Mina the Hollower is another absolute gem from Yacht Club Games

Yacht Club Games who made the popular Shovel Knight series are back with Mina the Hollower, a retro styled pixel-art action adventure game.

Mina the Hollower was originally funded on Kickstarter, where they managed to grab around $1,239,584 in funding. As covered here on GamingOnLinux, they had official Linux support as a stretch-goal that was hit so it's pleasing to see the Native support arrive at release.

Here you play as Mina, a Hollower, some sort of clever little mouse that invented special generators that appear to have become faulty causing an island to get warped with all sorts of nasties running around. You've been called into help figure out what's going on. But it quickly gets a bit on the sinister side as you gradually find out more.

Clearly inspired by some of the classics like Zelda, Castlevania and some Souls-like progression and combat but it does thankfully manage to stand on its own. Still, it will feel very familiar to fans of Zelda-likes, but with plenty that keeps it feeling fresh. Much like their Shovel Knight series though - this is quite a tough one! So don't go in expecting an easy ride. Even the intro to the game just thrusts you right into the thick of it with a mini-boss battle and you're basically left to figure out everything yourself without so much as a "press X to do this". Thankfully, the controls are as simple as you can imagine for a retro-themed game like this so it doesn't take more than a 1 minute to figure it all out.

Mina has a main weapon which you get a choice of between gameplay styles depending on how you wish to play. Get up close and personal with a quick attack weapon, attack from afar or use a slow but powerful smash. Add to that various extra limited-use secondary sidearm weapons you pick up there's some nice variety. There's also an interesting level-up system with you collecting bones from enemies and once you hit a certain amount you can boost things like Mina's attack, defence, sidearms or store them as Bonestone so you don't lose them on death to spend later.

As for movement mechanics it's simple but clever here. You have a small basic jump over gaps along with the ability to burrow underneath the ground to get through certain sections, or away from enemy attacks and abilities.

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As for how you actually tackle the game and get through it - well, that's really up to you. There's no area gating in the open world here, you go and progress through wherever you're strong enough. If not, try somewhere else. Still, some of it can be quite frustrating as you slowly master the burrowing ability which actually serves multiple purposes from dashing to dodging and a extra long jump when you time it correctly.

Sometimes it does feel a little unfair, due to some of the quirks of the game. Like enemies that can just walk through fire to jump over to you. I'm not afraid to admit here, that certain sections with the jumps had me truly cursing.

Another part to the challenge is the health system - because guess what, it needs you to go on the offence! You have your normal red health bar for current health, but to get up to max health you need to actually attack enemies where the bar will then fill the rest up in yellow. Once you feel you have enough yellow in the bar towards max health, you can then use one of your limited Vial items to actually heal. This makes every bit of combat you do in it not just a challenge but quite risky in some cases when you're running low and bite off a bit more than you can chew.

Love hunting for secrets too? There's quite a number of them. Some of course more difficult to find but the game does sprinkle in hints through various parts of the game including the newspaper, dialogue, manual and so on. It's all about that exploration and paying careful attention.

There's quite a number of modifiers you can turn on in the game options per-save too, some of them are just silly like making Mina bigger but there's a lot of accessibility options as well. Yacht Club Games clearly thought long and hard about how to make the game as open to many different types of players as possible - and they absolutely should be commended for that because it's wonderful to see so many things to tweak how you play it. However, the accessibility and difficulty options have been a point of controversy for the game, as a lot of them will disable achievements / feats which some players think is unfair. Personally, I think people put far too much thought into earning achievements to the point that they just stop being able to enjoy the experience for what it is - a video game.

Game Highlights:

• Hauntingly authentic 8-bit visuals in the style of Game Boy Color, refined for the modern era.
• Modern touches abound: detailed animation, widescreen visuals, and rock-solid controls!
• Leap, dodge, and burrow through the ground to battle monsters or navigate the world.
• Lash at foes with your trusty whip, Nightstar- or choose from an arsenal of weapons, each with a totally different move set.
• Discover and utilize a reliquary's worth of unusual Sidearms to gain the advantage in combat.
• Collect and equip Trinkets to acquire a variety of exotic effects. Level Mina up to suit your unique playstyle.
• Electrifying soundtrack by chiptune virtuoso, Jake Kaufman.
• Descend into the depths of madness with a bone-chilling, yet heartwarming tale inspired by Victorian Gothic horror.
• Explore a huge, dark world brimming with secrets, challenging battles, and interconnected level design.

Mina the Hollower is best played with a controller. Not forced or required but feels a lot better with one. You'll want a good D-pad for this for sure. Worked wonderfully with the new Steam Controller.

I'm incredibly lucky with this, because I randomly decided to actually bother to thoroughly check through my spam folder over a week ago and as it turns out - a key was sent over to GamingOnLinux that I would have otherwise missed. Remember to check over your spam folders once in a while…

It takes time to get through, and some of it can feel a little bit punishing but the challenge is part of what keeps you coming back to Mina. That said, I think some of the challenge may put people off even early on. But overall it is a very good pixel-art action adventure that is a truly worthy addition to your gaming library.