Mina the Hollower

Love this Zelda inspired adventure. My favorite part was how unique the dodge was in this game, where burrowing underground at lightning fast speeds acts as the dodge. Super creative.

Retro top-down exploration/action. The player-character is highly customizable, and there's a lot of fun to making your loadout work exactly how you want... on the other hand, the gameplay can feel a bit rough until you gather up enough upgrades to make the combat work how you want. These are minor gripes though. The gameplay is thoughtful, the boss designs are endlessly creative, and most of all the pixel art in every possible aspect is top-class.

I'm not sure if I will go for the plat but this was a completely awesome experience. Worth the wait.

Шикарно!

It is hard, it is ruthless, but extremely customizable. If you don't like ruthlessness you can take it off with settings AND in-game items. Even if you can play it however you want, it doesn't take away the fun from the experience. All the old-school gaming aesthetics are done beautifully, music is catchy and the detailed scenes are dang gorgeous. You can feel the love and dedication everywhere.

======================================================================= TLDR: 8/10 pretty solid game for me. I adore the Gameboy style graphics and the variety in weapons (Especially the Blaststrike Maul). The gameplay is also likably fast-paced and the map is loaded with secrets, Mario World style. Only real criticisms I can give is (1 The map design is very hit or miss as the game has a habit of spamming hard-to-hit flying enemies near pits. (2 Mina is a boring, nothing-burger character who barely ever speaks or gives interesting input on anything (Her only real redeeming quality is her design and poses). Otherwise a slam dunk! ======================================================================= I've been following this game for quite a while (Long before release), and I can confidently say I think it was worth the wait. I am a big fan of this title's Gameboy stylization since Link's Awakening is (imo) the best 2D Zelda in the series. This game rides its inspirations with confidence and meaningfully expands the ideas it takes from its inspiration games such as the aforementioned Gameboy Zelda. I also really do appreciate the weapon variety in this game. Every weapon feels balanced, fun-to-play, and targeted towards specific kits and strengths (E.g. The Nightstar is very well-rounded, but otherwise not too powerful or specialized. The Blaststrike Maul is incredibly powerful and rewarding to use but has by far the highest learning curve of all the weapons. Whisper and Vesper are good movement/utility tools and are favorable for chaining combos, but suffer from recoil and low per-hit damage. So on and so forth...). Also, I just have to take a moment to rave about how awesome this game's aesthetic and music are. The goth, medieval sci-fi hybrid environment this game boasts with its technology and fantasy mixture is genuinely so unique. The music is rather catchy and confidently bolsters a fun beat, with some tracks STILL stuck in my head months later (Would expect no less from the wonderful Shovel Knight composer)! However, there are a few things and choices in this game that I am not a big fan of. For instance, the map design is painfully hit-or-miss. You see, the game has this really annoying habit of spamming flying enemies near giant pits that you can't hit unless you're running a specific build and/or sidearm. I don't think I need to explain why this is bad game design. Also, Mina herself is just a really boring character. She almost never speaks in game and when you actually do get something out of her its typically just a bare-bones quip. The trailers made her out to be far more witty than she actually is in game, which I have to say is really a shame. I love both her character design and arc type of witty and confident yet conflicted inventor/renegade. You either go the route of a silent protagonist or you go for an active one; this game sorta goes for both at that the same time and it just doesn't mesh bro. Link makes sense as a silent protagonist since he isn't as actively involved and/or responsible for the conflict within the series' stories. Take Majora's Mask, for example. Link only shows up to Termina AFTER the central conflict of the mask and Skull Kid's antics have occurred. Link is never explicitly asked to solve the problem of preventing the moon's crashing; he just does so on his own volition. This helps US as the players to put ourselves in the shoes of the characters relevant to the plot, since there is no in-between fluff to distract us from the important exposition and themes of death and reconciliation that game chooses to tackle (Pretty dark for a Zelda game, but that's why it's my favorite)! Afterall, he is our LINK to the game world, which is why we are able to name him at the beginning of the game in the first place. All of this just doesn't work for Mina, as she is DIRECTLY woven into the game's conflict given that she is the one who constructed the spark towers in the first place. Heck, she is explicitly invited to the game's setting, too. She isn't really here on her own terms, and this specificity makes the fact that she rarely ever speaks or even has interesting dialogue far more destructive for the game's story than it would otherwise. Don't get me wrong, the story isn't offensive; it's just very boring with an OBVIOUS twist at the end. But anyways, those are my only real issues with the title. Definitely still worth a play! I'd give it, say..... 8/10. =======================================================================

The story, character art, and level design are great.