Mina the Hollower

I enjoyed the game but borderline which is a shame because I love games like this. There are a lot of stuff that I feel are annoying just for the sake of it. One important note: I did the small sidequest about the hollower guild at like 90% into the game so I was locked out of a lot of QoL stuff regarding the hideout so there's that. Mainly I was left wondering about a lot of stuff "why is this like this", some very annoying decisions. Specifically: 1) The movement felt very clunky at times which should be an instant negative review but the setting of the world is so good i pushed through it 2) Dodging (Burrowing) felt terrible, and it's a required mechanic for everything 3) Attacks other than basic attacks felt too punishing, extremely uncool and not worth it in general (I played with the daggers for most of the playthrough) 4) Bosses are not worth to actually play as "intended". The best approach by far for bosses, including the final boss is to go near them, spam basic attacks and basically stat check them. That's how most bosses went out 1st try. 5) Exploration most times felt terrible. I don't need arrows pointing out where to go, but there should be some form of worldbuilding that allows me to understand instead of aimlessly wandering around, especially when there are a lot of areas that are punishing with 1-way hurdles that you cant go back. On the same note, the "Fast travel" methods are unlocked way too far into the game especially the train. Bottom line: There is a lot of unnecessary friction in the game that for most games is an instant turn off but the atmosphere makes up for all its flaws, I just wish that this could be a game that I could replay again and again. After finishing i dont want to touch it again EDIT: I forgot to mention my biggest beef with this game. The tower climbing. ♥♥♥♥ this mechanic it's terrible, no redeeming quality about it, if you've played the game and enjoyed the tower climbing you need to get your noggin checked

As a guy that played Link's Awakening DX at a formative age, this game hit home in so, so many ways. I felt at home. I felt warm and fuzzy. The top-down soulslike adjacent gameplay is a perfect evolution of something like Link's Awakening. The amount of stuff packed into this game is insane. Tons of items, tons of trinkets, tons of sidearms... Tons of secrets. I loved the level design of this game. There's secrets everywhere for eyes to see them. Everything is connected, and the flow is immaculate. After taking a couple week break, I came back to be completely lost in what I was doing, so I ended up looking up a map to get my bearings again, which I felt was a bit of a pain point in the game, but on the other hand, not relying on a map and finding my way around Tenebrous Isle felt sooooo good. Overall, though, I had an absolute blast-- and I was so surprised at how many modifiers you can apply to the game to change whatever you want. If I ever come back and do a NG+, I'll probably end up mirroring the map, just so everything feels a little more fresh. I had tons of fun, and the game is going to be on my mind for a while to come.

The game is undeniably brilliantly designed, whether or not it's actually fun to play is up for more debate. Level design ranges from interesting and unique to outright genius at times. They managed to make several environments that are simultaneously thematically unique and have individual mechanics that match the aesthetic. Combine that with a ton of trinkets that add a sandbox element to all levels and a TON of secrets, and you have a game that should probably be a case study on level design for years to come. It's the highlight of the game and it isn't even close. Art direction and score are both outstanding. Bright colors, tons of unique models, a retro and robust score, sound design that bring you back to 90's gaming, it's all great. My only complaint is that at times the readability of the environments could be quite difficult, especially having played the whole game on steam deck Combat and difficulty were... a mixed bag. The weapons were all quite unique and fun to use, and there was a ton of variety in enemy encounter design. I will also always take a game being too difficult over too easier, and this gsme definitely falls under the former at times. I think the biggest problem this game suffers from is awkward enemy attack animations paired with a much slower and more restrictive skillset from Mina. This might just be me, but my first full playthrough completelt kicked my teeth in (I died over 400 times when credits rolled). It often felt like some enemies were placed in such a way to make it nearly impossible to deal with them appropriately, some platforming was confusing and had controls that were a little too finicky to ever master, and some bosses... yeah NGL a couple were kind of BS, genuinely felt like they had certain animations that were unavoidable. Another issue that plagues the game is that some of it's systems were simply too obtuse. One great example of this is fast traveling; to fast travel in the game, you need to walk directly into a mirror for a few seconds until you ultimately get telepprted to a realm that let's you take shortcuts to other places. Here's the problem: the game never tells you this, so if you naturally interact with a mirror or walk into for a second and go "huh, guess these don't do anything", well guess you're out of luck! There are a couple of other examples of things like this where I either would have never guess in a million years how something works or felt the game withheld a bit *too* much crucial information at times. Overall: I really did mean it when I said that this game is genius and I am quite happy I played it. I think it should and will get some love at the game awards, and for $20 you're absolutely not going to find many new titles that can offer the same level of design, content, and polish. BUT: I absolutely got incredibly frustrated for large portions of my playthrough and found that there are some bad parts of this experience that you just have to be willing to take with the good.

Mina the Hollower é um jogo de ação e aventura, a protagonista é Mina uma inventora genial e ratinha que criou avanços na Tecnologia Spark. O jogo inspira-se no design da era do Game Boy Color, no terror gótico vitoriano com elementos parecidos com os jogos antigos de Zelda e SoulsLike.

Ignore my Steam playtime, I played for about 25 hours on my RG 35XX SP via portmaster. I really enjoyed this game, there's a great sense of exploration, the burrowing mechanic that seems simple at first is explored to its absolute limits with interesting level design, and the game just overall oozes charm with its art style, music and characters. There were definitely some fights and sections that I considered more frustrating than fun, but overall I had a blast on my journey to 100% item collection. Not gonna bother with those challenge run achievements lol

Some the most fun I've had with a video game in a while, so much so it made wanna go for 100% achievements