Thoughts on Mina the Hollower

This post is part of Agora Road's August 2025 Travelogue.

So earlier today, I was watching the Nintendo Indie World Showcase and saw footage of Mina the Hollower. This game immediately grabbed my attention as it the game was clearly inspired by GameBoy-era Zelda games.

As someone who likes traditional Zelda games, I immediately downloaded the demo. I went in totally blind, the only thing I knew was that the game was developed by Yatch Club Games, known for their game Shovel Knight.

Upon starting the game, the high craftsmanship was immediately apparent. I was greeted by a gorgeous anime-like introduction in pixel art. The only thing that rubbed me the wrong way was the scrolling text. I think that's because it was too smooth and briefly shattered the GameBoy game vibe. That being said, this is only a minor nitpick; I quickly moved on.

The in-game introduction features the protagonist's ship crashing into rocks, which reminded me heavily of the plot of Zelda: Link's Awakening. I was surprised that I had to make a choice between three weapons as if I was picking a starter in Pokémon. I picked up the sword as I wanted something as close to a Zelda experience as possible.

The game masterfully taught me how to play the game without any heavy tutorial or text dump which is appreciated. I was surprised how well Yatch Club Games replicated Link's moveset. This game feels like a ROM hack Link's Awakening with how fluid everything was.

As expected, the first maps were linear. This didn't surprise as it was obviously meant to be the tutorial area. But the linearity never ended. After a few minutes, it clicked. Despite the game's aesthetics being heavily inspired by The Legend of Zelda games, the gameplay of the game is totally different aside from combat and player movement.

Indeed, I think it would be more accurate to describe the game as "Shovel Knight with 2D Zelda combat" rather than a "Zelda-like created by the Shovel Knight team". Although you do need to sometimes unlock doors, the game do seemingly do not have any Zelda-like dungeon or overworld.

Another thing I noted was how difficult the game was. While a part of me is probably me being bad at video games in general, this feels deliberate given how hard games from the emulated era were. I recall making the same observation with Shovel Knight back in 2014.

I have no doubt in my mind that Mina the Hollower is a great game, it is unfortunately not my cup of tea.

On a final note, I really wonder how some developers manage to replicate the "soul" of games from past eras that well. I can tell a lot of work and research went into this project to make it era-accurate as possible. I didn't grow up with a GameBoy, but for a moment the game instilled a sense of childlike wonder in me.

Written by manpaint on 07 August 2025.