Gossip Stone: What Are Your Thoughts On The Silent Realm?

Zelda has seen some pretty tense moments before, but if you’ve experienced this one I’m sure you can relate (at least somewhat). In Skyward Sword, the player had to undergo trials involving the collection of the goddesses’ tears, while being timed on how quickly he/she may get it done. If that player is unable to find more and lets the timer go down, you can only hope that the frenzy it brings them to is enough to lead them to a tear. And with that said, I’d like to talk more about these trials -The Silent Realm- beyond this point. So if you’d like to read more into it, hit the jump to head in.

Without going much into story details, The Silent Realms are required trials you must go through in order to progress through the story. They consist with collecting the Sacred Tears of one of the three goddesses, all depending on which Silent Realm you’re facing. While collecting these tears, you’re being timed- with exactly 90 seconds on the clock. Collecting tears will refill your timer, but if you cannot find another tear by then, the Silent Realm’s guardians will awake. If you’re hit once by these guardians, the entire trial will have to be restarted. There are three different guardians- ones that can run pretty swiftly on-ground, ones that will chase you throughout the air, and ones that can alert the guardians to awake if the player steps into the light of their lantern. It’s almost impossible to fend them all off, as you cannot attack them, and one hit will restart the entire trial. Don’t let yourself be cornered by the guardians.

The Silent Realm Guardians’ awaking can be prevented, of course, by keeping the timer filled. If you have trouble finding a Sacred Tear, you could pick up the Light Fruit in the area to show a beacon of each tear’s location for 30 seconds. And as a heads-up, if the player happens to step into Waking Water, whatever time is left on the timer will be ignored, and the guardians will be awoken immediately. You don’t really have to explain what Waking Water is- when you’re inside the Silent Realm, you’ll know. By completing the Silent Realm, you will get a key item required to progress through the area in order to find the next temple. There are also a few Dusk Relics found in these Silent Realms, so if you’re a collector, you’re going to have to go through these a few times to get everything gathered.

With that said, I’d like to say at the very least that I loved the Silent Realm. I didn’t love them when playing them, but they’re pretty awesome to look back on- it’s an interesting throw on the traditional formula. Even Phantom Hourglass had a challenge very similar to this one. So then, what are your thoughts? Have you any opinions on the Silent Realm, or have you yet to experience it? Do you think something similar to the Silent Realm should be brought to future Zelda titles? Sound off in the comments!