Despite Shovel Knight’s myriad spin-offs and continued ubiquity in the indie game space, it’s been more than a decade since developer Yacht Club Games delivered something wholly new. And maybe calling Mina the Hollower entirely “new” is a misnomer, as it is a reverential showcase of beloved game design and visual ideas from the past and present, all arranged into something that manages to be unique and nostalgic at the same time. Mina is not without its frustrations, but its density of discoveries, sense of place, and heartfelt story and characters all deliver an experience I was thinking about often whenever I wasn’t playing.
Mechanically and visually, Mina is inspired by The Legend of Zelda, specifically Link’s Game Boy adventures. Zooming out, however, the structure and challenge are much closer to Dark Souls. At a screenshot glance, you would be forgiven for assuming you are collecting new items and abilities to solve puzzles, but the reward of progress in Mina is making it through challenging sequences with your experience points (Bones) intact and burrowing underground to checkpoint your progress and refill your health vials to take on the next gauntlet. The cathartic emotion of success is delivered frequently in Mina, and I was always eager to tackle the next one.
The classic Zelda-inspired movement, however, is not without its shortcomings. Frustrating defeats from overlapping with enemies are frequent, and falling into a hole from a bump or a misaligned jump is a constant war. Mina’s titular hollowing ability, where she can go underground to move quickly, leap from the ground, and avoid some attacks, is the game’s most compelling and novel mechanic, but learning to control it well takes time; I still had annoyances related to it even through the final challenges leading to the end boss.
With that said, however, many valuable equippable Trinkets exist that make radical differences in your playstyle. Finding the Trinket that helps you overcome your personal struggles with combat or platforming is incredibly exciting, and I found many that I kept equipped for the full adventure, like the Proto Spark that lets you come back from death once before it needs to be reset at a checkpoint.
Beyond the Mina-versus-enemies challenge gauntlets, the world is dense with discoveries and secrets (like new Trinkets), and you are shockingly equipped to find almost all of them from the opening moments. I would pass by a small puzzle in the Ossex hub area, for example, dozens of times before having an epiphany about what I needed to do all along. These moments are joyful, and I encountered them all over the world.
Wrapping up all of these wonderful (if challenging) mechanics is a soundtrack, world, and story that grabbed my attention quickly and kept me engaged throughout without wasting time on excessive exposition. Sure, I could basically see where the story was going from early on, but the way the narrative subtly discusses politics, misguided public opinion, environmentalism, and wealth disparity while remaining playful and acknowledging players’ actions is impressive and absorbing.
Mina the Hollower looks like a nostalgic throwback, and it undeniably is, but its thoughtful design and larger sensibilities make it play and feel like a contemporary video game – one that has taken the right lessons from the medium’s history.