I backed this kickstarter project back in 2022. I had completely forgotten about it until recently when they annouced the final release date. And oh man, was it worth the wait!
Mina The Hollwer is a top-down action adventure game, inspired by the classic Zelda games particularly that of Oracle of Seasons/Ages. Funny thing is back when I backed this game on kickstarter, I was complaining about how Nintendo seemed to have forgotten the Oracle games exist, and there was no remake or availability on modern consoles. And they made those two games available around 2024.
Anyways, you play as Mina, a whip-wielding Hollower and visionary inventor. She receives a troubling letter from Baron Lionel, her longtime patron and the overseer of Tenebrous Isle. Mina’s advances in Spark Technology brought power to the Isle for the first time many years ago, ushering in newfound prosperity for its citizens. But now, the Spark Generators have gone out, and foul play is suspected.
The 16-bit soundtrack absolutely kicks so much ass. I didn't know some of these notes and beats could be replicated. It's like listening to those Game Boy game soundtracks, except more enhanced to keep your nostalgia headests on.
The game is also surprisingly large in terms of map size. However, there are a few ways to fast travel. There are train stations, pipes that connects to different parts of the map, and even a magical mirror dimension. The dimension itself is another dungeon you have to clear, but the entrance has many mirrors that connects to different points in the map
Mina has a few base weapon to choose from; A hammer that has charged AOE attack, A twin blade that attacks swiftly, a whip that gives you some distance between the enemies, a shield that counters enemy attacks, and a “blaster” that switche between melee and ranged attacks.
You also have plenty of sub-weapons, called side arms, and these are really fun to experiment with. Soem are clearly designed for combat, but others are designed to help you get across a large gap, or use as a utility/support.
Trinkets are equivalent of rings from Souls games. You can unlock more space to equipe trinkets. They offer various buffs, such as attack boost, jump far, summon help during combat, increase damage with each successive hits, etc.
Now the gameplay will take some time to get used to. Because this game is surprisingly hard.
What makes it particularly hard is how the health recovery works; You are given a set amount of healing potion every time you respawn. Let's say you took out a group of enemies and lost about half of your HP. During the fight, if you attacked the enemies enough times, you will see the empty part of the HP bar being filled with orange meter. The orange meter is how much the health potion will recover.
This is gonna throw a lot of players off; On one hand, because there is no set amount of HP these potions will recover, you can be at 1% of you HP but recover the other 99% if you had attacked enough times. On the other hand, if forces you to play aggressively, and that can you killed. A LOT
Bones act as your currency in this game. The first time you die, you lose a spark, a chance to recover the bones. Die again, you lose them forever.
It is an incredibly frustrating mechanic, as things are too expensive in this game. No joke, it takes more than 50,000 bones to max stat, and this game is so fucking cheap with how many bones the enemy drops.
Mina also has the ability to burrow into the ground. It let’s you avoid ground-level attacks, flank around enemies, lets you jump further, and used frequently to solve puzzles. While it is a fun idea, the due to controls being kinda bad, you often unfairly fall into pitfalls or run into environmental hazards.
The #1 cause of death in this game has so far been exactly that; falling into pitfalls or jumping into spikes, lava, ball of lightning, etc.
It’s also sometimes hard to tell where you can and cannot burrow; I.E. I was stuck in an aread with a large body of water, and Mina drowns if she steps into the deep end. Turns out, she can burrow “into” the water briefly; WTF kinda logic is that? Granted it can be argued that she is swimming/diving, but why can’t I simply walk into the water then? BTW, Mina still drowns after jumping out of water from burrowing.
In fact, I’d say platforming is the biggest flaw of this game. Nothing against challenges, but this game expects you to combine burrow jump + trinket + sub weapon to JUST MAYBE make it across a really wide gap.
Mina The Hollower is a great game, and so far I am getting my money’s worth out of it. But due to lots of janks, it’s hard for me to give it a strong recommendation.
Mina The Hollwer is a top-down action adventure game, inspired by the classic Zelda games particularly that of Oracle of Seasons/Ages. Funny thing is back when I backed this game on kickstarter, I was complaining about how Nintendo seemed to have forgotten the Oracle games exist, and there was no remake or availability on modern consoles. And they made those two games available around 2024.
Anyways, you play as Mina, a whip-wielding Hollower and visionary inventor. She receives a troubling letter from Baron Lionel, her longtime patron and the overseer of Tenebrous Isle. Mina’s advances in Spark Technology brought power to the Isle for the first time many years ago, ushering in newfound prosperity for its citizens. But now, the Spark Generators have gone out, and foul play is suspected.
The 16-bit soundtrack absolutely kicks so much ass. I didn't know some of these notes and beats could be replicated. It's like listening to those Game Boy game soundtracks, except more enhanced to keep your nostalgia headests on.
The game is also surprisingly large in terms of map size. However, there are a few ways to fast travel. There are train stations, pipes that connects to different parts of the map, and even a magical mirror dimension. The dimension itself is another dungeon you have to clear, but the entrance has many mirrors that connects to different points in the map
Mina has a few base weapon to choose from; A hammer that has charged AOE attack, A twin blade that attacks swiftly, a whip that gives you some distance between the enemies, a shield that counters enemy attacks, and a “blaster” that switche between melee and ranged attacks.
You also have plenty of sub-weapons, called side arms, and these are really fun to experiment with. Soem are clearly designed for combat, but others are designed to help you get across a large gap, or use as a utility/support.
Trinkets are equivalent of rings from Souls games. You can unlock more space to equipe trinkets. They offer various buffs, such as attack boost, jump far, summon help during combat, increase damage with each successive hits, etc.
Now the gameplay will take some time to get used to. Because this game is surprisingly hard.
What makes it particularly hard is how the health recovery works; You are given a set amount of healing potion every time you respawn. Let's say you took out a group of enemies and lost about half of your HP. During the fight, if you attacked the enemies enough times, you will see the empty part of the HP bar being filled with orange meter. The orange meter is how much the health potion will recover.
This is gonna throw a lot of players off; On one hand, because there is no set amount of HP these potions will recover, you can be at 1% of you HP but recover the other 99% if you had attacked enough times. On the other hand, if forces you to play aggressively, and that can you killed. A LOT
Bones act as your currency in this game. The first time you die, you lose a spark, a chance to recover the bones. Die again, you lose them forever.
It is an incredibly frustrating mechanic, as things are too expensive in this game. No joke, it takes more than 50,000 bones to max stat, and this game is so fucking cheap with how many bones the enemy drops.
Mina also has the ability to burrow into the ground. It let’s you avoid ground-level attacks, flank around enemies, lets you jump further, and used frequently to solve puzzles. While it is a fun idea, the due to controls being kinda bad, you often unfairly fall into pitfalls or run into environmental hazards.
The #1 cause of death in this game has so far been exactly that; falling into pitfalls or jumping into spikes, lava, ball of lightning, etc.
It’s also sometimes hard to tell where you can and cannot burrow; I.E. I was stuck in an aread with a large body of water, and Mina drowns if she steps into the deep end. Turns out, she can burrow “into” the water briefly; WTF kinda logic is that? Granted it can be argued that she is swimming/diving, but why can’t I simply walk into the water then? BTW, Mina still drowns after jumping out of water from burrowing.
In fact, I’d say platforming is the biggest flaw of this game. Nothing against challenges, but this game expects you to combine burrow jump + trinket + sub weapon to JUST MAYBE make it across a really wide gap.
Mina The Hollower is a great game, and so far I am getting my money’s worth out of it. But due to lots of janks, it’s hard for me to give it a strong recommendation.
