Mina the Hollower

Mina the Hollower is another practically perfect experience from Yacht Club Games, with retro challenge and a whole lot of creativity to show off.

Mina the Hollower is an amazing title from Yacht Club Games that everyone needs to try. It looks and sounds spectacular, has awesome accessibility options, and is compelling to play; add this to your library right now.

Mina the Hollower is another masterpiece from Yacht Club Games, a Zelda style game that manages not only to equal the series that inspired it, but in some ways surpasses it. The world is detailed, gorgeous, and overflowing with secrets. The writing is sharp and often hilarious while maintaining a gothic horror vibe. Best of all, it feels amazing to play, with tons of ways to customize Mina and the game itself to fit your playstyle. It’s filled with freedom and challenge in equal measure, but as a Hollower you are more than up to the task.

Best of all, Mina the Hollower is no mere nostalgia bait, proving the player-first design ethos evident in Yacht Club Games' past successes. As much as I love the Blue Burrower, I'm truly grateful that the studio took the risk of this new character and setting and followed it through. If you grew up with old-school Zelda, all the better, but Mina the Hollower is a magnificent adventure regardless of the era, a giddily creative labor of love with no prior experience required.

While Mina the Hollower might not play like the games it's clearly inspired by, Yacht Club Games has instead taken bits and pieces from all of its inspiration and combined it with its years of experience on Shovel Knight to create a masterpiece. The demo may not have sold the game's full potential, but the final product surpasses expectations. Going for a full 100% run is a ton of fun, and it’s taking all sorts of strength to not go back and play another full game.

Mina the Hollower is an almost faultless game that combines elements of nostalgic classics we know and love with a healthy dose of Yacht Club’s flair and expertise to make it something that truly stands out as a retro-inspired masterpiece. I could honestly play it forever, with Yacht Club proving that it’s not just a one game studio with yet another bonafide classic.

With Mina the Hollower, Yacht Club Games managed to beautifully pay homage to some of the absolute greatest classics in gaming history, all while carving out their own entirely fresh identity with an irresistible experience. It’s like a gothic Zelda with touches of Castlevania and Dark Souls that I never knew I needed. If you have a passing love for classic adventures, gothic atmospheres, or tightly-knit game design, do yourself a favor and fully dive into this world.

Mina the Hollower will burrow into your brain and set up a cozy little house there. I couldn’t let it go: Clues to unsolved puzzles pop into my brain before bed; a corner high out of reach that I never set foot on beckons me every time I pass it on my way to the shops in Ossex; the math tells me maxing out my attack power would just take one really good grinding spot, and then I could beat that secret boss that destroyed me. Mina achieves the same heights in both action and style that its impressive inspirations – Zelda, Castlevania, and FromSoft RPGs – reach on a regular basis, and with far fewer resources. Even if all you’ve played is Breath of the Wild and Elden Ring, don’t let the retro look fool you: Mina the Hollower will scratch the same itch, with an open world that’s crammed with mysteries worth finding and lively, clever combat I couldn’t get enough of. It’s a big game in a small package, and an absolute masterpiece of an adventure.

What is perhaps most impressive about Mina the Hollower is how effortlessly confident it feels. Many retro-inspired games are content to imitate the aesthetics of the past while sanding away the rougher edges. Yacht Club Games understand that the magic of those older games came not just from how they looked, but from how boldly designed they were. Mina embraces mystery, difficulty, experimentation, and discovery with absolute conviction.

From start to finish, Mina the Hollower had me enthralled, which is pretty incredible for a game that ran me about 18 hours for a first-time playthrough (54% exploration rating). Some truly masterful game design on display, along with excellent spritework and sound design, make this an all-timer and an easy recommend for...frankly, anyone that enjoys video games. You can set the difficulty to your liking in a way that I haven't seen, ever, which makes this accessible to a very wide range of players. The exploration is top-notch, the story is riveting, the art style is striking, and the myriad ways the developers pull tricks on you is both amusing and well thought-out. I can't recommend Mina the Hollower enough.

More than just an ode to the GameBoy Color, Mina the Hollower is a masterclass in how constraints can fuel creativity. Inventive and engaging to the end and beyond, this is an instant modern classic. Across two dozen hours, Mina the Hollower reminded me why I ever picked up a controller in the first place; because great games make the playing its own reward.

