[Update – August 18 @ 6:03 PM] When you have around 12 Bubbul Gems left to uncover, the game no longer lets you find them using the method described here. The article has been updated to include this information.]
Although The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom includes 147 collectible Bubbul Gems hidden across 147 caves, the game only expects you to find 47 of them to earn all of the rewards from Koltin. If you want to fulfill Koltin’s dream of becoming a Satori, however, you’ll need to track down all of them. Of course, once you manage to find the majority of the caves and their respective Bubbulfrog locations, looking for the remaining ones on your own can become a bit of an ordeal. Thankfully, Tears of the Kingdom does offer a decently convenient method for narrowing down any Bubbulfrog locations you may have missed, at least for most of the game.
How to best track down remaining Bubbulfrogs
Once you have acquired every reward from Koltin, he will offer to sense nearby Bubbulfrogs and clue you into their general location. He will also let you know the total number of Bubbul Gems you have remaining. If you need some help pinning down the exact locations where Koltin can appear, take a peak at the map below.
Screenshot via PC Invasion
You’ll want to keep Koltin’s locations in mind, as they will dictate which Bubbulfrogs he will be able to sense. So if, for example, you talk to Koltin in Death Mountain, he will only tell you about any remaining Bubbulfrogs that reside in the Eldin region, more or less. I found that if you have already collected every Bubbul Gem within the region, he will say that he can’t detect any nearby. Early on, this can serve as a helpful cue to cross that region off your checklist and move to another one.
You can also use Satori’s cherry blossoms to help out with finding caves, but this won’t necessarily indicate whether or not you found a cave’s Bubbul Gem. However, this might end up becoming a necessary strategy regardless. Once I had around 12 Bubbul Gems remaining, I found out to my dismay that Koltin was no longer able to detect nearby Bubbulfrogs no matter where I spoke to him. I’m not sure why it works this way, but it means that once you’re nearing the end of your Bubbulfrog hunt in Tears of the Kingdom, you’ll have to resort to other means of finding them, such as assigning them to your Purah Pad sensor.
