How to solve the Silent Hill f Shrine vault puzzle and find the correct Ema

The Silent Hill f Shrine Vault puzzle will have you looking for ema, kudzu and more to find and solve a combination lock. It's a simple puzzle that can be obscured if you don't know what some of the things are called, and the fact that at one point you can seem to have a baffling range of options to examine.

The actual solution to the Shrine Vault puzzle in Silent Hill f isn't that hard though and, having solved it myself, I can tell you what you're looking for and what you need to do.

After the Silent Hill f Altar puzzle this is a slightly longer test that isn't as immediately clear, but not complicated once you know what's going on.

The Silent Hill f Shrine Vault puzzle

The Shrine Vault appears almost immediately after completing the Silent Hill f Altar puzzle and escaping that room. Immediately outside, that gives you the objective to follow Fox Mask after meeting him, which will gain you the Kaiken dagger and lead you to a new area.

Here you'll discover a shine entrance that you can't open without a key but, more importantly, a Shrine Vault combination lock you need a missing piece for before you can solve it. At this point your journal will be updated and direct you to look for any hints, and circle this location on the map:

Head that way and you'll find a doll with a message that states:

Lightning cast down from the heavens split asunder the decayed tree.
From the Earth grows kudzu, the prophet of eternal prosperity.

The important bits are the words I've highlighted there, but before you can do anything with them a monster will appear, as you get a new objective to find the correct ema. You can't kill the monster, only knock it out for a while, so equip the Kaiken and take it down.

How to find the correct ema in Silent Hill f

To find the correct ema in Silent Hill f you need to find the symbol above among all the wooden plaques at the hint area one the map. For me it was in the middle part of the display, and is the kudzu from the clue you found by the doll, otherwise known as Japanese arrowroot.

When you find the symbol it will mark it as "1/3 ema found" and get rid of all the other wooden tiles, meaning you'll need to go elsewhere to find more. There are two more stands full of ema then marked on the map:

You're then looking for these two symbols showing a lighting bolt and a tree in the remaining two areas. The last one you find will also have the missing combination lock part on the back of it.

You'll still have to be dealing with the monster the whole time you're looking for things. If you're lucky they won't find you, but if they do, 'kill' them and take advantage of the quiet time when they're down. Once you have the lock piece head back to the Shrine Vault.

If you check your journal you'll have the symbols you need to open the combination lock on the Shrine Vault, so copy it when you get there. At this point you can just dodge and brute force your way through the monsters to your goal.

Once you have the door open you can head in and grab the large green key, which you can use in the dog's mouth back at the shrine. However a red mist will appear that will constantly drain your sanity, along with multiple faceless monsters. Don't waste any time trying to fight them, just try to get past them all and reach the shrine with the dog statues. When you get close enough you'll trigger a cutscene where you'll place the key in one of the animal mouths and solve the final part of the puzzle.

It's a little way off at this point but the Silent Hill f Scarecrow puzzle will be the next thing you have to work out, and that's not clear at all. So you might need my help again when you get to that.

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