Mina the Hollower Reviews
A retro-styled 8-bit action adventure, there's a lot to like about Mina the Hollower if you don't mind a challenge. But unforgiving combat, accessibility options that lock out achievements, and lack of any guidance makes this a more frustrating experience than it should be.
Mina the Hollower is a good game for people who love the idea of mixing Zelda with Dark Souls. Unfortunately, if you don't fully love what that entails, I don't think it will win you over as much as others. For some, they will find the combat challenging in a good way, with a world you can get lost in. Others will see a series of roadblocks thrown in the player's face as they try to navigate those problems. Regardless of if you think the sum of its parts makes a masterpiece or not, Mina the Hollower was clearly crafted with a lot of passion and care.
Mina the Hollower has the weight of expectation upon it, and it's a game that meets many of them. The retro aesthetic is lovely, the world is well made, the boss fights are varied, and there is a lot to find, but it also has its frustrations. Poor navigation is the main factor that sucked some of the enjoyment out, with the game really wanting a better map to aid you. Still, Yacht Club Games has made a good game overall with Mina the Hollower.
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.
Mina the Hollower beautifully merges classic Game Boy Color aesthetics with punishing, Soulsborne-inspired action. While a steep difficulty curve, deliberate pacing, and vague Metroidvania progression may alienate casual players, its brilliant burrowing mechanics, rich build customization, and nostalgic atmosphere deliver a deeply rewarding top-down adventure.
Yacht Club Games' highly anticipated follow-up to Shovel Knight can be a lot of fun and positively infuriating as well.
Mina the Hollower isn't perfect or even close to it, and given expectations following Shovel Knight, that's kind of disappointing for me. Nevertheless, it's still a very good old-school action-adventure with strong combat fundamentals and undeniable charm.
The Game Boy Color lives again, via an inventive top-down adventure that’s filled with clever design decisions and surprisingly nuanced combat and gameplay.
After Shovel Knight, Yacht Club Games strikes again: Mina the Hollower is a dense, inspired and surprising action-adventure.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Many will surely compare this title to classic Zelda games or FromSoftware titles like Dark Souls or Bloodborne, but Mina the Hollower is much more than that. This fantastic game has its own unique personality and a playable charm that goes beyond its open world and difficulty. Furthermore, it understands, like few others, the satisfaction of discovering a well-hidden secret.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Yacht Club Games somehow successfully marries old school Zelda and Castlevania...with a Souls-like dynamic. It's a beautiful challenge with great retro appeal.
Mina the Hollower is a truly magnificent adventure. Burrowing isn’t just a gimmick; it’s embedded into the experience, creating a synergy between movement, combat and puzzling.
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.
Mina the Hollower is a splendid tribute not only to a specific era of the past, but also to an approach to video games that is becoming increasingly rare these days. Ossex and its surroundings exude character from every pore thanks to a mix of absurd personalities, bizarre dialogue and unexpected situations, presented to the player through a truly remarkable layering of quests, activities and events. The gameplay follows this same formula, offering a combat system that is mechanically simple yet effective, and a platforming element that evolves over time with an endless array of ideas and movement mechanics that are varied and increasingly unique.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Mina the Hollower is a sharp, stylish adventure that blends retro charm with modern precision, delivering a journey that feels both familiar and fresh. Its tight combat, clever progression and gothic atmosphere kept me hooked from start to finish, and even with a few navigation frustrations, the overall experience shines far brighter than its 8‑bit roots suggest.
Mina the Hollower is yet another testament to the talent of Yacht Club Games. By skillfully blending the 8-bit aesthetics of the 1990s with the ruthless action and management mechanics typical of Souls-like games, the team has crafted a punishing, captivating, and deep adventure. Despite a difficulty curve that spares no one, the rock-solid combat system, excellent technical fluidity, and masterful art direction make Mina’s journey a memorable experience that comes highly recommended for lovers of challenges or classics.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Mina the Hollower is the whole Game Boy Color experience, perfected, modernized, and elevated.
Mina the Hollower delivers a standout indie experience, blending classic Zelda-style exploration with challenging Souls-inspired combat. Packed with secrets and striking retro-inspired visuals, it marks another strong release from Yacht Club Games and a serious contender in this year's awards.
Review in Arabic | Read full review
Mina the Hollower brings together a comprehensive collection of mechanical influences and visual styles to craft an engrossing, singular 8-bit adventure that delights as much as it innovates.
Mina the Hollower is a testament to the importance and beauty of iterative game design. While it wouldn’t exist in its current form without each of its individual inspirations, it’s able to use those familiar reference points as a launching pad into something far greater and more dense than any game that it’s inherited DNA from. Between a world stuffed to the absolute brim with discoveries to make, the absurd level of player expression, and the ways in which the game surprises (and how it’s constantly able to do so), this is a new gold standard for not just overhead Zelda-likes but action-adventure games in general.