Mina the Hollower wants the old thrills back. Yacht Club Games, the studio behind the Shovel Knight series, has built a retro RPG that looks and moves like it was made for the Game Boy Color at its best, then loaded it with the open-world structure of The Legend of Zelda, the horror mood and chiptune bite of Castlevania, and a progression system that borrows from FromSoft’s Souls games.
IGN reviewed Mina the Hollower after its opening hour of play, and even that early slice makes the pitch clear. Mina is a monster slayer dropped into a world where you can head to any of the game’s four initial dungeons in any order, armed at first with only a stubby little weapon and a jump that clears small gaps but never lifts her to a higher ledge. The game is completely open from the start, with no paths blocked until a special item is found, and the overworld partly scrolls while still breaking cleanly into distinct regions.
That structure gives the game its edge. The central village of Ossex anchors the Tenebrous Isles, a setting that mixes gothic fantasy with magically infused steampunk tech, and the world around it sounds built for detours. There are adorable animal denizens, building-busting giants, perfectly friendly abominations, and even possums as monsters. The review describes the game as a tough-as-nails adventure, but one that clearly understands the appeal of the classics it is borrowing from.
The comparisons are not decoration. Mina the Hollower uses Zelda games such as Link’s Awakening and the Oracle duo as a foundation, then folds in Castlevania’s haunted atmosphere and Souls-style combat and progression to make the familiar feel more punishing. That is a difficult balance, especially in a game that gives players so much freedom so early, but it is also what makes the premise click: this is not a nostalgia exercise built around one memory, but a remix of several very specific ones.
There is still one catch, and it matters. Because IGN only played through the opening hour, the review can speak to the shape of the adventure more than its full depth. The story is said to have fun, if predictable, twists and turns, with its strongest material saved for the end. That means the early promise is real, but the game’s ultimate payoff still depends on how well it carries that energy through the rest of the journey.
For now, though, the verdict is straightforward. Mina the Hollower is aiming well beyond simple homage, and if the rest of the game matches the opening hour’s mix of freedom, menace and old-school friction, it could land as one of Yacht Club Games’ most ambitious projects yet.
