeling here, when you suddenly have a hunch about what you’re supposed to do. On one hand, it’s the good feeling of having a hunch about any riddle: “Wait, crown of bone…do they mean like antlers? Hmmm maybe…”

On the other hand, it’s the feeling of when you suddenly you realize a new mechanic might be allowed, that you somehow haven’t realized. Like in the game Portal, realizing maybe you can put a portal on the floor and ceiling and loop forever. “Wait a minute, they wouldn’t let me do this, right? No, they wouldn’t… They would! OMG this game is awesome! What else can I mount???” Surprise mechanics like this really make a game immersive.

And then, the remaining work is actually a really fun Legitimate Gameplay challenge. I think the sneaking mechanics work surprisingly well in this game, and so does all the animal behavior, and this is a chance to seriously interact with both of those features. It’s kind of like another hunting quest, like in Forest of Spirits, but better.

And if you don’t like sneaking you can just drop on one from above somehow, so I’ll throw in some Multi-Solution points, classic BotW.

15. Side Quest: Tarrey Town

Yeah, gameplay-wise, it’s a terrible quest chain. The wood farming is just plain dull, but also finding these characters is just a lot of work as well–there are so many people in the game. And you’re likely to start this quest chain late in the game, so what are you supposed to do, go re-talk to every person you’ve ever met?

But it’s all worth it for the Beauty of it. The final village is just gorgeous from every angle, especially at night with all the glowing lights everywhere. And the music! It might get this high on the list just for the great song, and how each character in the village adds their flavor to the song, somehow making it even better.

And the Jokes! It’s worth it even just for the jokes! Or maybe it’s one joke repeatedly, but honestly it doesn’t get old to me, especially because the final punchline wedding cutscene at the very end, is a great payoff for it.

It adds a powerful new angle to the Lore of the game, helping Link rebuild a little slice of Hyrule–it’s a refreshing moment of optimism, in the post-apocalypse of the game, and modern media in general.

14. Town: Hateno Village

If I’m honest with myself, Hateno really just gets this high on the list, because of the song. What a cool song. What the heck is that blowy instrument. I love that thing.

I do love pretty much everything about Hateno besides the song though. I love all the people being so nice, the guy who gives the tour, all the kids running around, everyone gossiping about Purah… It’s got an amazing small town vibe or something. It feels like home. Big Beauty points.

I’m one of those players that will always talk to every character in a town in an RPG, and frankly it usually feels like a disappointment, but in Hateno, I had a great time. I really think the writing is one of the most underrated aspects of this game.

Impressively, they manage to put some surprisingly unique stuff here, that are both fun and useful! The shops of course, but also the dye workshop is super fun, and the dark statue is a really cool mechanic, the house you can buy to store weapons is useful, and of course the ancient tech lab (which also is lovable itself).

I was really glad to have good reasons to come back to Hateno again and again, ’cause I just like it.

Heck, even Tarrey Town’s main Joke starts in Hateno! So if I give Tarrey Town joke points, I have to give some here too (especially since Hateno has so many more jokes than the one).

13. Main Quest Segment: Infiltrate the Yiga Clan Hideout

This is a great high-variety adventure, each part being a surprising step in a new direction:

1. Talking to the Gerudo about the Yiga and what you need to do
2. Exploring northwest, looking for Karusa Valley
3. Fighting through Karusa Valley, and figuring out korok and shrine along the way
4. Silly puzzle room with the torches and banners
5. Fun dialogue with Barta
6. Simple stealth room
7. Complicated stealth room
8. Weird treasure chamber, requiring some thinking to find the exit
9. Story-relevant dialogue scene and a big Surprise boss fight
10. Start exploring Gerudo Highlands a little bit (optional but likely)

A lot of people don’t like this section of the game, and I think it’s usually because of step 6, complaining that there aren’t enough options to get through that big stealth room. But I disagree! By removing the option of fighting your way through, you’re forced to come up with solutions, since the easiest solution is gone! I found it very Multi-Solution and was happy to be forced to find one.

