Mina the Hollower Preview: A Fresh Retro Adventure

Retro-inspired love letters are everywhere now. Some games cling so tightly to their influences that they verge on imitation, while others take the central idea of an older title and develop it in directions that were once unimaginable. Nostalgic games are a constant presence in the industry, and Yacht Club Games became one of the movement’s early standard-bearers with the hugely successful Shovel Knight. That game retained the 8-bit look and core design of the 2D action-platformers many of us grew up with, while adding several enjoyable twists of its own. Yacht Club’s follow-up, Mina the Hollower, initially appears to be an equally devoted tribute to The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening. However, after spending an hour playing it, I found it to be much more than a superficial nostalgia exercise.

With visuals modelled on the Game Boy Color, Mina the Hollower is bound to invite comparisons with games such as Link’s Awakening-and that is entirely intentional. The development team clearly has enormous affection for games from that period and has made no effort to disguise its inspirations. At first, combat feels familiar too. After selecting a weapon-a quick pair of daggers, a Castlevania-inspired whip, or a weighty hammer-you set off on a top-down quest packed with threatening monsters, inventive puzzles, and perilous environments.

Mina the Hollower’s burrowing movement and combat

Like Link in Link’s Awakening, Mina can jump, but she has a defining move that sets her apart from most top-down action heroes. In classic Yacht Club fashion, Mina can dig-or, more precisely, burrow. As a Hollower, she can immediately dive underground and travel beneath the surface for a limited time. Burrowing has several uses, from slipping past enemies in a manner similar to a dodge roll to passing underneath low barriers. Burrow rapidly towards a gap and Mina can even launch herself forwards, gaining extra distance during a jump.

The burrowing system is an enjoyable way to move around, but it is not merely an additional ability: mastering it is vital to making substantial progress through the adventure. Fortunately, it is intuitive to use, and the developers have built a range of smart design ideas around it. As a result, it feels like a core part of the experience rather than another tool in Mina’s arsenal.

Once I looked beyond its unmistakable visual lineage and foundational gameplay ideas, Mina the Hollower seemed to share more DNA with Bloodborne than with Link’s Awakening. Alongside your chosen weapon, Mina carries healing vials that can be used whenever you choose, though using them well requires strategy. She can also collect various Trinkets that enhance her abilities. These Trinkets range from increased defence and attack strength to one that sends out a spider to spin a web across an otherwise uncrossable pit. My preferred combination let Mina remain underground for longer, while another Trinket caused her to attack as she surfaced. Players begin the game with two Trinket slots, though there will be opportunities to expand that number.

Gathering bones also allows Mina to level up-or “Bone Up”, as the game calls it-and improve her statistics. You can decide how many bones to retain as currency and how many to turn into experience. Experimenting with these systems will be important not only for discovering your preferred approach, but also for identifying the play style best suited to each location.

Bone Beach rewards exploration and demands strategy

After completing the opening section, I arrive at Bone Beach, a mid-game area that is considerably tougher than the tutorial zone where I began. A colossal monster has washed ashore, drawing bone miners from around the world who hope to salvage whatever they can from its enormous carcass. Unsurprisingly, this has also attracted a number of unsavoury figures and monsters.

I tried both the Nightstar whip and the Blaststrike Maul hammer before deciding that the Whisper and Vesper daggers suited me best. With them, Mina can perform a standard sword-like melee strike, but she can also throw one at an opponent for damage-as long as I remember to retrieve it afterwards. I cut through all manner of foes, including miners hurling pickaxes, floating skulls that spew poisonous clouds, and eerie birds that swoop down from above.

Mina also encourages players to stray from the main route, rewarding exploration with bones, Trinkets, and secondary weapons. The projectile axe becomes my favourite side weapon, though I also encounter a portal that can be placed and warped to, as well as a throwing knife. Mina can only hold one of these items at a time, and each has limited ammunition, so careful use is essential.

That same restraint applies to the healing vials. They are exceptionally useful, but their supply is limited. Rather than restoring all your health whenever one is used, a vial only replenishes the yellow segment of Mina’s health bar. That yellow health is built up by damaging enemies, meaning you must play aggressively to refill it before drinking a vial if you want to gain the greatest possible benefit. Reaching a checkpoint restores not just Mina’s health but also her vials, so continued play helps you learn how to manage and space out healing.

Although I have less nostalgia for Game Boy-style visuals than many people my age, I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Mina the Hollower. Its many mechanics draw from a broad selection of influences, yet combine into something that feels new, even while playing like a game released more than three decades ago. Yacht Club Games built its reputation on the excellent Shovel Knight, but Mina the Hollower could eventually earn a deserved place beside the studio’s first iconic character. Unfortunately, there is still no release date or launch window, so it may be some time before I can play it again. When that chance arrives, though, I will take it with very little hesitation.

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For more on Mina the Hollower, check out our documentary on the making of the game here. For more of the best games from PAX West 2023, head here.