Mina the Hollower

It’s been awhile since I talked about Yacht Club Games. Developers of one of my favorite video games ever made, and golden icon when it comes to indie games. Really shows how far they’ve come as a studio. Just a couple friends joking on a boat one of them managed to afford, and soon afterwards one of those jokes managed to become a full fledged video game. Shovel Knight, love it or not you gotta admit it left a huge mark on the indie scene. Living up to the mass hype it built up, exceeding said hype, and managing to turn into a quadrilogy of games. Each pushing what this simple platformer could handle in wild directions. Shovel Knight is a masterpiece. It’s made by people who grew up playing games, loved them, and wanted to create a work of art that pays tribute. Managing to stand on its own without the driving factor being just nostalgia. It’s the first game that comes to mind when I think of tight game design, and I don’t think I’d love indies as much as I do now if Shovel Knight hadn’t exposed me to them. Now I will admit later titles like Specter of Torment and Kings of Card were grander both in terms of gameplay, storytelling, and scope. However, the original is still my favorite because it shows how simplicity can be pushed and tested beyond its limit. That’s why to me it’s the best 2D platformer ever.

After four mainline games, a roguelike spinoff, and another roguelike spinoff but this time in the match four puzzle genre they realized they couldn’t keep doing Shovel Knight forever. All great ideas must end at some point, and new stories must be told. That is how all artists evolve, and so Yacht Club went to the drawing board again. Reflecting on the games they grew up with that are not 2D platformers. What could they do that isn’t inspired by Mega Man, Super Mario Bros, and all the other ones!? Eventually someone on that team thought, “What if we took Zelda and mixed it with Castlevania and Bloodborne,” leading them to make a gothic lovecraftian adventure, but the catch is that you’re a cartoon mouse surrounded by other cartoon critters. Mina the Hollower, the new game by Yacht Club that is not Shovel Knight. It’s also my most anticipated 2026 game, and I’m very excited to talk to you all about it. I knew the game would be great the moment they announced it back in 2022, but no one including me expected Mina the Hollower to explode the way it did. As just a few days ago it was hit with numerous perfect scores from major outlets like IGN and Eurogamer. Currently sitting as the highest rated game of the year on Metacritic. Now I don’t let review outlets and Metacritic scores dictate what games I review or not. I purchase titles on my own accord. I should also clarify that I bought this game using my own money. I have or will never be paid or sponsored to give glowing praise to video games.

That being said, Mina the Hollower is my favorite game of 2026 as of right now. It’s as great, if not better than what I was hoping for. A solid zeldalike that’s simple on the surface, but throws in a bunch of cool ideas to stand out. It’s challenging, but its goal is to not beat you over the head all the time. The gameplay is simple, but gives you enough tools and choices to experiment with. The level design always gives you a good idea on where to go, but you’re still pushed to explore and find secrets that may help you. Much like Shovel Knight it’s doing more than let nostalgia be the driving factor. It’s one of the greatest among the zeldalikes I’ve played, and will probably be brought up when discussing this subgenre. A reminder on who Yacht Club Games is, their love for games, and understanding of what makes games good. An icon who demonstrates time and time what hard work, time, and dedication can achieve. I’ll try not to spoil too much as the game is a recent release. People are still making their way through it including a few close friends of mine. If I do bring up something that occurs later in the game I’ll try to vaguely describe what it is to the best of my ability. Just thought I’d say that before we continue forward. Anyways, today we’ll be talking about Mina the Hollower and why it utterly deserves your attention. 

Story

Years ago, two figures worked together to construct the Spark Generators for which the people of the faraway Tenebrous Isle rely upon. Those two were Mina and Lionel. One a politician who’d become a leader for the people, and the other was an honorable Hollower. Noble warriors known for their especially handcrafted toolkits, ability to burrow easily into the ground, and protecting the people no matter the cost. If not that then the adventures they embarked on. After building the generators, Mina chose to leave the isle. She never really cared for fame or being greeted by worshippers every single day. She seeked more, and when she was tired she settled down. Lionel stayed to help build cities, townships, and govern. All was well, but one day trouble popped up. Monsters came out of nowhere, people went crazy without there being any signs leading to their mental crisis, and during this chaos factions emerged trying to seek control. The six generators placed at each corner of the land fizzled out, and the only place with energy left was the central city Ossex. With trouble emerging and Lionel busy passing laws only one was left to call.