(Admittedly, I also just really like the stealth in the game–it’s powerful, but fair, and creative… need to add Legitimate Gameplay points for step 6 too.)

But even if you don’t like that step, c’mon it’s like one part of this huge chain of content!

This part also does some good stuff for Lore of the game. The Yiga clan is not just some randomly spawning enemies after all, they’re an actual clan with hideouts, actual villains still fully at large, constantly messing with the Gerudo, who need your help. The stakes on this mission are pretty high, saving Barta, and finding a vital tool for getting into Vah Naboris!

Or if you don’t care about the lore, you have to at least enjoy the silly execution of this segment. The banana stuff, the goofy big Yiga guys, and the Yiga boss gets massive Joke points from me, love him.

12. Divine Beast: Vah Medoh, Rito Village

Everyone has that moment in Breath of the Wild, where they scan the horizon, and…wait…is that an airship?? This game is insane! I cannot wait to go there in 80 hours or whatever!

(And the experience lives up, it feels awesome up there, the Beautiful views of Hyrule are breathofthewild-taking.)

The puzzles are pretty good video game puzzles! Much better than Vah Rudania’s for sure. (Legit Puzzle points.) There are wind-based ones, buttons to turn things on and off, tilting the ship to make things roll, stasis to stop things rolling, etc. And my favorite, tilting to the ship to paraglide-fly across a room, that feeling never gets old to me.

This also has one of my favorite video game moments. To get inside each wing of the bird, you have to get to a doorway on the outside far end of that wing (on the underside). One wing has a suspended trolley underneath, that you can ride to get to the door, if you tilt the ship… but on the other wing, the trolley is missing! What do?

…Maybe the solution was obvious, but my fear of heights just didn’t want to even consider it. You have to tilt the bird and paraglide across, underneath the wing, to the doorway, with nothing below you but Hyrule, a mile down. Too scary for me, so I’ve never actually finished this dungeon

11. Secret: Hebra Great Skeleton

The “Leviathan Bones” side quest hints that there is a Great Skeleton hidden somewhere in the Hebra Mountains region, but doesn’t say where. So, this inspires you to go on your own random exploration adventures (kinda like “48. Death Mountain’s Secret”, but on a 50x bigger scale!).

But as you continue to explore, you realize…this thing must be super well-hidden, because where the heck is it??

This is the sort of thing that makes exploration fun. I want to randomly explore a game world for cool secrets, but only if I know there’s at least one more out there. Otherwise I’ll run around for a little while and think “cool welp guess I basically saw everything, time to move on.”

Knowing this huge secret is still out there, adds a lot of excitement to every little adventure up there!

The actual puzzle hiding this secret, is a super good one, the mechanic of it is really fun. It’s a very challenging puzzle–it might even be too hard, but there’s an easier version of the puzzle elsewhere in Hebra Mountains, to make sure you understand that the mechanic is possible, and there is something to solve here. So, it’s fair! (Legitimate Puzzle points)

And the Surprise of solving the unassuming-looking puzzle and finding this huge thing, is the best part.

10. Tower: Akkala Citadel Ruins and Tower

I’m now realizing that Breath of the Wild’s best gameplay moments, tend to be when it gets a little bit difficult. Probably because, this game gives you so many options for handling obstacles, it’s nice when you really are pressured to not just run in swinging thoughtlessly!

And getting up onto Akkala Citadel is a great example, these flying guardians everywhere are no joke–you literally can’t sword your way through here, you either have to sneak around ’em, or finally actually have to pull out those bomb arrows and guardian arrows you’ve been hoarding for 30 hours!

Then once you’re up…there’s this fantastic floor-is-lava platforming going on, surrounding the tower. There’s a fun thing where you have to keep re-using this metal balance beam to get from building to building, and eventually use it to reach to the tower itself.

One unique thing they put in here, is close-quarters combat–there are tough enemies in all the ruins here, and you can’t just run past them like most of the game, since you’re doing all this careful platforming stuff. Plus, there’s lots of nooks for treasure you wanna check out.

