Daily Debate: What Do You Think of the “Rauru’s Blessing” Shrines in Tears of the Kingdom?
Posted on July 29 2023 by Leslie Jacobson
As you’ve spent a little over two months exploring Hyrule in Tears of the Kingdom and finding Shrines along the way, you’ve no doubt come across a particular category of Shrine: Rauru’s Blessing. These Shrines are very simple. You enter, you get the title, you proceed to the treasure chest, and you move on to the end of the Shrine for the Light of Blessing. There is no other puzzle or task to perform.
Most of these Shrines require you to perform a task outside of the Shrine. For most, it means moving a green crystal to the foundation of the Shrine. There are some that are Shrine Quests like in Breath of the Wild, but it does seem that most involve transporting the green crystal. This is especially true of the Shrines on the Sky Islands. In fact, as I took time in my playthrough to explore the Sky Islands, I found myself getting a little disappointed after I encountered a few Rauru’s Blessings in a row. I really wanted a “regular” Shrine with its own self-contained puzzle.
That got me thinking… Just how many Rauru’s Blessing Shrines are there? The total breakdown by region is as follows:
Central Hyrule: 6/34
Necluda: 5/10
Lanayru: 6/15
Faron: 3/6
Akkala: 2/11
Eldin: 3/10
Gerudo: 6/17
Hebra: 4/17
The Sky: 13/30
In total, 48 out the 152 Shrines in Tears of the Kingdom are Rauru’s Blessings. That means 31%, or just under one-third, of the Shrines in the game are Rauru’s Blessings. How does this compare to Breath of the Wild? If you include the DLC, 37 of the 128 Shrines, or 29%, are Blessings named after the monk of that Shrine. There isn’t too much of a difference in overall percentage of Blessing Shrines between the two games, in that case. So why does it feel as though there are far more in Tears of the Kingdom?
I have thought of a couple different reasons. One is that just under half of the Shrines in The Sky are Rauru’s Blessings. Another reason is that many of the Rauru’s Blessing Shrines simply involve getting the green crystal to the Shrine. I started to groan (and started calling them “snot rocks”) whenever I found a crystal because I knew it would mean a Rauru’s Blessing. Compare that to Breath of the Wild where there were a lot of memorable Shrine Quests like “Eventide Island,” “Under a Red Moon,” or “Recital at Warbler’s Nest.” These were all very unique in the tasks required to open the Shrine, versus “get tab A to slot B” with slightly different Zonai devices, a.k.a. Hyrule Ikea.
To counter that idea, I do realize that, in a way, getting a crystal to a Shrine is a puzzle in and of itself. One could even argue that, unlike a Shrine puzzle in which you are somewhat limited to the devices in the Shrine, the crystal Shrines allow for a lot more freedom and creativity. There are a lot more Zonai devices sprinkled around the crystal-based Shrines. Players could bring whatever they want to the puzzle, or even go and get what they want and come back to it. It’s possible that the idea of giving lots of freedom to players is what drove the developers to use this open-ended mechanic. Perhaps it’s a good thing.
What do you think? Did you like it when a Shrine was a Rauru’s Blessing, or did you groan like I did? Were the Shrine Quests better in Breath of the Wild? Let us know in the comments?
Leslie is a mom, a cosplayer, an educator, and a fervent fan of The Legend of Zelda series. She lives in an area of the United States that reminds her of the Akkala region in the fall and Hebra the other 11 months of the year. She owns The Legend of Zelda t-shirts older than most of her students.
