Mina the Hollower

More than a blast to the past; if anything its a step to the future for top-down adventure games. The grim atmosphere, dark humor and colorful characters make a pretty engaging story and the design/topography of Tenebrous isle turn it into an incredibly memorable place. None of the fast travel systems of the game felt that intuitive to me but they also felt mostly unnecessary once you dominate the layout and have a decent trinket/sidearm combination for fast movement. Combat can be incredibly demanding but its just as satisfying, very simple in concept but hard to master. Mina only moves in the 4 cardinal directions while enemies, projectiles and stage hazards dont have the same limitations. It ensures players learn enemy patterns(especially since burrowing has a one second delay) as most games do but more than anything it rewards mastery of positioning and space awareness to best most enemies, especially since a lot of them are fast and aggressive enough to put you against the ropes fairly easily. Exploration and secrets ooze from every screen you travel throughout; there will rarely be a room without some secret area/object hidden in plain sight for the most observant to collect. Shortcuts, sidearms, secret bosses, etc, this is a game thats begging the player to spend all the time it can enjoying it to the fullest. Its also ironically enough one of the most speedrun-friendly games ive ever played.

I finished the game just to finish it, not because I enjoyed it.

it somehow mixes the open world genre + gameboy graphics + soulslike difficulty + castlevania combat + hollow knight charm system + silksong enemy ai + a bunch more ♥♥♥♥ ad then makes it one of the best at these I've ever played

was forced to buy this against my will and it took me 5 minutes to set up the controls

Call me Mina the way I be Hollowing out my cheeks under the desk at Yacht Club Games for creating this masterpiece. Post review

There's a great game in here, but it is buried beneath endless decisions and designs that will frustrate the hell out of you, but which have clearly been justified under the banner of difficulty. Then justified again with the decision to include cheats in the game so that when you get sick of the experience, you can literally just opt out and god mode the rest of your playthrough (the final boss in my case) as if that makes it okay for every system in the game to be as annoying and tedious as possible. Nevertheless, the game is great when it can get past itself. And if you're a god gamer then you'll love this.

神作中的神作