The close-quarters combat ends up being really fun, you’re likely to use some stealth, or something funny like magnesis, or accidentally booping someone out into the corruption, killing them.

…Most importantly though, just look at that Citadel, that looks good as HECK man. Look at those little cannons. And the ruins up top?? So awesome. Plus Akkala looks cool in general with all the autumnal stuff.

(Mostly Beauty points, Legitimate Gameplay points, and also some Saturation points for all the cool intricacies to explore here.)

9. Explorable Area: Lomei Labyrinth Island, in Akkala

These labyrinths are probably the most mysterious things in Breath of the Wild. They are weird, Confusing, creepy, ominous…and also really really fun to explore, because there are so many secrets to find (Saturation points).

Once again, this game is best when it’s a little bit challenging, and these labyrinths are going to bewilder and maybe even frustrate you a little bit. You’ll have no shame in trying to cheat the system, climbing the walls, walking on top of them, using the map and tracing a route from the end (which won’t even help much). It’s fun to feel like you’re cheating and still having trouble!

This particular one is the most threatening of them, probably because of the additional flying guardians and scary full-size guardian living in it. But also it just looks so ominous–probably because there’s no real way to get there, there’s no bridge, no stairs, nothing. It doesn’t even make sense for this thing to exist, it’s like an apparition. (Needs some Beauty points for the mood.)

By the time you’re doing your third labyrinth, you might be kinda sick of them, which generally prevents these from making it onto this list…

…except, this particular labyrinth has my favorite Surprise I have ever experienced in a game. It’s that gigantic secret underground cavern room, underneath the maze, the mysterious guardian graveyard. I would love to watch a montage of streamers reacting to that room.

8. Divine Beast: Vah Naboris, Gerudo Desert

If I remember correctly, I mostly added “Confusion Factor” as one of the criteria for this list, because of how much I love the feeling of nonstop total bewilderment that is the essence of Vah Naboris.

Each time I’ve entered this dungeon, my first twenty minutes are just wandering and flying around in that main room, trying to figure out what the heck I’m looking at, or supposed to be doing. Someone missed a day in dungeon design class (and I’m glad!). But, it makes every little step of progress feel extra satisfying. For example, finally making it to the upper humps of the camel is way more exciting than it has any right to be, but it feels great after being so confused in the giant tube for so long.

So, it’s a unique dungeon. I’m not even sure if it has anything I would call a “puzzle”. Just confusion.

Besides that, the feeling of riding in the giant camel as it travels around the desert, with its absurdly large legs stomping right next to you, is unexpectedly very rad, it might actually be even cooler than the airship. (Beauty Factor). This is the most intimidating beast for sure.

The boss is good, I enjoy it. A little less trivial than the others, and the room layout is fun to fight in.

Lastly, that hilarious treasure chest hanging from a rope, just out of reach. Someday I will successfully get it, instead of accidentally dropping it out into the desert. Link: https://www.reddit.com/r/Breath_of_the_Wild/comments/64ud7f/best_chest_in_the_game/

7. Shrine: Mah Eliya Shrine: “Secret Stairway” (Champion’s Ballad, DLC Pack 2)

One room, one puzzle. That’s all you need sometimes!

It’s a masterpiece of a puzzle. It’s wildly Multi-Solution and creativity-friendly, but somehow at the same time, the main mechanics of the puzzle are very elegant Legitimate Puzzle stuff.

If you watch people solve this puzzle e.g. on streams or youtube, it’s a comedy of errors every time, as people stumble and improv to get to the top. Youtube guides say things like “ok and then you’re supposed to do this, and then you simply need to do this next”, not realizing their set of absurd steps barely matches the next video’s steps, or the next video’s.

There are also a bunch of cheaty solutions (e.g. octo balloons), but that’s fine, that can be fun too if that’s what you want to do!

Best shrine in the game I think, because it is the best example of Breath of the Wild’s special puzzle style!

