Breath of the Wild What are your favorite and least favorite shrine(s)?

[LordErec42]

As I'm playing through BoTW again and trying to 100% the shrines I'm finding quite a few new ones of varying degrees of quality. That got me thinking of what my favorite and least favorite ones overall are. Here's my list, what's yours?

Favorite: Shora Hah - Blue Fire
This shrine has a lot of neat little puzzles and light combat without being overly frustrating and is probably my favorite overall.

Least Favorite:
Rohta Chigah - Stop to Start
This shrine is a super annoying, tedious gauntlet where if you mess up once you have to start over from the very beginning with being part of the quest with the one-hit obliterator. I hated this shrine, especially with the fake-outs on the final part to just mess with the player. The other two shrines in this part of the questlline were infuriating as well with swarming the player with guardians with their area effect shots, but they weren't as tedious to retry as this one.

Any shrine with motion control
I still don't understand why Nintendo keeps trying to force motion controls into their games. These shrines are nearly impossible to play while traveling in the car since the slightest bump will mess you up, and are just super annoying in general. Big thumbs down for all of these design atrocities.

 

[Uwu_Oocoo2]

I don't really recall any specific shrines I liked or disliked, but there are some general types I prefer. The apparatus shrines, while annoying, are actually kind of fun to mess around with. Having an excuse to pull off my joycons and flip stuff into the air is cool, and it's really satisfying once you finally get it. They can prove much to tricky with the motion control, though.
Another type I like is the ones where yo have to solve some puzzle in the outside world to gain entry. Connecting the shrines to outer hyrule and it's denizens makes it feel more like a part of the land, and not just a bunch of weird deadly mini games. I also love just being able to enter a shrine and get the spirit orb. Like dude, why couldn't every monk do that?
As for least favorite, any fighting trials. If I enter a shrine and it says "test of strength" I turn my champion self around and go looking for a different and less deadly area to explore. I've never quite gotten used to the fighting style of botw, with blocking and perfect dodging being close to impossible for me, so I just get obliterated in those trials. They just aren't that fun, and they chew through my resources way too quickly for my liking.

 

[thePlinko]

Trying to remember specific shrines is like trying to remember what you had for breakfast the day after your 5th birthday. They’re all so same-y that they all just meld together.

I guess I enjoyed the ones on the top of the dueling peaks where you had to go into one in order to find the answer to the other. That one was kinda neat. It’s a shame that BotWs loading times made it take a while to finish.

 

[Spiritual Mask Salesman]

There are only a few shrines that I remember pretty well, but usually when I think back I recall more about the struggles to find or get to a shrine than the shrine itself.

But I did really like the Dueling Peaks Shrines, it was a cool concept to have them both tie together. That one where you have to use switches to change the directions of those fans to then paraglide to the end was one I liked a lot too. I also remember liking that one where you create Cryonsis blocks along a wall that has flowing water to guide a ball to a hole.

Least fave is any Guardian scout shrine, I felt like there was way too many of them.

 

[Vanessa28]

I don't remember every shrine but I enjoyed most of them. So a fav is hard to tell.

I dislike the motion controlled ones. Not all though but there are quite a few I never want to encounter ever again in my whole life!

 

[LordErec42]

I'll add the labyrinth shrines to my list of favorites, although this comes with the caveat that the giant labyrinths just sitting around in the world feel really random and out of place and don't make any sense even if they're interesting and fun from a gameplay perspective. The sand seal rally was also a fun shrine quest, and the Goron shrine quests were also amusing (the one in the tunnel, gut check rock, and the one on the path to the Gerudo desert where you have to survive the heat).

However some of the shrine quests were just plain annoying, like the one where you have to escort the ice block past a bunch of enemies to Gerudo town. Will devs ever learn that escort quests are simply not fun in most cases?

I guess I'm in the minority with the combat shrines, I agree that they're not great and are lazy filler content, but even the major tests of strength are relatively easy with a strong 2 handed weapon (like the royal claymore that spawns on top of the woodland tower) and a 5 mighty banana dish. Just spin circles around the guardian and it can't really hurt you, and cook a few hearty food dishes and abuse the overheal mechanics if needed.

