Tears of the Kingdom easter eggs, tips and secrets from Twitch star Limealicious

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is undoubtedly the biggest game of the year so far, shifting over ten million copies in a matter of just a few days. It’s also the biggest game in terms of size and scope, featuring a massive open world that extends far beyond the fields, lakes and mountains of Hyrule. It’s so big that even with dozens of hours of game time under your belt, chances are you’ll have barely scratched the surface – not to mention the depths below and skies above. If you’re looking for advice on how to solve puzzles, find shrines and secure the best armour, popular Twitch streamer Limealicious has you covered. Limealicious has kindly provided the Daily Express with a selection of tips and tricks for besting the humungous land of Hyrule. Read to the end for some Tears of the Kingdom secrets and easter eggs.

Which puzzles are the hardest to solve in Tears of the Kingdom, and how would you recommend solving?

The cool thing about Tears of the Kingdom is that there’s no set way to solve a puzzle. Puzzles can be solved in a number of different ways: while the developers may have suggestions and might provide tools that nudge players in a particular direction, you can disregard them completely and find a completely different solution with a very large percentage of the challenges the game puts to you. I’ve found that due to the huge variety of different kinds of puzzles, my viewers have vastly different experiences and stories in regards to which ones they struggle with the most! For example, I personally struggle with visualisation and spatial reasoning so I actually had a little bit of trouble with a couple of shrines that involved finding the correct angle to rotate a shape to in order to pass it through a specific gap in the wall. In that situation I did fall back on trial and error a little – one of the good things about Tears of the Kingdom, though, is that it doesn’t typically punish you for lots of experimentation!

Top Tips on finding Shrine locations

One of the best ways to find shrines is to take advantage of the game’s different height levels. Going into minor spoiler territories here, but there are three different ‘maps’ to explore within Tears of the Kingdom. There’s the surface world of Hyrule, the depths, and the sky islands. Getting up high is one of the best ways to find things on the map below (sending yourself up one of the towers also works for this), and while you’re skydiving/falling you can click the right stick to zoom in and mark shrines. Time slows down while you do this so it’s very useful.

The other level, the Depths, makes things even easier. The Depths is very dark by default but contains light roots, which are used to reveal the map and light up the surrounding area. The locations of light roots correlate with shrines above, so you can grab a bunch of them and then swap between the Depths and Surface maps to mark where their surface equivalents are. Light roots are typically easier to find than shrines because they glow in the dark and be seen from a long way off, although occasionally your view of them can be obstructed by the terrain.

Are there any stages in the game that have been particularly difficult to bypass, and how would you recommend passing these?

As the game is fully open world, you have a near limitless amount of freedom in exactly when and how you want to tackle sections of the game. If you’re struggling with anything in particular, leaving and coming back to it later with upgraded armour, extra hearts, or better fused weapons is hugely beneficial. It’s a good idea to also cook food using items that temporarily give you more max hearts like Hearty Truffles, or go hunting for fairies in Sky Islands with a water source. Like in other Zelda games, a fairy will revive you if you’re holding one when you take fatal damage.

Slightly more spoilery answer, so look away if you’re avoiding specifics: For the certain multi-headed flying minibosses (you’ll know them if you see them!) hanging out around Hyrule, I really recommend killing a few keese for their wings and eyes in order to make hitting their heads easier during a fight!

Are there any places in particular that are best for securing armour?

The Depths is a great place to find various armour pieces! While traversing the depths, you’ll come across treasure chests on podiums that often contain a piece. Additionally, you can collect poes in the Depths and trade them for various goodies, including armour. If you explore the Sky Islands, you can also find chests there that contain treasure maps that point directly to these chests in the depths. Otherwise, most major towns will have an armour shop that generally contains a set specific to the region’s aesthetic or theme, or in the case of very cold or very hot places the local armour set can help a lot with the local area’s environmental hazards.

Slightly spoilery specific answer, so look away if you’re avoiding specifics: Take a trip to Link’s house in Hateno for an armour-related breadcrumb trail!

Are there easter eggs/nods to older games that Zelda enthusiasts need to keep an eye out for?

Tears of the Kingdom is absolutely full of easter eggs and references! Many, many place names on the map are named after characters from previous games. For example, the Korok Forest has a lake named after Ocarina of Time’s Sage of Forest Saria, and the swamp is named after Link’s childhood bully Mido. There’s also a nearby island named after Makar from The Wind Waker! Similarly, two of the lakes near Zora’s Domain are named after Mikau and Lulu – the zora couple whose eggs you save (and in the case of Mikau, whose appearance you take when putting on the zora mask) in Majora’s Mask. There are far too many places named in this way to list here!

Additionally, a lot of the armour pieces you can pick up in the Depths are actually the signature outfits from previous Links, such as the Tunic of Time (Ocarina).

When cooking, Link will also hum various songs from across the series! He rotates through lots of different songs, including Saria’s Song and Epona’s song.