Mina the Hollower

I was expecting to not like this for many reasons, but I've fallen in love. (First of all, ignore my low play time - my Steam Deck desynced. I've actually put like 30 hours into this.) This game seems to be an homage to the old 2D Game Boy Zeldas, but in reality, it plays more like Hollow Knight. The game is more focused around combat, than it is around the other elements that you would expect to see in Zelda (platforming, puzzle solving, etc.). As far as the combat goes, there's a lot of focus on elements from Dark Souls or the aforementioned Hollow Knight: you're memorizing attack patterns while being precise about your timing, positioning, and building up your heal meter. As others have said, much like similar games, the difficulty here can be BRUTAL through the first level or so. After that, it's still hard, but you have a lot more freedom to customize your passive abilities, weapon, and overall build. I would stick it out through the first boss to see if you'll truly like this game. As far as the other elements go - exploration, puzzle solving, even some light platforming (somehow, even though this is a 2D top-down game) - the game is actually really strong in these areas too, albeit a little unconventional. You're not picking up unique items in each area that let you surpass specific obstacles, like you would expect from a Zelda game. In 99% of cases, you actually have all the abilities you need to access most secrets right from the get-go, but you'll need to get really creative to figure out all the secrets. (A remaining few secrets do require an equippable item or two to access, but even THESE puzzles don't have specific answers. You have a lot of freedom in how you solve them.) Yacht Club gets a LOT of mileage out of a limited camera angle and moveset - the latter of which, by the way, feels really good to use. Mina's burrow changes your speed AND vertical direction rapidly, and constantly, throughout combat, making every encounter a lot more exciting than you would expect from a top-down game. There is so much creativity going on in this game as far as level design and enemy design goes, that you completely forget about how the 2D angle is a limitation. The last, and most important, element of praise I have to give this game is its horror elements. The game isn't SCARY, but it's tremendously spooky in all the right ways. Every area is an homage to a different sub-genre of horror. You've got elements of gothic horror, cosmic horror, ghost stories, body horror, even some slasher stuff. This isn't like Mario where you've got the "beach level" and "forest level" - even when a new level seems mundane at first, there's usually something going on to captivate your imagination a little bit deeper. If you have even a passing interest in ANYTHING folklore or horror-related, play this game with the difficulty modifiers tuned down and just immerse yourself in this cool gothic world. It's silly and spooky all at the same time.

My favourite so far for this year. Really nails the retro aesthetic it's going for while still managing to be incredibly intelligently designed, slick as hell and just full of life, character and secrets everywhere. Definitely can be pretty challenging at times but it's non-linear enough with so many different loadout options that you can always try a different approach or just come back later. I also really liked how it's designed to be 100%ed without needing to rely on any external information, the tools within the game are completely sufficient and are made available at a sensible time in the playthrough.

Meh, pretty mid. I'm not masochistic enough to enjoy the gameplay, but everything else was nice. Edit: alright the ending was pretty cool if you think about it, definitely worth tne money.

Genuine banger that I can't reccomend enough. A game with incredible depth that lets you choose how deep you want to go without punishing you for it.

This is a 10/10 game. There is nothing to complain about in this game. If you are a gamer, buy a Steam Deck and buy this game.

this game ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ bangs

Mina the Hollower is a fantastic game, but has some rough edges that give it an authentic feeling even if that feeling can sometimes be frustration. As someone who treasures the old top-down Zelda games like Link to the Past and Link's Awakening, it's really cool to see someone fill that design space with modern sensibilities. The same strengths of Yacht Club's prior game Shovel Knight are on full display here- a fun and interesting world with tasteful retro graphics and music, complementing a gameplay experience with unique but strong foundational mechanics. The new secret-rich, Souls-inspired level design complete with shortcuts and healing system draws from some classic games, while still somehow feeling like its own thing. At the same time, compromises were made when grafting all these seeming incongruent ideas into one 20-hour game. Platforming can be satisfying in some areas, especially after a few upgrades, but especially in endgame areas feels designed to be challenging in a frustrating rather than "fair" feeling way. The sometimes spartan visuals, top-down perspective, wealth of trinket options, and some particularly awful hazards gave me the impression that Yacht Club was struggling to find interesting ways to keep the game both challenging and rewarding. Since the player can have literally 0 movement upgrades or all of them (which can trivialize certain rooms entirely), areas seem to be balanced at random where some are too easy and others a total clusterTruck. The combat faces similar issues with certain sidearms feeling useless while others make you unkillable- it's hard to resist the temptation to abuse these systems when fighting a boss "fair" involves strolling around the arena and dodging a full 2 seconds before the attack will arrive. Ultimately even if the game's balance could use some significant fine-tuning, and maybe a slight movement speed increase by default, this game is easily my favorite this year. Given the game's ending, I'm hopeful we'll get to see a continuation of the story in a future game as I think there's a ton of potential for another game refining this style further.

Fantastic game. This level of immaculate design, fun mechanics, world building, attention to detail, and overall polish doesn't come around often. One of the best games I've played in years.

As of writing this review (where I am very far from the end), I think I've discovered my opinion of this game. If anything really major changes then I'll update but here's what I think after a few hours. It will take some time for this game to click. It feels... odd. At first. It's quite unlike how many action games I've played have felt. The timings for things can be very weird. Not having any invincible dodge is weird. The enemies can be very werid, and are totally placed to be a thorn in the ass. But, what me and my house sized hammer have discovered together, is that you can get your head around the game... eventually. Just give it a few hours and see how you're feeling then. You CAN get used to the jumping, and burrowing, and overall positioning around battles with your weapons and tools and environmental hazards and enemies. I had one or two times where I put the game down in frustration, but coming back and trying again has been giving me a very fun experience. I've been slowly learning the systems, and the more I understand the game, the better I enjoy it and more motivated I am to keep pushing through it. Also, beyond the challenging levels there's a very charming world here. I just want to keep exploring to see what characters I meet and what I can do with them. I will say, my two biggest gripes is the amount of pits or tiles equal to pits (and if I want to only turn the quarter chunk of hp damage off then I would be forfeitting achievements (which btw, wtf? you wanna tout player customizability but then lock off even basic achievements behind a 'vanilla experience' wall? literally why? but anyways)) and the healing vials. You can feel how unique the game is within the first few hours, but the healing system?.. Just no. I like a nice, predictable amount of healing. Maybe a way to upgrade healing to be stronger would be nice. And maybe if there's unlocks for more artifacts later on I can make a build that suits me, but I just don't like being backed into a corner and having no way out healing wise cause I couldn't land a hit. It's a postive feedback system that benefits better players, and therefor can lead to many frustrating scenarios for a newbie getting the hang of the game lol.

A delightfully fun that feels like a fusion of Oracle of Seasons (more combat focused) and Bloodborne souls-like mechanics that can be frustrating at times yet rewarding and feel like something that's new too.