Mina the Hollower is a rewarding journey all the way to the finish, and thanks to the extensive modifiers and also New Game+, I expect I'll have a blast seeing what we can do with this magnificently spooky adventure for a long time.

Mina the Hollower is a brilliant 2D action-adventure game that takes clear inspiration from classic Zelda while building something that feels fresh, challenging, and uniquely its own. Its open-ended exploration, clever combat systems, strong sense of discovery, and flexible modifiers make every part of the adventure feel personal. While its difficulty can spike, Mina the Hollower stands out as an instant classic and one of the best games in its genre.

Mina The Hollower is the Skill Issue of video games. Developer Yacht Club is not here to hold your hand. If they knew in the 8-bit era what they know now, I would've never finished this game. Every technique I've acquired in gaming is tested here, followed abruptly by a 20 to 30-hour final exam. Lead on, Mina. Your pain awaits.

Mina the Hollower is one of the best and most challenging games to come out in 2026. It brings great level design, balanced backend gameplay, and delivers plenty of ways to enjoy it.

With Mina the Hollower, Yacht Club Games captured lightning in a bottle a second time. It’s a must play experience.

Mina the Hollower feels like the result of a studio completely confident in its abilities. Its exceptional movement mechanics, rewarding exploration, challenging combat, and dense world design constantly make discovery feel exciting. Despite it being a little hard for some players, Mina the Hollower is an easy recommendation and very likely Yacht Club Games’ next classic.

Mina the Hollower is simply a blast to play and is another success by Yacht Club Games that will make anyone who plays it ask for more of this darker world they’ve created.

Mina the Hollower is a masterfully crafted action adventure that confidently exceeds the towering expectations surrounding Yacht Club Games’ long-awaited follow-up to Shovel Knight. Combining challenging dungeon design, satisfying combat, rewarding exploration, and clever environmental puzzle solving, the game constantly pushes players to engage with its intricately layered world. While its narrative presence is surprisingly light and a few visual clarity issues occasionally interrupt the flow, nearly every gameplay system feels purposeful, polished, and deeply rewarding. Mina the Hollower stands as one of the finest retro-inspired games in years and a defining achievement for the studio.

Almost a full decade on from Shovel Knight, Yacht Club Games has returned in full form. Mina the Hollower is a joyously ambitious modern take on classic action-adventure games, blending carefully executed mechanics with a world that isn’t afraid to bite back, making for an experience that continuously empowers the player and rewards curiosity at every turn.

Mina the Hollower is a grand, exhilarating adventure that never lets up, springing out fully formed as an absolute "mouse-terpiece." The thrill of discovering new areas, levelling Mina up to become stronger, and conquering seemingly impossible boss fights only gets more rewarding as you utilize everything the game has to offer and become the strongest Hollower you can be. The worldbuilding presents a beautiful, colorful setting that you’ll want to root for, even if the story suggests a more complex, morally grey truth to it all. Yacht Club Games has conquered its sophomore slump and delivered a truly special experience, one that, on every level, sparks joy and wonder even amidst turmoil and strife.

Mina the Hollower possesses the allure of video games that are unafraid to ask something of the player: attention, memory, curiosity, and a certain tolerance for defeat. Yacht Club Games adopts the visual language of 8-bit classics and treats it as something living—eschewing nostalgia for its own sake to craft a surprisingly modern, fierce adventure brimming with personality. Between open-ended exploration, challenging combat, and level design that seems to conceal a secret around every corner, the Isle of Umbra achieves something rare: it restores an authentic sense of discovery, learning from the great masters of the past to write a story entirely its own.

Mina the Hollower is an action RPG that takes the best of Zelda, Castlevania and the Soulslike genre without ever feeling like a copy. Yacht Club Games builds a dense, challenging, incredibly smart and personality-driven adventure, capable of turning every screen into a continuous discovery.

All in all, Mina the Hollower is another fantastic retro-inspired entry from developer Yacht Club Games. The unique world combined with strange NPC’s and tons of secrets scattered throughout make for a memorable experience that nobody should miss. And if you find those early hours to be too tough or not to your liking, the customizable modifiers can help a lot to alleviate most concerns, turning frustration into fun with a simple press of the switch.

