Mina The Hollower Surpasses The Greatness Of Shovel Knight

Mina the Hollower is a retro-styled action game that combines classic overhead, Game Boy-era aesthetics with modern souls-like design. The world is darker, denser, and more difficult than earlier Zelda Game Boy Color entries, featuring gothic horror, body horror, and gruesome violence expressed through pixelated animals. The story follows Mina, a Hollower structural engineer and earth scientist who invented spark technology powering Tenebrous Isle’s generators. When the generators fail, Baron Lionel summons Mina to repair them. After her arrival is interrupted by a monster attack, Mina selects from a limited set of weapons, signaling a progression system built around careful choices and escalating challenge.

"Mina the Hollower looked similarly old-school, with a look and feel that obviously pays tribute to the Zelda Game Boy spin-offs. But this time, the fusion of newer souls-like design sensibilities makes it more than a freshened-up homage. It resembles those Zelda games, but it's so densely packed with secrets and intertwining cause-and-effect outcomes that at times it feels more like Elden Ring than Link's Awakening."

"The comparisons to Link's Awakening, and Game Boy Color games Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages, are visually obvious. Mina has a similar color palette, the sprite artwork is familiar, and it uses an overhead camera. But whereas those games were relatively simple iterations on the template set by the classic Legend of Zelda and Link to the Past, Mina the Hollower is much darker, much denser, and much more difficult."

"The challenge level can be brutal and unforgiving, and there are elements of gothic horror, body horror, and gruesome violence-at least, as expressed through cute pixelated animals. The story starts when Mina gets a letter from Baron Lionel, the leader of Tenebrous Isle, who requests her help with the island's power generators. Mina is a Hollower, which in this world essentially means a sort of structural engineer and earth scientist."

"Mina is the best of them, having invented the spark technology that powers the generators, which in turn makes all of the modern technological wonders of Tenebrous possible. But the generators have been breaking down, so Mina is asked to come see to the problem. After her boat to Tenebrous is attacked by a monster, Mina chooses her weapon. You're presented with just three at the start, and already, this feels like a statement of intent."

Read at GameSpot