6. Town: Gerudo Town

It is seal-iously mind-blowing, how much silly and fun stuff got packed into Gerudo Town. It is Joke heaven. I am in love with it. Fun highlights that I recall are:

• Rjiu’s pun-addicted pet sand seal.
• Dating class.
• Boots guy. (Gimme them boots, boots guy!)
• The old lady next to the goddess statue. (Not funny, just cool.)
• The soldier barracks. (If the captain finds out… probably 100 laps around Gerudo Desert…again…)
• Depressed lady who can’t stop eating hydromelon.
• Lady who’s waiting patiently in line for the spa as you use it over and over.

And of course the best part, dressing up as a Vai. Figuring out the steps to do it is fun in itself, but then once you’re in town, it adds a lot of extra spice to every interaction, seeing how people act, seeing who can figure you out. And just more comedy opportunities.

Riju is great. She has a diary, stuffed sand seals, and slouches on her throne telling guard Builara stuff like “oh calm down Builara, he’s fine”. Easily the most likable of the divine beast quest giver friends.

Gerudo Town even has the relevance to Yiga clan side plots of the game (Lore bonus points).

Also the extra quest with the Thunder Helm was a brilliant idea, giving the player a reason to keep hanging out and talking to the citizens, becoming their hero, making us fall in love with the town even more.

5. Combat Sequence: Eventide Island

See that abandoned island in the distance? You can go there. Pretty cool huh. And what happens as soon as you hit the ground, has got to be one of the biggest non-plot Surprises in video games.

The entire game is flipped on its head–all your clothes, weapons, items, everything is taken away, and a voice tells you you can’t leave, until you track down and conquer three puzzles.

Suddenly the game is fresh again. Hunting and gathering seem to matter again. Gathering up tree branches as weapons matters again, cooking matters, every little enemy matters, a Hinox is actually a seal-ious problem again.

It’s a great example of the fundamental promise of open world adventure video games, finally being 100% delivered–see a thing, adventure your way to get there, it turns out to be something interesting, and you finish it, and then repeat. The game we’ve dreamed of, actually exists.

(Big Legit Gameplay points, and World Riddle points as you track down and solve the Multi-Solution puzzle/challenges.)

So why only position #5? I feel like the correct strategies undermine the island’s potential idea of “starting from scratch”–the best way to get an orb? Just steal it. Other solutions are actually terrible–don’t do weapon gathering or meal prep, if you actually fight the Hinox, it’s gonna be tedious, or you’re gonna end up just exploiting his pathing so you can throw explosives at him.

In addition, the first time I played this, explosions blew the upper plateau’s orb way out into the water. It took me over an hour to actually get it back on the island and back up the plateau. It was pretty miserable.

And pretty awesome.

4. Divine Beast: The Fifth Divine Beast (Champion’s Ballad, DLC Pack 2)

Nobody ever talks about this beast so I don’t know the popular opinion, but I think it’s outstanding. It has the Confusion Factor of Vah Naboris, but way harder, with actual Legitimate Puzzles.

There’s this cohesive “mechanical engine” theme going on throughout the beast, that makes everything really cool to look at and watch, it’s intricate. As you complete puzzles, they all affect something in the main room, so the dungeon feels like one big interconnected puzzle. Mark Brown would be so proud. (Take some Beauty points.)

Many of the individual puzzles follow the “engine” theme: there are a lot of gears to adjust/climb on, there are axes to shove into slots so that they rotate other things. It’s impressive how it all works, in my opinion it raises the bar a little bit on what a “physics puzzle” can be–that phrase usually makes me think of simply balancing planks to make bridges, or dropping weights on see-saws.

It’s also a tough dungeon! For the puzzles, since they know you’re used to your powers and divine beast manipulation by now, they really expect you to be ready to combine them all.

And, each time you come back to the main room, they throw huge enemies in there, like giant turrets and flying guardians, and the wild layout of the main room makes it hard to avoid them! It feels much more like a “dungeon” than the other divine beasts, with all the extra danger. (Plus, it’s underground, and the theming is better.)

