It’s a loving throwback to Game Boy Zelda titles with its own personality, thanks to its signature burrowing system. So far, Mina the Hollower is checking every box I expected it to and more. The sometimes punishing nature of older games pairs neatly with a “corpse run” trend that’s added some higher stakes to modern games in recent years. I wasn’t totally clear on how it works, but there’s an interesting parallel between past and present at play here. As far as I could tell, the game also appears to implement a bit of a Soulslike system, where players need to recover their dropped currency and gear after dying. Certain rooms slayed me multiple times, as enemies and traps would send me bouncing around the screen. Past and present collideīased on the slice I played, Mina is a very challenging game. Finally, I’d have the option to equip two relics, which ended up being crucial to my run - a defense boost specifically saved my rodent’s behind multiple times. Random secondary weapon drops would expand my toolkit further, letting me toss axes or daggers at far-off enemies so long as I had enough magic. Later, I’d swap that out for a mace that would attack a few squares in front of me. I began by using a set of twin daggers that could be charged up to toss one as a projectile. In addition to that, I got a chance to use a few different weapon types and buff-granting relics that let me customize my playstyle. It’s a powerful traversal tool that could solve some of the stilted movement problems that come with older adventure games. One screen, for instance, had me zipping underground to dodge one arrow trap, launching into the air to get over a pit, and immediately burrowing again to sidestep around an enemy on the other side. Once I got the hang of it, I could zoom through dungeon rooms in an instant. That ability totally changes the pace of exploration, as it can be used to quickly dodge away from enemies or even burrow under traps to avoid them entirely. Mina’s most original tool is its burrowing, which allows its mouse hero to travel underground for a short while. While all that is great news for nostalgic fans, I was more interested in Yacht Club’s original ideas. Even some of the enemy types explicitly seem to call back to the series, with sprites that resemble Like-Likes, blobs, and more. Mina even has a jump that functions precisely like Roc’s Feather, further drawing some Zelda parallels. Throughout my demo, I’d carefully navigate around square holes, slash at enemies directly in front of me, and dodge traps like arrow shooters and rolling spike cylinders. The titular Mina is controlled exactly as I expected, moving and attacking in a four-directional grid similar to Link’s Awakening.
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