Mina the Hollower Review

Mina the Hollower is the game that I like that I want to love. Like Yacht Club Games’ Shovel Knight, it takes a myriad of retro inspirations and mixes them with some modern sensibilities to make something new. Mina doesn’t come together as expertly as Shovel Knight.

At first glance, Mina might look like a Zelda clone. That’s a big part of its DNA, specifically the aesthetics and controls of The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening for the Game Boy. It also has some other retro inspirations, like Castlevania’s sub-weapons and Zelda II’s leveling system.

You’ll find a good chunk of Soulslike inspirations in the mix as well. You collect bones from the environment or from defeating enemies, which you can then use to level up and increase things like your attack power or defense. You can also use those bones to buy other items and powerups from shops. If you die without regaining your “spark” (an orb that appears at the spot where you died), then you could permanently lose those bones. You also have a health regain system similar to Estus Flasks. You can regain some life if you use a flask, but the animation is long and leaves you vulnerable. You also only have so many flasks, but you can regain them if you return to a checkpoint.

The Dark Souls inspiration goes beyond mechanics. Mina can prove to be a difficult game. Enemies can dish out a lot of damage, especially bosses. The game’s world also features a hub area town with different enemy-filled areas (you can think of these as Mina’s levels) branching off of it.

Does Link’s Awakening’s simple, four-directional combat really work when pitted against intricate, fast-moving bosses? Not particularly. Is a Zelda game really better without an in-game map? Again, I can see how a fan of Dark Souls would appreciate that touch, but I didn’t love how often I found myself wandering aimlessly trying to find the entrance to the next zone.

Somehow, the Dark Souls influences keep Mina from being the best Zelda-style game it could be, while the Zelda mechanics prevent it from reaching the heights of the best Soulslikes.

I know that I’ve been pretty critical so far, but Mina is often a lot of fun. Much of the game revolves around a burrowing mechanic. After a jump, you  dive underground. You can tunnel through the floor for a couple of seconds before popping back up. You use this for platforming, dodging enemies, and solving puzzles. Heck, it’s even faster than walking, so it’s effectively your sprint as well.

The game looks and sounds great. Yacht Club does some of the best pixel art in the world. Here, they capture the style of those early portable Zelda games while injecting them with just a bit more color and detail than we’d actually see back on those 8-bit machines.

When it’s all working together – those nostalgic visuals shining on the screen, that energetic soundtrack rocking as you’re burrowing your way through the world – Mina the Hollower can feel special. But then it’s just as often frustrating. Did the game really need this many flying enemies so early on? They move so fast that timing a jump and an attack that actually hits them takes a bit of luck. Other early game enemies hit so hard and have so much health that grinding almost feels mandatory. And, hey, usually I’m a big defender of grinding. I think it’s fun and relaxing. But even I thought it was a bit strange how much I was relying on it in a Zelda-type game.

Then there are those bosses, moving around and attacking like they’re in Bloodborne while I have a slow whip that I can swing in four directions. You can get some other weapons, like close-ranged knives and a giant hammer, but I never felt comfortable abandoning the range that the whip afforded me. Maybe I was just stubborn. One weapon is a giant shield that can parry enemy attacks. I love parrying! But the super short range of the shield’s attack didn’t feel worth it, even as I struggled to avoid a lot of boss's movesets with just jumping and digging.

The levels themselves are usually more enjoyable than the bosses. And I do think “levels” is the right word here. You don’t really see Zelda-style dungeons, where you’re navigating a maze and solving puzzles to unlock new paths. There is still some exploration, but it’s more like the occasional hidden path or sideroute. You have a few puzzles, but it really is more about platforming and fighting. Some areas have special gimmicks to make all that jumping and burrowing more interesting. My favorite was in the snowy area, where icy surfaces restrict your digging in interesting ways.

So the level design is good. It’s the world design that throws me off. I don’t think that all of these different areas connect to each other in a satisfying, organic way.

Mina leaves me with a strange feeling. It’s an enjoyable game with great pixel art and music. But it’s one that frustrates me. While Shovel Knight was able to reach the heights of its inspirations, Mina doesn’t. 

Now, I understand how that’s a tall order when your inspirations are Zelda and Dark Souls. But Mina is often the victim of overdesign. I talked about how it has Estus Flask-style healing, but it’s more complicated than that. You can only heal a certain percentage of your missing health based on how much damage you’ve recently done. This value somehow gets smaller against beefier enemies,and if you take more damage, both your health and that potential healing go down. You’re out of luck if the thing killing you is a pit that you keep falling down and there aren’t any enemies to whack nearby.

It’s not some terrible system. But is it better than just having normal Estus Flasks? Is it better than having enemies and pots drop health like in Zelda? I don’t think so.

Despite the fun I often have with Mina, questionable design decisions like that keep me from falling in love with it the same way I did with Shovel Knight. Even saying that, I feel bad for the comparisons that Mina invites. Shovel Knight, Zelda, Dark Souls… Those are lofty heights. But, well, how can I not compare Mina to those games? I suppose that’s the danger of wearing your inspirations so nakedly.