Mina the Hollower

Mina the Hollower is an amazing title from Yacht Club Games that everyone needs to try. It looks and sounds spectacular, has awesome accessibility options, and is compelling to play; add this to your library right now!

Having moved from 2D platformer to top-down adventure game, Yacht Club Games has gone from strength to strength to deliver a game that has completely taken over my spare time, and keeps dragging me back to explore more of The Tenebrous Isle. Make no mistake, Mina The Hollower is no hollow victory, it’s something truly special.

Mina the Hollower is a triumphant return for Yacht Club Games, creating one of the greatest retro throwbacks of all time. With its unique burrowing mechanic and challenging combat, this is nothing short of a grand adventure. Its most glaring flaw is that it ends, but at least I can continue playing with plenty of post-game content.

What appears at first to be a return to game design from eras past evolves into something truly special.

Mina the Hollower is a brilliant 2D action-adventure game that takes clear inspiration from classic Zelda while building something that feels fresh, challenging, and uniquely its own. Its open-ended exploration, clever combat systems, strong sense of discovery, and flexible modifiers make every part of the adventure feel personal. While its difficulty can spike, Mina the Hollower stands out as an instant classic and one of the best games in its genre.

With Mina the Hollower, Yacht Club Games captured lightning in a bottle a second time. It’s a must play experience.

The year is 2014, often considered to be one of the weakest in the history of gaming. One of the shining beacons of hope in an otherwise dull year was the release of a little Kickstarter-backed title called Shovel Knight, by a then-unknown team called Yacht Club Games. I won’t sugarcoat it: I think that Shovel Knight is an absolute 10/10 game, one of the greatest games ever made, and arguably the best indie title in history. This led to the beginning of an immense franchise, one that spawne...

Mina the Hollower proves that time, effort, and attention to detail go a long way. Mina is a great new hero who controls incredibly well in a difficult but rewarding 2D adventure.

What happens when you blend ideas from Zelda, Castlevania, and Dark Souls into one single video game? Well, Mina the Hollower certainly pays homage to those franchises, but also burrows its way into a gaming experience that RPGamers will find enjoyable as it creates its own legacy.

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Mina the Hollower's visual style otherwise stays close to its portable console trappings, but it never sacrifices expressiveness or clarity. Its close-up character portraits and splash screens are lovely, but so are the scant collection of pixels on each sprite's face when they're frustrated, elated, sad, or sleepy. Despite the lower-scale resolution, you'll quickly spot where a patch of ground can be burrowed into or not, or determine what differentiates a railing from a jumpable ledge.

With Mina the Hollower, Yacht Club Games managed to beautifully pay homage to some of the absolute greatest classics in gaming history, all while carving out their own entirely fresh identity with an irresistible experience. It’s like a gothic Zelda with touches of Castlevania and Dark Souls that I never knew I needed. If you have a passing love for classic adventures, gothic atmospheres, or tightly-knit game design, do yourself a favor and fully dive into this world.