How to open the Silent Hill f Shrine Vault and find the correct Ema

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How to find the correct ema

The Silent Hill f Shrine Vault has you looking for the correct ema, kudzu and more to open its combination lock. It's a simple puzzle that can be obscured if you don't know what the meanings of the some of the things you're looking for. Not to mention that at one point you can seem to have a baffling range of options to work through for the solution.

The actual way you solve Shrine Vault 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.

The Silent Hill f Shrine Vault puzzle

The Silent Hill f Shrine Vault appears almost immediately after completing the Altar puzzle and escaping that room. Immediately outside you'll get the objective to follow Fox Mask after meeting him, which will also 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 above, which is where you'll find the prayer plaques called ema, critical to opening the Shrine Vault.

When you reach the ringed area above you'll find the ema prayer plaques hanging on stands and 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 will be the words I've highlighted, but you won't know why just yet and while you'll get a new objective to 'find the correct ema', you'll be attacked by a monster that appears before you can do anything. You can't kill this monster and only knock it out for a while, so equip the Kaiken, take it down and prepare to look for ema.

How to find the correct ema in Silent Hill f

To find the correct ema in Silent Hill f you need to first find the symbol above among all the wooden plaques at the hint area on the map. For me it was in the middle part of all the display stands, 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 then two more stands full of ema marked on the map for you to check out:

You're then looking for these two ema symbols below 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 from the ema 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.

Silent Hill f shrine vault combination ema — (Image credit: Konami)

Once you have the door open you can head in and grab the large green key, which you can then use in the dog's mouth back at the shrine. However a red mist will appear that constantly drains your sanity, along with multiple faceless monsters. Don't waste any time trying to fight them - just try to force you way 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 next up is the the Silent Hill f Scarecrow puzzle. That's not clear at all, with multiple, even more obscure, clues to work though. So check back in when you get there as you might need my help again. There's also a Silent Hill f Omamori up for grabs here on a NG+ playthrough so there's more information there if you get that far.