Mina the Hollower Review - Whipping It Out

Ole Gamer Joe
1 hour ago
9 min read

Whip it good!

After six long years of development Mina the Hollower is here at last, coming to us from Yacht Club Games, the same talented folks that brought us the legendary indie release Shovel Knight. This eagerly anticipated title has had me frothing at the mouth (or should I say, nibbling at the cheese) since it was first announced, calling back to the Game Boy Color in its visual style, and seemingly paying tribute to classics such as Link’s Awakening in terms of gameplay. One thing is for certain, this 30 plus hour adventure is MASSIVE, but is Mina the Hollower oh so creamy and delicious like a fine Brie? Or is it moldy Swiss cheese? Let’s find out in our full review!

Unsurprisingly in Mina the Hollower, you’ll be in control of Mina, the genius creator of Spark Generators which power the city of Ossex. Ossex will be your main hub throughout this adventure, but more on that later. It is an action-adventure game taking place from the top-down perspective presented in the style of a Game Boy Color release. If you’ve played just about any of the classic Zelda games, whether it be the aforementioned Link’s Awakening, Oracle of Seasons, or hell, even the original Zelda, you’ll have somewhat of an idea as to what you should expect. Lots of baddies, some tricky dungeons and labyrinths, and TONS (in this case thousands) of screens to scroll through.

That said, Mina the Hollower puts its own unique spin on the genre, leaving the mind-bending puzzles of yore in the backseat and featuring a gothic 1700’s world that wouldn’t feel out of place in more modern releases the likes of Bloodborne. That’s right, there’s “Souls” elements here and they don’t just show up in the aesthetics, meaning you either currently have a massive full blown erection or your stomach just dropped to your butthole. Similar to many Soulslikes, Mina offers insane levels of difficulty that, unlike some of its brethren, can mercifully be tweaked through a robust offering of modifiers.

While NOT taking place in a full 3D world, Mina controls a bit better than Link would have back in the 90’s, armed with additional skills that our green capped friend would almost certainly be jealous of. Starting out, you’ll need to select between one of three different weapons, though fear not, as these other offerings such as a mighty hammer will become available later into the adventure for purchase. Each weapon has a different feel and vibe, though I ultimately selected the Nightstar and stuck with it for the vast majority of my playtime.

Mina will also collect various sidearms through her travels, which are secondary attacks that can in many cases damage foes from a distance or even help in unraveling secrets. These range from throwable axes to ghostly allies which will join you throughout various encounters, biting and dropping restoratives along the way. A fair comparison to this system would be how you have secondary weapons in the classic Castlevania games. The sheer number of abilities available is staggering and can make for fun experimentation and combinations against your enemies, creative stuff indeed!

With that said, Mina still feels a bit stiff to move about which weighs combat down. Whipping foes works well enough, with attacks feeling quick and snappy; however, lining up shots can be frustrating, which the developers try to alleviate a bit through a burrowing mechanic. Rather than solely relying on the classic “Hit it and quit it” tactic, Mina is capable of digging deep and traveling underground for a limited amount of time before resurfacing. This option does help to quicken the speed of combat a bit and allows the player to get a better angle on adversaries.

Burrowing isn’t perfect, however, and not always easy to execute in the heat of battle. Enemies often swarm the game’s many screens, firing off projectiles, running towards you like a bat out of hell, and typically dishing out massive amounts of damage. Mina the Hollower isn’t just tough on its standard difficulty, it's downright brutal. Healing in itself is a sometimes obnoxious and time consuming process in the midst of battle, requiring you to drink plasma from vials which is earned through attacking. Enemies can and will strike you during your healing animation, which is about as much fun as it sounds. Toss in hordes of flying beasties that are annoying to try to jump up and hit, and frustration can easily start to set in for your average everyday gamer such as myself. Foes are extremely aggressive, fast, and will make their bad day your bad day in an instant. Despite my qualms, having to earn back health through successfully hitting foes and avoiding damage yourself is compelling and rewarding when successfully executed.

Boss encounters, of which there are over 20, are downright soul crushing, featuring an odd assortment of creative creatures that will punish you to no end. Thankfully, the game’s many modifiers are robust, meaning most players will be able to get through the game one way or another, though at the cost of sacrificing unlockable feats depending on which modifier is chosen. There’s infinite health, some weird stuff like being able to jump incredibly far, and even options to make the game MORE difficult if you truly hate yourself.

While I appreciate the sheer number of mods available, call me old-school, but I would have preferred a basic easy, normal, or hard mode. Using these modifiers feels a bit like cheating and left me feeling as though I wasn’t able to get the most out of the developers intended experience. Skill issue? Sure, I guess, I never claimed to be the best at games, but I am a decent player and think it's fair to say that Mina the Hollower’s default mode feels like most indie releases' hard mode, and then some.

With that said, if you are the type of player that loves Soulslike levels of difficulty, you CAN master the mechanics and feel of our mousey protagonist with dedication and practice. In fact, I would argue that for as tough as combat is to survive, the game’s biggest nemesis is its many platforming sections, which serve as my largest gripe with the entire experience. This game has far more platforming than I expected, with mechanics that aren’t completely up to task. Mina will need to carefully hop between gaps onto moving platforms avoiding spikes and hazards, sometimes needing to burrow and hop out at the right moment to be successful. The core mechanics simply aren’t tight enough at times for the level of precision platforming that is often asked of gamers.

