Hidden Locations and the Merchant

This guide was made to help those who wish to avoid a million random encounters while trying to find the hidden locations.

Intro

Having trouble finding those hidden locations? Don't want to have to deal with a million and one random encounters? Just want to get to the places so you can do your thing? Well here's the guide for you!

Here's a guide that I wish I had had when I was trying to find those pesky hidden locations!

Edit: for some reason, sometimes a random screenshot will not load for random people. If it seems like a screenshot might be missing, please let me know.

If this becomes enough of a problem I will simply add a link below each screenshot.

The Hidden Cave

The hidden cave can actually be reached before getting the airship. It can be reached by leaving Papunika Village's north exist and going as far west as possible, and then going south.

This is the only hidden location that has no indication that it is there, and took me plenty of wandering around the area before figuring out/remembering exactly where it was.



Going south 1 step from here will put you in the Hidden Meadow. Along with a chest in the south east corner of the map, there is an entrance to the Hidden Cave in the south west corner of the map:



Just drop down that hole and:



Achievement unlocked!

Make sure to have a good wander around the cave to find all the chests. I'll also leave with a hint for the hard to find one: you'll need to pass through a wall.

A more detailed hint for those that want/need it: go through the wall right above where the river ends in the east.

The Forbidden Lake

After getting the airship, go to the location indicated on my mini map below. To get there, you'll have to fly along the river.



The parting of the mountains with a little divit into the forest is a visual clue that there's an entrance to something right there! Just take a couple steps north to pass between those two mountains and you'll find yourself at the Forbidden Lake.



Achievement unlocked!

Please note that you may have to go through the area multiple times in order to complete it, as backtracking from certain areas is practically impossible. Some hints to avoid this:

• Fire an arrow through every fire in every direction.
  
• Bombs can be used to hit crystals when you can't fire arrows at them.

The entrance area is a good spot to get the Takoyaki achievement!

The Shrine of the Babamut

The Shrine of the Babamut has the most obvious visual clute, since it's represented by a cave entrance and is directly south of the Travelling Merchant (who is also easy to spot).



Easy peasy, just walk into the cave mouth and bam! Achievement unlocked!



This place has a lot of stuff to find, and a lot of monsters to beat up. It also has a TON of bats in one area, so it'll be easy to get the Exterminator Achievement here!

The Travelling Merchant

The travelling merchant is not hard to find. The sheriff in Aogai even mentions where they've set up camp and there's a giant tent to show you "hey, there's something here!"



The Merchant will have something for you if you can bring them some cooked Choboko Meat. To get that, simply wander around the world map until encountering a Choboko, then kill it. I just happened to run into one north of Papunika Village, though they might be found in other areas too.


When you kill the Choboko, you'll get the Choboko Hunter Achievement! Which is thankfully an easy task as, unlike Chocobos, they don't run away and will actually fight you.

In order to cook it, simply take the meat to the lady in Aogai who lives near the well. She's the one who asked you to kill a dragon in exchange for bombs (she does know that dragons don't exist, right?).

Take the cooked meat to the Travelling Merchant, and they'll give you a Heart Container! Hurray for more health! This will be a huge help during the final boss fight.

Outro

Enjoy being able to find those locations without trouble! Hope this guide helped you!

Please leave comments if you have any questions or constructive criticisms. This is my first guide, so comments and suggestions will be greatly appreciated!

Before I go, I have one final tip for the Sniper Achievement, since it falls into the category of a the achievements Exterminator and Takoyaki: the Noria mines has a few skeletons that will appear one at a time, and arrows will kill them in one hit, so I highly recommend using that area for the achievement!

Thanks for reading! Enjoy this screenshot of Clink inside the Black Citadel that I took while checking to see if I could enter it again, because why not?

[Glitch]

Unfortunately I can't pin/sticky comments, but I can edit in a note! ouo

[Realms×Myths]

Ah, okay. So an image does exist, its just not loading.
I found it some time ago, took a bit of searching after I read your guide, but not too difficult taking the textual description to guide me.
But I'm sure that picture will help others.

… You can't pin\sticky guide comments, can you?

[Glitch]

Ah, one of my screenshots appears to have not loaded for you! Here's a direct link to it for you:

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/266091945785492524/80F7C59F08AE34EC9D7716889448FF9BC83D58FF/

[Realms×Myths]

This is what I see on my end:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/hwu7oxf99ctlg6k/WhatMiniMap.png

[Realms×Myths]

So there's a minimap in the top left hand corner of this screenshot?

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/266091945785493013/CF9ECB3DE06B6948FB880D822634F2E59B626893/

And it shows us where on the world map the Forbidden Lake is, despite it being a screenshot of the Forbidden Lake area? If there is a minimap, it's likely the minimap of that area, and not the world map…

I honestly only see the minimap on your screenshots of the overworld, and not on any of the zone screenshots.

[Glitch]

@that girl

Because it's trans luscent, the minimap is hard to see in some screenshots, but it IS there in the top left hand corner. You might have to click on the images to enlarge them if you're having trouble seeing them clearly. If they still aren't big enough in the pop-up, you can click the link at the top of the pop-up to get a zoom in-able version or past the URL for the image in a web browser so you can zoom in and out as much as you please.

Hope that helps! ouo

[Realms×Myths]

What minimap? There's no Minimap shown in this guide (at the time I posted this comment)…

[MastBlank]

Thanks bud couldnt find the forbidden Lake but the other locations where a lot easier to find ^w^