A letter had been sent out to Mina. Several miles across the sea where she had just finished doing what she usually does. The letter catches her up in all that has happened. Saying the generators must be powered back on, and she is the only one who can do so since she helped design & build them. Mina, wanting to do the right thing and assist a friend, packs her belongings and catches a boat ride to the isle. Thinking the journey would be safe and swift until her boat is attacked by a massive kraken.Almost dying during the fight before crashing into the isle’s dockyard. Realizing how bad things have gotten, Mina raises her weapon and ventures forth into the darkened streets. Cutting down all the beasts and madmen in her way, and learning how all of this even happened. Animals hunt animals, but you’re no animal. Just a little mouse getting by each day.

Gameplay

When it comes to zeldalikes a majority of them aren’t particularly trying to be like one specific title. In the case of Mina the Hollower it’s trying to be like Link’s Awakening. Right down to the visuals, which are stylized much like what the original Gameboy release looked. Where it differs is the gameplay department, because thirty years worth of technological advancements and game design evolution certainly does wonders. You explore the land, check crannies for collectibles & secrets, grow stronger, and reach the Spark Generators of each region. There are six in total and while two of them require difficult feats to reach, most of them can be tackled in any order. This gives you an open approach on how you want to progress through the game. If one region is too hard then try another one. If you think you’re too underpowered then go off and explore. Secrets are more important than any zeldalike I’ve played, because the main currency that being Bones is not just for buying items at shops. Accumulator enough bones and Mina will be given a choice between one of four stats. Those being weapon attack power, sidearm attack power, defense, and turning your bones into a bone crystal which you already find a ton of while exploring. Basically you level up, but remember this game has a bit of Soulsborne influence. When you die you don’t lose your experience points. Rather a spark charge, and if you die again before reacquiring it you lose all your bones permanently. You can acquire more spark charges that way you don’t have to struggle getting one you lost, but this specific upgrade is costly or will take awhile to find. This means leveling up takes thought. Do you bank or spend the bones made, or save up for items or stats you want?

Back in Link’s Awakening you only had one weapon and side tools to solve problems. Here you have five different weapons to choose from. All can be unlocked through exploration or buying them from the blacksmith. You got a whip, duel daggers, massive hammer, colossal shield that can both bash and parry, and a miniature mallet that can transform into an arm cannon. Finding upgrades for each weapon grants them new skills, so be on the lookout for red chests. Another influence Mina draws from Soulsborne is the healing system. You have vials that refill each time you rest at a checkpoint. Similar to the Estus Flash from Dark Souls, but they don’t refill health instantly upon consumption. Rather you must attack enemies to fill up a bar representing health you lost. Then you down a vial. It’s sorta like the rally mechanic from Bloodborne, but now you fight for your health rather than be given the choice of whether to attack or heal right away. This mechanic is supposed to encourage players to fight aggressively and reactively, because there is quite a bit of combat in this game. Enemies come in a variety of flavors. They can fly, come in groups, hit hard, slowly, quickly, or bear protection. It’s your job to adapt to how they work and the arena you fight in. Knowing when to evade, strike, or spot those windows of opportunity.

One last mechanic I want to touch upon is burrowing. Mina is a Hollower like we mentioned, so she can dig into the ground. Unearth bones for collection, or slip into tunnels you can’t navigate through normal means. What’s unique is burrowing is also used for platforming or interacting with levels in interesting ways. There aren’t a lot of zeldalikes with platforming. Most of them are pretty grounded, but Mina the Hollower likes to switch up how the player traverses the world every now and then. With tons of verticality and objects to interact with. The mines contain these hooks you must jump between to get across gaps. This cavern within a creature’s belly has two levels, and the top level has pits you must take leaps of faith into to reach different places. There is a water level, and you got a burrow to swim. Otherwise you plummet to the bottom and lose a bit of health. Each level is introducing new mechanics for the player to mess around with. Then combining mechanics together to create different higher scaled challenges. It’s very much how Yacht Club thought up the ideas for levels in Shovel Knight all the way back then. Just a very fun game to explore the ins and outs of. With the right amount of challenge that is engaging without being unfair or overwhelming. It’s the correct amount of fun for me and that’s all I can ask for from a fan who always plays their games for cheery fun. Farewell good hunter.

Thoughts

I absolutely adored my time with Mina the Hollower. It’s an expertly crafted game I wanted to play more of, and when I wasn’t playing it I was thinking about it. Wondering where I’d go next or how to beat a boss I was currently stuck on. There’s so much this game does well, but that is not to say Mina the Hollower is a perfect game. I do have my criticisms, and there are aspects & moments in the game that I suspect will frustrate players. Thankfully there are assist options for those who want to appreciate other aspects of the game, but can’t get around the parts which are troubling them. Yacht Club not only gave players a lot of choices on how they tackle the journey, but also what level of difficulty they play on. I love it, because it makes Mina the Hollower an even easier game to recommend to my peers. Yet, I played this game without utilizing any of the available assist options. Wielding my starting weapon of choice, the whip, and stomaching my way through each of the bosses. We’ll talk about them later, but right now I want to focus on the things I love about Mina the Hollower. One of those being the wonderfully woven levels.

