NeoBards' Silent Hill f is not only a survival-horror game, but it has a multitude of puzzles that will challenge your wit and patience, as it gets harder the deeper you are in the game.
The Shrine Vault, one of the first puzzles you'll encounter in Silent Hill f, might give you a bit of trouble. That is, until you actually understand what you have to do for it, but even so, some don't have the patience. Lucky for you, we'll make it a tad easier so you can get through this puzzle quickly and continue enjoying the game.
You'll still need to do a bit of work, but with this guide, it'll hopefully be easier.
So you've reached the Shrine Vault, and are now wondering, what the heck do you do? Well, if you paid attention to the locked doors, you'd have noticed that the padlock requires three symbols to open, and after a short cutscene, where a monster spawns, you'll be in an area with boards that have a bunch of Ema hanging from them.
The solution here is to find the right Ema, which you get clued on via a poem, which is different depending on the difficulty you select. However, when it comes to actually looking for which Ema, it can be a bit overwhelming with all the Ema in the area. My sure solution was to basically look for the Ema that was different than all the ones in that specific area. There are three locations scattered around the map, each having multiple boards filled with Ema tiles, and the easiest way to find the correct one is to just look for the different one. There's just one in the entire section, and if you need help knowing which one to look for, you can refer to the poem given to you. You'll know you found the right one when all the other Ema disappear, indicating that you can move on to the next set of boards.
That, or you can check out the answer for each difficulty below.
The Lost in Fog difficulty only unlocks after you beat the game the first time.
For the Lost in Fog difficulty, there is an additional step after finding the correct Ema, as instead of one symbol, there are now four to pick from. Refer to the poem for which symbol is the correct one.
In case you're curious what we thought of Silent Hill f, read our glowing review on why it's one of the year's best games.