Finally finished everything in the game! Unless something incredible comes out of nowhere, this is my game of the year.
Short Review
Mina the Hollower is a retro top-down adventure game, it’s a mix between Zelda, Castlevania, and Bloodborne - with references to all three in particular.
The game is just fantastic all around. The combat is tight, the music and art are incredible, and the horror atmosphere of the whole world is just amazing. The game has hands-down some of the best level and world design you’ll see in games, it’s so full of secrets and shortcuts and manages to feel huge and fun to explore without being too confusing. The game also boldly does not have a map, but it does guide you in the general directions you need to go.
You will get lost, especially at the start, but you’ll slowly have a grasp of how the whole world connects as you play. The biggest issue people have is the game’s difficulty, but I can say that the game gets easier as you keep playing and explore. After the first area or two, you’ll start stacking trinkets that make life a whole lot easier, even in late-game areas. There are some really good trinkets near the start of the game that are easily missable, so be sure to look around - don’t try brute forcing the game!
I also want to add that the game has toooons of modifiers that you can enable on your save file. Some make the game easier, some make the game harder, some are weird and let you break the game (like a super high jump modifier) as well as a lot of visual stuff. The good stuff though is unlocked after beating the game, there are crazy modifiers like a built-in randomizer, or a modifier that removes RPG mechanics and equalizes difficulty, or one that mirrors the world… The game is built from the ground up to be replayed in many different ways and has built-in challenge runs. If you’re into these things, you can keep coming back to the game and play it for a loooooooong time. I’m already getting ready for New Game+ before doing any of the crazier ones.
That’s pretty much it. It’s such a great game. Go play it!
If I had a nickel for every indie game inspired by Zelda and Dark Souls where you play as an animal I’d have two nickels, which isn’t a lot, but it’s odd it happened twice.
Edit: I’m not saying Mina (or Tunic) is lazy or derivative. Tunic and Mina draw on different parts of what make Zelda Zelda. Tunic is all about the “Where do I go now?” and “How do I do this?” feeling that the original Zelda had. The first Zelda was also my first Zelda, so Tunic hit me square in the nostalgia. Mina is drinking heavily from the GB/GBC Zelda well, Link’s Awakening and the Oracle games in particular. It’s more combat-focused vs Tunic, so the two games fill different niches despite having similar inspirations. I just wanted to squeeze in a P&F reference.
I think to be fair, Dark Souls was a bit inspired by Zelda. Even at the time, Zelda was not the only exploration game that scrolled screen by screen.
We’ve seen a few games that tried to look way back to the earliest Zelda for inspiration, which is very different from modern, Disneytendo Zelda. Tunic, Dark Souls, Breath of the Wild, Mina, all took that inspiration in a different direction.
Dark Souls is the closest feeling a game has ever given me to Ocarina of Time. In my mind, everything post Anor Londo is basically the “adult” era.
Yes. I haven’t seen anybody else say it, but everything in Dark Souls took me back to Ocarina of Time like