Mina the Hollower

What can I say about this game... Mina the Hollower took it's sweet time to be release, but boy was it worth the wait. If I had to make a short description of the game in one sentence, it would be "Legend of Zelda mixed with Castlevania and a bit of Souls-Like energy", and I love it. In term of the gameplay, the game does not babysit you, which is very refreshing in this day and age where most games are built "For everyone" and as such developpers forget that you can make a challenging game or add actual difficulty to the game as an option. This is exactly what I want from a game, I don't want torture, but I want the game to fight back, I want the game to feel like I earned my victory. Mina the Hollower acomplishes that. The game is tough enough, but it not quite "♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ tough" (except in a few places that are just unfair lol), it is more so just a "get good" situation, just like Dark Souls is hence why I mention that it is a bit like Dark Souls in a way. Essentially, it is punishing, but rewarding. To give you an estimate of "how hard" given the achievement stats, a lot of players got filtered by it. At the time of this review, there are only 3 story-related achievements, the first boss 77% of players have it. The final boss, only 23% of players. So 50% of the playerbase didn't finish the game after beating the first boss. That being said there are a lot of items you can get that can make the game easier to harder for yourself, and once you finish the game, you got modifiers to make the game even harder and such, so it does have replay value to boot. Long story short, I'd say if you play it, just don't give up on it, that's how you get better at games, by failing, learning from your mistake and growing stronger. I ate ♥♥♥♥ quite a few times and I still beat the game. I died a total of 128 times for my first playthrough, and a lot fo these deaths were in one specific area, but I still pushed through. I encourage you to do the same. On to the more aesthetic part of the game. The artstyle is lovely, reminiscent of the original Link's Awakening/Oracle of Ages/Seasons, and is just very well made, readable, and everythin you'd want from pixelart. There aren't really issues with hitboxes or anything on that regard. And the music? God the music of this game is peak, amazing performance by the composer, the jams get stuck in your head which is usually a sign of very well made tunes.

Just awesome, Nothing more to say

it's good

I dont know what i expected considering im not the biggest fan of shovel knight or cyber shadow (theyre neat but i found them often frustrating), but i got a bit swept up in the hype and bought it thinking this would be different. It turned out neat but i found it often frustrating. Best way i can describe the level design is it feels like the devs were making the game and at the same time making a kaizo romhack for their own game. It can be pretty funny how evil it gets but after a point i just got tired of it and threw in the towel right before the final boss as far as i can tell. I really enjoyed secret hunting and fighting bosses though. Everything else around the gameplay was fantastic. Music was great and im a huge fan of the pixel art. If you enjoy the kinda cheeky and cruel kind of game i think youd probably enjoy this a lot. But i sadly couldnt stomach it till the end.

never played shovel knight, still think this is an amazing game, instant favourite so far!

good

Absolutely delightful afventure I couldn't put down. It's got a bit of a love or hate combat system but when it clicks, it's such a blast. It understands what made classic Castlevania and Bloodborne work, and manages to repackage it on a Gameboy Zelda homage that hits the nail in the head, keeping the sense of wonder and desire to find secrets on every screen. It's exactly in the sweetspot where it's not overwhelming on the amount of systems it has, but their pressence gives the game a LOT of depth. In addition, it has what's arguably Jake Kauffman's best score in his entire career (and that's already without the guest tracks by Yuzo Koshiro), and the art direction is as charming as Shovel Knight's best moments if not even better. In short, it's the full package.

It's a very peculiar game, and one that is unabashedly strange in every single section of it. I'd define it's atmosphere as "Absurdist Gothic" in presentation. A term I do not think exists and I just invented now due to this game. The gameplay itself is equally strange! Methodical and yet fierce, it is a game that very much asks you to speak it's language rather than going in with expectations of genre whether that expectation is Zelda games or Souls Like games. If you go in with an open mind to learning to speak it's language you'll find it speaks it very well, which is surprising given it's a first kind of game I've seen like this, designed like this. Coming from a company like Yatch club it is far more packed full and refined than such more out there games would normally be as well. But then again who the hell was asking for "Melee only Megaman" before shovel knight. It seems oddity is their specialty. I honestly believe there is very little to dislike here if you are not rubbed off by the base concepts of dodging having a wind up, and most weapons being stiff, and level ups being tied to money that you can easily easily lose to their odd death system. The puzzles are all absurdly clever observational ones, the bosses are varied, creative and challenging, hell my only complaints are some in the latter game are TOO easy! And I suppose if you do not have an eye for open world progression you could easily stumble into areas that are much harder (Just ask the news paper girl though!) The early game is also exceptionally brutal compared to later game funnily, I actually somewhat wish the game kept up that brutality myself, given most who'd have issue with it bounce off continuing before completing the first zone and leave a huffy review. However after getting an additional spark or two, and levelling a bit and upgrading and getting a new weapon or so, things stabilize rapidly. So if you cannot handle an especially rough early game it may not be for you. The plot is simple but very interesting in progression, I wont spoil but if you do areas in generally intended order the game very naturally reveals fascinating details of the world as you go, leading into a very bombastic ending and brutal ending, the ending being the only other part that especially lives up to that early game brutality. And I had all the bloody items going into it! Cant imagine how hard it is otherwise. Those are all my real complaints, and I find them to be nitpicks. Hope you're able to keep up being weird yatch club.