Zeldalikes and titles in The Legend of Zelda series are known for being open ended, sorta. The world is vast, contains different regions, and you can go anywhere at any time. The catch is that sometimes they don’t let you do that. Sometimes there’s a linear path forward, because you need an item from one dungeon to progress to another place. Maybe it’s for balancing or story reasons. The only zeldalikes that I’ve seen go against this design is Hyper Light Drifter and now this. It’s great that Yacht Club lets players tackle regions in any order they desire. If one is too hard or the player wants to go to a more interesting region first they can switch up plans and do so. Then you can come back later when you acquire more upgrades and trinkets. The world is pretty big, but I wouldn’t say Mina the Hollower is annoying to navigate across. Checkpoints and shortcuts are plentiful, and I never felt lost while exploring the world. Mainly because levels are designed in such a way that they warm you towards your goal but give enough space to allow exploration or checking for secrets. Looking for secrets is heavily suggested, because you need bones and gems to afford half your upgrades. It made finding stuff more rewarding, because in other games I’d hoard half the sh*t I find. In this game I’m thinking, “Oh yeah, I can invest it into this!”

There are some caveats to the open approach design though. Most games are set linearly so you can go from easiest to hardest areas. You might experience some difficulty whiplash every now and then as one area might suddenly become easier compared to what you just went through. For example, for the second area I went through the farmlands. A place filled with chase sequences, lighting strikes, exploding turnips, and hordes of crowmen waiting to trample you. Then for the third I went through the water level, and it was surprisingly more manageable. Partially because I took a good chunk of the bones I made in the farmlands, and poured them into buying all the stat upgrades in the shop. You know how there’s six areas you can go to from the start? That’s a bit of a lie. Four of them you can go to instantly, but the other two require achieving specific feats. Those being to spend ten thousand bones to repair a train, and finding enough of the fast travel mirrors throughout the game. The first might take a bit, because of either grinding or accidentally dumping all your bones in upgrades. The second being poorly explained to the player. Even then I still appreciate what Yacht Club was trying to do. Open approach lets you create your path and difficulty. Even though there was occasional difficulty whiplash I saw it in the sense that I was getting better at the game. Growing stronger with each level up, purchase, and time spent trying to find more crud to fill my pockets with. It’s a fun world to run around and progress in.

Much like Shovel Knight, the levels toss you as many mechanics as they can. Pacing you in and combining them together to create grander challenges. Such as the mines with its conveyor belts, bombs, swinging hooks, and stomach cavern afterwards. With its two layers you bob up & down from. The mountains with its slippery floors, blocks you shove around, and grindable rails. The farmlands have chase sequences, lightning, and wind that reduces or increases your jump length and speed. It’s all splendidly done and I love how much platforming there is even though this is a genre where platforming hasn’t been dwelled on. Last year Pipistrello and The Cursed Yoyo had a ton of platforming, and this game alongside it pushes it further. Pipistrello had you bouncing around with the yo-yo, and Mina had you burrowing all around. Two games with fun movement. Mina the Hollower attempts to replicate the look and feel of the Zelda games on the Gameboy, but it’s not trying to be exactly like them. An aspect I’ve always appreciated when it comes to Yacht Club and how they handle nostalgia. They pay respect to the past, but they let it be all that defines their game. Shovel Knight and Mina the Hollower have their own identity even at times where the influences are very clear. What do I mean by this? Let’s say you can spot an influence. Instead of the game going, “Hey, remember that from back in the day,” they just let you figure it out. A game with its own identity doesn’t do that, as it sabotages what it tries to be. Shovel Knight was a cheery fantasy, and Mina is a cheery gothic setting.

The world is colorful, each region is visually distinct, and chatting with the NPCs leads to tons of comedic gags. Some of which got a really good chuckle out of me. The story is quite good near the end. As it does the usual Yacht Club thing where it’s simple, but as the plot unravels you start to see a deep enough message. Shovel Knight was about hope even when all is lost, and Mina is about doing the right thing even if it may hurt people. I really don’t want to spoil it, but the plot twists and mystery of the story is intriguing. That is if you’re willing to power through and reach them all. This is where we get to the part of the review where I’m more critical, but I’ll say again that Mina the Hollower is my favorite game of 2026 so far. Despite the flaws I consider Mina a modern indie masterpiece and what games in the zeldalike subgenre should strive to be like aside from Hyper Light Drifter, Unsighted, Pipistrello and The Cursed Yoyo, etc. It’s a fantastic game and for twenty dollars you’re getting your money’s worth. A game with a ton of content and hours of playability.