Time and time again I plunged to my doom, took cheap projectile hits mid-air, and quite frankly wanted to flush my controller down the toilet at just how obnoxious this game was. Certainly, some of my annoyance does come down to a lack of the required skill level as I have admitted, but I feel at least some of my issues were due to the mechanics not always being as sharp as they were intended to be. Even worse, death can come with a further punishment. The first death is a gimme, where you’ll drop a spark that you must recollect in order to avoid losing all of the bones you have gathered, but no such luck if you fail to get back to where you initially died. Losing all of your currency is infuriating, leaving me feeling as though I had wasted a good deal of time with nothing to show for it. The positive news is that eventually you can upgrade the number of sparks available.

On the topic of bones, they are indeed the main resource of Mina the Hollower, collected off of defeated enemies or found across the world. These bones allow you to purchase weapons, items, trinkets, and more. The good news is that some bones can be safely stored and recovered in various mouse holes scattered across the world. Here you can also regain lost vials, equip various trinkets which add fun perks to Mina, change weapons, and withdraw those safely stored bones to level up. While losing bones did suck, overall, I enjoyed the leveling system which allows you to build Mina to your own individual liking. She has just a few stats to upgrade, mainly attack and defense, but because bones are also used to purchase everything from additional plasma vials to keys which will unlock optional areas, I was often left to make tough choices, or go out and grind enemies for a while just like in an old-school RPG.

As you would expect, exploration is a giant aspect of Mina the Hollower, with the game offering very cryptic hints through newspaper articles and NPCs as to where you should go next. While you do have a main goal of restoring six generators, how you go about that goal is mostly up to you. After a brief introduction you are essentially left to do as you will, able to explore this vast area freely in any direction you wish. The world is divided into regions of varying difficulties, and is also full of optional roadways, caves, and secrets. I wasn’t kidding, this game is BIG and full of meaningful content that completionists will love seeking out. That said, while locations do ultimately merge together and fast travel via train becomes available, you won’t have a traditional map of each location which can be quite frustrating. While each of the main regions feels unique and features gimmicks such as slippery ice and wind, I was a bit surprised with how few puzzles these zones offered. There are a few light conundrums to solve here or there, some of which are clever, but don’t expect anything that comes close to the city in the sky. Most of the time you are either fighting off foes or platforming through perilous situations.

There were plenty of cases where I bumbled about for a good hour or more not knowing where I should be headed, only to discover I missed a tiny pixel of a breakable object that opened the way ahead. This is one downside to Mina the Hollower’s Game Boy Color aesthetic, which is otherwise beautiful, full of diverse towns, regions, and fascinating characters. The pixels can be a bit harsh on larger screens, making this a lovely choice for handheld devices such as the Steam Deck where it played without issue. Generally, the game looks great assuming you are a fan of retro visuals to start with and sounds amazing thanks to a killer chiptune soundtrack by Jake Kaufman. The songs are crunchy and infectious, bringing the entire world vibrancy and life. Everything else sounds just as old-school as one would expect in the best of ways.

There is one other gameplay element worth mentioning, which involves Mina needing to scale generators at the end of each world. These sections were incredibly obnoxious, and while I can appreciate offering gameplay variety, dodging hazards while trying to collect bones and tucking into holes didn’t feel great.

As far as the writing is concerned, I enjoyed the bit that is on offer. While a lack of cheese puns is somewhat disappointing, Mina is a fun character with a different kind of goal than we’ve seen time and time again in countless retro-themed releases. There are some decent twists and turns to unravel, highly entertaining side stories and characters, and scattered bits of lore that bring further life to these fascinating lands. The writers even went as far as to give some of the game’s bosses their own lore which I can certainly appreciate. Not a game that will be winning narrative of the year, and a bit light on humor, but entertaining overall.

Thankfully I didn’t come across any significant performance issues in my time playing Mina the Hollower. No major bugs to report, with a smooth framerate of 120fps at most times throughout my review. This is certainly impressive given the sheer size of the game, so kudos to Yacht Club Games for doing a fantastic job of squashing bugs and releasing the game in a polished, day one playable state, seems like it's asking for a lot these days.

And that was my time with Mina the Hollower, a game packed with an ungodly amount of content. I haven’t even touched on the many New Game Plus features which are full of fun surprises. From a sheer value proposition, it's hard not to recommend Yacht Club Game’s latest release to most fans of top-down action games. It has a lovely retro visual style, killer soundtrack, and when the gameplay clicks, it can feel satisfying. The problem for me was that it didn’t always click for me personally.

Truth be it told, I got pretty frustrated and fed up with this game multiple times and needed to walk away. Mina is tough as nails, and while I appreciate the insane amount of modifiers available, I am the type that enjoys playing a game at the intended normal difficulty, and it felt like I didn’t really get that here without having to feel bad about it. The combat isn’t perfect and the platforming is even worse, and the exploration can be a bit much in how cryptic and directionless it is, but there’s still lots to like here, and players more patient than me will have a wonderful time exploring every last nook and cranny of this gothic world.

BRONZE/GOOD