Pieces of Heart
Now, here’s a subject we will cover in depth. Pieces of Heart are shards of Heart Containers. When you find five Pieces of Heart, you’ll obtain a new full Heart Container, thus extending your life a bit. There are 45 Pieces of Heart in all, which, if you net all of them, will give you an extra nine Heat Containers Now, if you get the basics of combat down and can avoid falling in lava, then you likely won’t ever need more than the 11 Heart Containers that you’ll obtain simply by defeating the bosses in each of the game’s dungeons. The more the merrier, though.
The following list is mostly intended to act as a checklist and a reference to the walkthrough which we wrote. All of these Pieces appear in the walkthrough, so we’re not going to get too detailed about the locations. If we simply describe a Piece as becoming available after the Snowpeak Ruins dungeon, for example, then you’d want to look at the table of contents over there, find the Snowpeak Ruins link, then click on the link below it; the listing for that Piece of Heart will likely be included there. Likewise, a number of Pieces are simply located in dungeons; refer to those dungeon walkthroughs for the specifics. All Pieces of Heart locations are bolded in the walkthrough, so let that guide your eyes.
Also note that this list is mostly ordered in the order in which you can obtain the Pieces, so if you like, feel free to print out the list and use it as an actual checklist, with pen-marked checks and everything. Two of these require substantial amounts of cash to unlocks, so we put those into the list as 44 and 45, even though they can technically be unlocked earlier in the game.
| Piece of Heart Number | Location |
|---|---|
| [ ] 01 | Hidden chest in the Faron Woods. |
| [ ] 02 | Room 7 of the Forest Temple. |
| [ ] 03 | Room 8 of the Forest Temple. |
| [ ] 04 | In a tree in Hyrule Field north of Faron. Use the boomerang to retrieve it. |
| [ ] 05 | In Kakariko Gorge, southeast of Kakariko, atop a stone in the gorge. |
| [ ] 06 | After you gain the Iron Boots, ride on Epona and do the ranch-herding game in Ordon one last time for the Heart Piece. |
| [ ] 07 | In the Goron Mines. |
| [ ] 08 | Goron Mines. |
| [ ] 09 | Can use the bombs in Kakariko to find this one, near the spring, after completing the Goron Mines. |
| [ ] 10 | Another one that can be found using bombs in Kakariko. |
| [ ] 11 | Climb up to the northern watchtower in Kakariko and speak to Telo. Complete the archery game to obtain the Piece. |
| [ ] 12 | Use a bomb in the southern section of Kakariko Gorge to unblock a cave. Head inside and find two torches. Light them both to reveal a chest. |
| [ ] 13 | When you leave Kakariko via the northeast road, look around for a path you can climb. Destroy the blocks in your path with bombs to find the piece. |
| [ ] 14 | Falbi’s Flight-by-Fowl in Lake Hylia after finding all of the light tears and freeing Hyrule from shadow. |
| [ ] 15 | Hena’s Fishing Hole in Zora’s Domain, near Iza’s Rapid Ride. |
| [ ] 16 | Lakebed Temple. |
| [ ] 17 | Lakebed Temple. |
| [ ] 18 | Sacred Grove, after you fight the puppetmaster. Destroy the rock in the arena with a bomb, then dig as a wolf to find the piece. |
| [ ] 19 | Head to the Spirit Spring in Lake Hylia and clawshot your way up to the room at the rear. |
| [ ] 20 | Cave in Lake Hylia, to the southeast of the warp spot. Climb the ladder and bomb the rock to find the entrance. Find two lamps and light them to reveal a chest. |
| [ ] 21 | Head to Eldin Bridge and look around at the north end of it. Clawshot to the target to find a cave with a chest inside of it. |
| [ ] 22 | In the Orc Camp in Gerudo Desert, slash at the boar that’s being cooked until it explodes. |
| [ ] 23 | Arbiter’s Grounds. |
| [ ] 24 | Arbiter’s Grounds. |
| [ ] 25 | Available in Lake Hylia after completing Arbiter’s Grounds. (This one is likely available as soon as you obtain the Master Sword, but we didn’t realize it until this point in the walkthrough.) |
| [ ] 26 | Available in Eldin Province after completing Arbiter’s Grounds. |
| [ ] 27 | Available in Lanaryu Province after completing Arbiter’s Grounds. |
| [ ] 28 | Available in Death Mountain after completing Arbiter’s Grounds. (This one is likewise probably available earlier than this.) |
| [ ] 29 | Snowpeak Ruins. |
| [ ] 30 | Snowpeak Ruins. |
| [ ] 31 | Return to Snowpeak and speak to Yeti and Yeta. Race them down to the Ruins on shards of ice, and you’ll receive a Piece for beating Yeta. |
| [ ] 32 | In Hyrule Field, north of Castle Town, there’s a cave south of the passage to Zora’s Domain. Blow the entrance, smash the ice with ball and chain, then solve three ice-pushing puzzles for the piece. Arguably the hardest one to obtain, after the hot springwater run, due to the puzzles. |
| [ ] 33 | Temple of Time. |
| [ ] 34 | Temple of Time. |
| [ ] 35 | Temple of Time. After defeating the end boss and before exiting the dungeon, use the Dominion Rod on one of the two statues just before the exit to reveal this piece. |
| [ ] 36 | Hidden Village minigame. Speak to the chicken near the howling stone as a wolf, then speak to all 20 cats to win the piece. |
| [ ] 37 | Faron Woods, after you move the statue with the Dominion Rod. |
| [ ] 38 | South end of Bridge of Eldin, after you move the statue on the north end with the Dominion Rod. |
| [ ] 39 | City in the Sky. |
| [ ] 40 | City in the Sky. |
| [ ] 41 | Kakariko Gorge. Use your double clawshots on the target in the middle of the gorge. |
| [ ] 42 | Palace of Twilight. |
| [ ] 43 | Palace of Twilight. |
| [ ] 44 | If you head into Castle Town via the eastern entrance, there’ll be a priest standing on the north side of the road near the doors. Give him 1,000 Rupees (over a period of time, of course) and you’ll net a Piece. |
| [ ] 45 | When you get done with the Goron Mines and Malo sets up shop in Kakariko, eventually an old Goron will appear in the shop, soliciting donations for a new bridge to Castle Town. Give him 1,000 Rupees, then speak to the Goron Elder outside the shop. He’ll tell you to take a cask of hot springwater to Castle Town. You’ll have to run across the field, avoiding monsters, then splash the springwater on the Goron across the bridge. We found this incredibly frustrating, so we didn’t bother with it ourselves, but you’re welcome to throw your controller in frustration if you like. See below! |
Tip: Many, many readers have written in to suggest the following as a method of tackling the hot springwater trip. Instead of heading directly towards Castle Town, turn to your right and follow along the edge of the cliff there. If you walk closely enough to it, then you should be able to avoid all the spinning enemies entirely, leaving only birds and archers to deal with. The archers should be taken down with your arrows from long range, possibly using the hawkeye, while you can wait for the birds to get close before z-targeting them and hitting them with arrows. Alternately, you can attempt to run past the archers (if you move fast enough they shouldn't be able to hit you with arrows) and outrun the birds. Since the spinning enemies are usually the most perilous to your chances here, this plan sounds like it might work! Alternately, if you've spent the money on the magical armor, then you can use that with a full load of rupees and none of the enemies will be able to hurt you while you run around, letting you easily complete the trip.
