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Piece of Heart

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Piece of Heart
A Piece of Heart from Twilight Princess
A Piece of Heart from Twilight Princess
First appearance A Link to the Past (1992)
Appearances A Link to the Past
Link's Awakening
Ocarina of Time
Majora's Mask
Oracle of Ages
Oracle of Seasons
The Wind Waker
The Minish Cap
Twilight Princess
Use Increasing life meter
"You got a Piece of Heart! Collect four Pieces of Heart to assemble a new Heart Container. Each new container you put together will increase the amount of life energy you can have."
— In-game description

Pieces of Heart are recurring items in the Legend of Zelda series. They are smaller pieces of a full Heart Container. By collecting the a certain number of Pieces of Heart, Link can create another Heart Container, thus increasing his health meter. A prevalence throughout the series is that the number of Heart Pieces needed is four; however, in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, five Pieces of Heart are required. Usually, collecting all Pieces of Heart yield more Heart Containers than the completion of all dungeons in a game. The collection of Heart Pieces is always optional. Physically, Pieces of Heart are very similar to Heart Containers—both of these items often resemble heart-shaped glass containers with a heart inside; the main difference being, in most games, that Pieces of Heart has one small heart encased in glass, as opposed to Heart Containers, that contain large hearts, often filling the entire glass container.

Heart Pieces are found in nearly every Legend of Zelda game, starting with The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. They are found in various locations throughout the game, often requiring Link to come back later once he has acquired more items. Heart Pieces can be obtained in many different ways; most commonly, they can be found in a game's overworld, where they can be located in hard-to-reach areas or inside hidden grottos, as well as by completing small side quests. In addition to this, they may also be found in shops, by playing mini-games or, in newer installments, found inside dungeons. They are conspicuously absent in Phantom Hourglass, as Link can find "whole" Heart Containers instead. They also do not appear in Four Swords and Four Swords Adventures, due to the nature of the gameplay.

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