The best part of all: when the boss is revealed. That is the biggest “hell yes” fist-pumping moment in the game, such a great payoff Surprise twist. I get excited just thinking about it. And the boss fight is also really really good! (I can’t believe how hard it was in master mode, even with a full backpack of resources!)

3. The view outside of the Shrine of Resurrection

A lot of people don’t end up liking Breath of the Wild. But does anyone not get excited by the view outside of the Shrine of Resurrection?

I’ve excitedly bought nearly every 3D Zelda game (sometimes multiple times due to ports), but somehow, I never make it past the first hour. Why? …The horrifyingly boring early game tutorial areas. The slow starts have literally ruined this series that I’m pretty sure I should totally love.

(Years later, I finally got to the real game in Wind Waker HD and mostly enjoyed it, in spite of the opening.)

The opening cutscene here, as you exit the starting tunnel and witness this view, makes a much-needed powerful statement, it’s almost an apology for past games’ mistakes. Here’s the world. Here’s the name of the game. …And enjoy! You’re actually playing now! No fishing tutorial, we promise!

And I’m glad they do the short controls-tutorial in the tunnel, first. If they showed me this view and then any immediate pop-ups, I’d be pissed.

Huge Beauty Factor points obviously, but also the Saturation factor for the excitement at all the things you wanna go investigate (near and far), and maybe even just some Surprise points, I did not expect the game to look this good or this big, at all.

2. Combat Sequence: Spring of Wisdom / Freeing Naydra

My main memories of Skyrim are randomly exploring, finding something intriguing, oh wait, I guess I’m not allowed to do it, I have to go on a two hour terrible quest chain first that leads up to this, and also, it turns out it wasn’t that cool anyway.

The biggest insane design risk they took with Breath of the Wild is: if you find it, you can do it. Right away. No matter how cool it is. You can do it right now, no bullcrap. No long quest chain, no ability you have to unlock first, nothing.

You found, it, so enjoy!

I didn’t fully appreciate this design choice, until I randomly decided to climb this mountain, for no reason other than it sounded fun. It was a fun difficult climb, with the freezing temperature and freezing lizalfos.

And what’s at the top? Holy crap, it’s a corrupted dragon, I have to help it. Cool. Well I’m excited to go on a long quest chain, to find the ingredients, and come back in 20 hours or whatever and…

…Wait…stop…wait…it’s moving…it’s happening??? Right now???? But what about…..whaa!!!!!!!!

And the following epic battle…it is more than mind-blowing. This is the most beautiful “boss fight” I can think of in any game. And it’s just…waiting to be found!

1. Explorable Area: Hyrule Castle Indoors

(Not so much the outdoor parts, and not the last boss, wasn’t crazy about that part. The lower the better.)

A player might assume that Hyrule Castle is an end-of-game challenge, that simply leads to the final boss. But actually, it has a super fun gigantic indoor area, that you can explore anytime you want! I almost wish the game made that more clear to people!

It scores big in lots of this list’s criteria. Beauty points of course, one of the best looking places in the game, and the music is possibly the series’ best. Love that long Library area in particular. Saturation for the size, variety, and good loot to find. Surprise Factor for all the great secrets, and for the surprise gear guarded by that close-quarters skeletal hinox fight. Confusion for the intricate map and figuring out how to get past all the corruption blockades. Legitimate Gameplay for sure, loved fighting and sneakstriking through the hallways, dungeons, and giant rooms. You could probably argue that Multi-Solution points should be given for all the ways to get in, like the docks, mines, and front door.

And definitely Lore points, loved Zelda’s diary and the King’s secret diary (go find it if you haven’t!). Real good stuff.

The interconnected rooms, locked doorways, secrets, and big visual map, make this feel almost like a miniature Castlevania game, or even a Doom II level. Those are my two favorite game series, so perhaps they are a subconscious reason that this is my #1 pick, for best thing to check out in Breath of the Wild.