Yacht Club Games are an interesting bunch. They simultaneously try to create modern games whilst also making them look as though they belong on older consoles. Their big, breakout success, Shovel Knight, was clearly a love letter to NES platformers and now we have Mina the Hollower, a Gameboy Zelda game in all but name. However, does Mina reach the same heights as the inspirations that it looks to, and more importantly, is it still fun for a modern audience? Time to investigate!
Mina the Hollower follows the adventure of the titular character, Mina, a Mouse engineer/scientist who helped to develop a series of beacon towers that brought light to Tenebrous Island. She is also a Hollower, a type of burrowing adventurer that uses their mousey nature to burrow under the ground in search of adventure. After being called back to the island by an old friend to assist in repairs to the towers she comes across a great conspiracy behind the true nature of the towers and a mysterious rebel group trying to take them down. The story itself isn’t too much to write home about, the twists and turns are all standard video game stuff, but the framing for each of the characters you meet and how the story evolves over time is an enjoyable experience. Ironically I felt as though the weakest link for the characters in this story was actually Mina herself as we don’t really get to experience much of her personality outside of certain cutscenes and silly interactions. That being said it works for Link, so who am I to judge.
The presentation of this game is absolutely gorgeous for the style Mina is going for. As noted earlier this is clearly designed to look like a Gameboy Colour game and it absolutely shows. Colours are bright and vibrant, sprites are small but detailed and the world itself is blocky but readable, You get a sense that this theoretically could have come out for the hardware that it loves so much and that vibe absolutely comes through here. I particularly love the enemy and character designs as they have a lot of expression behind them despite not having many pixels to work with. The absolute star of the show however I feel is the music as Jake Kaufman returns to do the soundtrack and you can absolutely tell this was the genius who did the Shovel Knight music. Tracks are memorable and enjoyable, they all have that retro feel to them, they match the vibe of each location perfectly and when the action ramps up you really feel as though the music also ramps up and keeps you hyped for the fight. Sound effects too are really well done and every retro beep and boop fits exactly how it should. If you ever played any of the older Gameboy games, or hell just any retro adventure/platformer then this will feel right at home. The only critique I have of the presentation is that due to the blocky nature of how tilesets work for the world it can sometimes lead to certain hidden paths or even just general paths of progression to be extremely difficult to spot. More than once I had to look up a guide to figure out where to go and realising that there was a small spot on a wall that I missed. Or perhaps that’s just my old age showing… Either way this is a gorgeous game that I absolutely loved to look at and listen to.
If I haven’t given it away already the gameplay is very similar to a variety of retro games. Castlevania, Final Fantasy and of course a big helping of the top-down 2D Zelda games as this is essentially another one of those with a gothic vibe. You adventure around as Mina, beating bosses, going through dungeons, collecting treasure and gaining new items. Unlike Zelda however it doesn’t rely on a variety of items, though you certainly can acquire many, and instead focuses on a core series of items for you to build your character around such as a whip-mace or a pair of quick daggers. It also has another influence, Dark Souls, as this game is brutally difficult and has a non-linear world layout that enables you to go pretty much wherever you want from the start, even if you may get flattened into a pulp if you go to certain locations. Also, returning from Shovel Knight, if you die then you have a chance at losing all your gold unless you pick up your ‘Spark’ from either the location you died or the enemy that killed you. Each of the locations you visit are varied in their layouts and gimmicks, the puzzles are enjoyable to work out and each of the bosses is a fun time as is on brand. Mina’s unique mechanics is her burrowing technique which works as a style of delayed dodge and traversal mechanic. It’s a bit awkward to get used to, as you essentially have to predict an attack to burrow in time to dodge it, but after a while I got used to it and it became a really fun mechanic. I must say though I wasn’t a huge fan of the combat, primarily for the fact that for most weapons you can only attack in 4 directions; left, right, up and down, whereas enemies and your movement can go diagonal which leads to frustrating situations where you are trying to hit an enemy that is literally just slightly above you to no avail. It’s clearly a hold over from the retro games that inspired Mina, but even still it’s frustrating to deal with. I also didn’t really feel like most of the unlockable ‘Sidearms’ as they called them were that impactful which meant I didn’t really go out of my way to try and collect them. Aside from the exploding pet though, that was fun.
There were two main issues I had with the game which did put a bit of a sour taste in my mouth. The first was that the start of this game, and until around the second area, was brutally difficult to the point that it felt unfair. I had very little health, enemies could easily dodge my hits and I really couldn’t get the burrowing mechanic down. Once I got a few upgrades and better understood how to utilise burrowing I found myself enjoying the game more, and the mid to late game areas felt much more forgiving and fairly difficult. You can certainly tell this game had Dark Souls as an inspiration. However that initial impression for the first few areas almost made me want to stop playing outright, especially as unfortunately due to not realising it I had done the areas slightly out of order in terms of difficulty level. This ties into my second issue which is that the game holds onto its retro style a bit too much for certain design decisions. For example, the game has a map but it’s an unlock quite far into the game and it doesn’t help you to actually navigate specific locations, just providing an overview of the whole island. I also had several sections that due to mechanics the game never explained to me I just felt I was completely stuck or softlocked. A Particular location with water springs to mind, and it turns out I could only find out how this worked by reading the in-game manual which was hidden in the options menu. I also really don’t like how the world doesn’t have a fast-travel system until much later in the game, it meant going back to town felt like a huge chore and made it feel as though there was no point to going back to older areas to find new secrets which was a shame. All of these problems are design decisions due to being ‘What they did on the Gameboy’ which lead to frustrating experiences and a more difficult boarding process all for the sake of authenticity. I say that authenticity is nice and all for visuals and sound, but when it comes to gameplay you have to realise that we live in a more modern world and so conveniences and gameplay additions should be merged together to create a retro experience but with the modern sensibilities we have.
Despite my complaining however I really did enjoy my time with Mina. There’s still so much to discover and collect even after beating the game and whilst the start was frustrating to me by the end I was having a blast. Yacht Club Games have certainly done it again and with this proving that Shovel Knight was not just a one-hit wonder it makes me hopeful for whatever future projects they are planning. Perhaps Shovel Knight 64? We shall see. If you enjoy retro adventure games, or you ever owned a Gameboy, then absolutely check out Mina the Hollower.