 

[Shrimpdragon]

I quite like the motion controlled shrines, annoying and they make you work but if they didn't they would be easy.
I like the shrines where you have to complete a quest or hunt them out and do something, like blast rock away, to get the shrine then the orb is free.
If I find a Major test of Strength fighting shrine early on I mark them and come back to them when I’m stronger.
I really like the puzzle ones!

 

[Chevywolf30]

I did not like the one with the constellations. Can't remember what it was other than it had constellations and I didn't like it. I liked any of the ones that needed stasis.

 

[Moblinking5000]

My favourite ones are the longer ones, like the Shrine of Power and Blue Flame shrines. My least favourite are the Apparatus shrines due to the motion controls being weird(and I say that as someone who doesn't mind the MCs in SS or even in other parts of BotW like aiming the bow).

But I did really like the Dueling Peaks Shrines, it was a cool concept to have them both tie together. That one where you have to use switches to change the directions of those fans to then paraglide to the end was one I liked a lot too. I also remember liking that one where you create Cryonsis blocks along a wall that has flowing water to guide a ball to a hole.

Least fave is any Guardian scout shrine, I felt like there was way too many of them.

I agree with the Dueling Peaks ones; some of the few shrines where the Camera Rune comes in handy. The other two you mentioned are cool, too.

I see where you're coming from in regards to the combat shrines, and I will agree that there could've been more variety, but the combat mechanics in BotW are such a blast that I didn't mind them that much. Hopefully, though, if combat shrines(or some equivilant to them) appear in BotW2 or future titles, they will be revamped so that each one has unique enemy types in them; maybe making each of them into mini-Trial of the Sword/Savage Labrynth type trials would help, as well.

I did not like the one with the constellations. Can't remember what it was other than it had constellations and I didn't like it. I liked any of the ones that needed stasis.

I felt that one was pretty clever, actually. Made me scratch my head for a while, and felt satisfying to figure out.

 

[Spiritual Mask Salesman]

I see where you're coming from in regards to the combat shrines, and I will agree that there could've been more variety, but the combat mechanics in BotW are such a blast that I didn't mind them that much. Hopefully, though, if combat shrines(or some equivilant to them) appear in BotW2 or future titles, they will be revamped so that each one has unique enemy types in them; maybe making each of them into mini-Trial of the Sword/Savage Labrynth type trials would help, as well.

Yeah, really my only complaint is every time we were fighting a Guardian, I think even just changing what enemies are in the combat shrines could go a long way.

 

[Uwu_Oocoo2]

Yeah, really my only complaint is every time we were fighting a Guardian, I think even just changing what enemies are in the combat shrines could go a long way.

I agree with this, even if you increase the difficulty on a guardian it's still a gueardian, with the same strengths and weaknesses. It would be cool to see more enemy variety in shrines, but with them being tests by the sheikah it'd be kind of cruel to stick a moblin underground for centuries.

 

[Mikey the Moblin]

I felt that one was pretty clever, actually. Made me scratch my head for a while, and felt satisfying to figure out.

it was so stupid actually
because I knew what the concept was but I was putting them in backwards and googled it out of frustration

 

[Spiritual Mask Salesman]

I agree with this, even if you increase the difficulty on a guardian it's still a gueardian, with the same strengths and weaknesses. It would be cool to see more enemy variety in shrines, but with them being tests by the sheikah it'd be kind of cruel to stick a moblin underground for centuries.

Mechanical versions of common enemes could be cool

 

[Shrimpdragon]

I do admit to quite a bit of googling the very first time I played BotW.
I didn’t have a clue on what to do, where to go nor how to do anything apart from run around.
The second time I played I fared much better as I had hindsight, trouble was with the first play thru I had never played a game like that before!
I do like the Shrines, you need something like them otherwise you’d just get bored of running around and fighting enemies on the surface who all have the same tactics.

 

[Gavin the Lynel]

The apparatus shrines were painful for me. Doing them on a Switch Lite is not feasible.

Shrines involving bombs were my favourite.