Silent Hill f has arrived, and while this 1960s, Japan-set game might look quite different from previous entries, it has the sort of difficult puzzles you would expect from a journey into Silent Hill. An early puzzle in the game, the Shrine Vault puzzle occurs the first time you enter the spirit realm.
This puzzle solution is for the “Hard” puzzle difficulty, which is considered the default puzzle difficulty.
Shrine Vault Puzzle
This puzzle requires you to find three symbols by spotting and flipping specific Ema located in three different spots. This occurs after receiving the ceremonial knife and following the Fox mask man into a new area, which is promptly locked with a combination lock. The map marks the three different locations, but you need to search for a specific Ema in each area. It’s not clear which Ema is found in which spot, but each area only contains one, and once you acquire the symbol, you won’t be able to interact with that area any longer.
It’s unclear if the specific Ema found in each area remains static, but only one of each appears, so if you don’t see one on the specific board you are investigating, move on to another one.
The combo lock solution is above, but the three Ema you are searching for are Lightning, Decayed Tree, and Kudzu. The last one is a pink flower accompanied by large green leaves. You can see the three different images below.
Don’t worry about marking down the symbols on each Ema, as they are automatically added to your journal once found. Once you have all three, return to the combination lock and put them in based on the top-down order shown in the journal.