Anyways, I think what players are gonna have the most trouble with in Mina the Hollower is the combat and mechanics surrounding it. Mina took influence from Zelda, but it also took a ton of influence from Bloodborne. You all know I love Bloodborne to death, and honestly I don’t mind the influence Mina took. In fact, I think it makes Mina a more interesting game to play and talk about. Yet, I will acknowledge people are gonna be conflicted with how demanding Mina gets, especially near the end. The retrieval system for spark charges is neat. How you can unlock more charges and be given more chances to retrieve a spark from before, or press onwards. It can be frustrating at first, because sometimes spark charges get absorbed by enemies. Sorta like how in Bloodborne your Blood Echoes can be held by an enemy, but in Bloodborne they usually chose weaker enemies. Some enemies can’t absorb them, because the devs knew it would be too much of a hassle to retrieve. Whereas in Mina the Hollower any type of enemy including bosses can do this. While I didn’t fully upgrade every stat in the game I did reach the max for both defense and attack power. Making me realize there’s only so many bone gems in the stat menu you can get. Meaning you can only bank so many acquired bones, so losing the ones you can’t is harsh.

The way health recovery works can be harsh too. Back in Bloodborne once you get hit you have two options. Either strike back immediately to recover some of your health before the partial bit of the health bar drains, or down a vial to recover more instantly. A quick choice that makes you ask whether to risk slashing away more or not. To retaliate at the one who hurt you. Mina instead makes you lose health, strike enemies to fill the partial part, and then down a vial. This system gets annoying at times. As the enemies you deal with are either relentless or come in hordes. You also can be cancelled out of a healing animation, and what’s worse is you lose the vial when you get hit. So not only do you gotta put thought into when to heal during a stressful fight, but also at times work with lost vials. I think it’s too much to be honest. There are workarounds. Such as the assist options, or trinkets that let you recover some health even without the partial part filled or down your vials faster. I enjoy what this system is trying to do, because it encourages the player to fight aggressively. The thing is that while combat in Mina the Hollower is good, great even, I wouldn’t say it’s flexible enough to allow for easy adjustment. Considering weapons have small hitboxes, your burrow needs to be preparation, and tons of other zeldalikes contain more flexible combat like the previously mentioned Unsighted and Hyper Light Drifter.

Finally there are the bosses. They’re great and I had a fun time fighting all of them. Some of ‘em are lovecraftian abominations that really show me how much Yacht Club loves Bloodborne and the Dark Souls series. The ones early on I felt were very manageable, but near the end I started to feel like some were a bit overtuned. Again, the game’s combat, while good and satisfying to get over, is not the most flexible in the world. Bosses near the end are fast, hit hard, and relentless to a point where windows to heal or strike are too small. I’m not saying these fights are unfair as a good chunk of their attacks are avoidable, telegraphed, and with enough attempts I overcame it. I don’t think a majority of players are gonna beat these foes under normal means sadly. One of the bosses has three phases. The first phase is easy, but then a bunch of sh*t happens in the second. Boss becomes quicker, summons more little dudes to run around the arena, and halfway through it splits into two. Forcing you to manage to rampaging monsters at once. I got through this phase downing all my vials, the third phase popped up, I screamed “bullsh*t”, and had to learn more. Mina the Hollower is great in how it takes simple mechanics and creates very fun and thrilling combat encounters with them. Final boss is my favorite in the whole game as it’s a cinematic riot, but I can’t help but wonder if midway in development playtesters told Yacht Club that this is too much. Making them question balancing and add assist options.

I’ve rambled a lot about the pros and cons of Mina the Hollower, but that’s what I do for games I love. Balance both statements, show how they clash about, and ultimately mix together to make one spectacular dish. It’s similar to eating fried chicken or any meat with the bones still on. The bone is not edible, can’t be chewed, and occasionally a small piece of bone gets caught in your mouth. Instead I kept eating that meat, because it tastes great. The flavor, juicyness, texture, and swallowing down so I can take another bite. Mina the Hollower is basically that. Fried chicken, buffalo wings, or whatever your favorite piece of boned meat is. Mine is this Vietnamese fish my mother has been cooking ever since I was a child. Soft, chewy, drizzled in this sweet sauce that doesn’t stain your tongue, or get stuck in your throat. Once in a while there’s a bone, but I don’t mind as it’s my favorite meal. Mina the Hollower is a masterpiece that I strongly recommend to anyone who adores these kinds of games. In the end I am gonna give Mina a 10/10 for being incredible.