Mina the Hollower proves that it’s still possible to take classic ideas and breathe new life into them. Yacht Club Games delivers an immersive, creative adventure brimming with personality that stands out for its excellent design, clever mechanics, and constant sense of discovery. Although its story is less memorable than the game’s other aspects, that doesn’t stop it from establishing itself as one of the best indie games of 2026.

Mina the Hollower undoubtedly sets a new standard for what it means to be an independent game. With tributes to legendary franchises like Zelda and Castlevania and quality that Yacht Club games have honed for more than a decade, players will get much more bang for their buck with this title.

Mina the Hollower achieves the impossible by picking up the mantle of one of the most beloved independent games in recent history, while also being brave enough to diverge from the familiar path. The excellent blend of modern and retro, packed tightly with secrets and rounded off with obvious and sincere love for all of gaming's history makes for a game that everyone should at least give a try.

A masterpiece that transcends homage and forges its own identity. Despite the constraints of its Game Boy-inspired art, a single burrowing mechanic weaves combat and exploration into one cohesive whole. Dense shortcuts and 60+ difficulty options offset its unwelcoming design. A game that grows deeper the more you play.

The fact that I enjoyed Mina The Hollower as much as I did despite its few playability shortcomings and the fact that I'm not necessarily familiar with its inspirations it proudly wears on its sleeve makes it clear that it's not only a remarkable love letter to a genre, but also a formidable entry point.

Mina the Hollower delivers a masterclass in classic action-adventure design, blending nostalgic Game Boy Color aesthetics with brilliant modern ideas. The world-building and secret-rich exploration are exceptional, making every discovery feel rewarding. Although the souls-lite mechanics occasionally feel unpolished or frustrating, the game remains an essential, demanding, and beautifully crafted modern classic.

Mina is a gloriously gothic combination of ferocious combat and beautiful scenery, with enough secrets and modifiers to keep the game fresh and fun for a very long time.

Mina the Hollower delivers expansive exploration, a world full of personality, and a constant sense of discovery through its varied situations and inventive systems. While the journey occasionally stumbles with cumbersome backtracking, some combat limitations, and minor frustrating moments, these issues never overshadow the overall experience. Few games manage to turn seemingly simple mechanics into something this creative and engaging, and with memorable encounters, secrets hidden everywhere, and an island that always feels ready to reveal something new, the game proves there is far more beneath its retro-inspired surface than first appears.

Mina the Hollower emerges as a new instant classic from Yacht Club Games, delivering a charming adventure in a punishing yet extremely satisfying world to explore. It's a game brimming with charisma and quality, and hopefully it will pave a new future for the Shovel Knight developer at a rather delicate time in the gaming market.

Yacht Club Games stated that, for them, Mina is an all-or-nothing proposition: if it doesn't sell well, the studio goes under. And, honestly—given that quality and that launch price—I feel the same way. If this game doesn't succeed and sell millions, I will completely lose faith in humanity.

Mina the Hollower is a retro dungeon adventure, which takes its inspiration from classic Game Boy titles and horror tales with a Victorian setting. A solid selection of gear and upgrades, modern gameplay mechanics and soulslike elements give this game a modern touch. Heaps of hidden and optional content and secrets, as well as freely-configurable difficulty settings and an ever-increasing level of challenge in NG+ runs add replay value. There's a bombastic amount of game for very little money in game. On the technical side of things, Mina is flawless.

I am awed by what Yacht Club Games has created here. Mina the Hollower is so ambitious and dense and sprawling that it is hard to believe that it is contained in such a modest presentation. It surpasses the boundaries of mere homage or retro throwback to become something new, fresh, inventive, and exciting. Shovel Knight was a well-deserved successful debut for Yacht Club. Mina the Hollower may be its masterpiece.

Mina the Hollower is an incredible action adventure game that manages to offer a lot to explore and significant depth in its combat and exploration mechanics. Every single time you try to see just a little more, and you can open up many new possibilities with new items and game-changing features. The end result is a fantastically crafted experience that should be on the top of the lists of new indie titles to give a try in 2026.

A worthy spiritual successor to Yacht Club Games’ Shovel Knight series, Mina the Hollower takes the studio’s love of retro aesthetics and strange fascination with digging and has crafted a fantastic world to explore, above and below ground. With its appealingly user-friendly Modifiers system, Mina the Hollower feels approachable no matter what level of challenge you are seeking. Whether you’re a nostalgic fan of the 90s era of The Legend of Zelda, or a modern gamer looking for a tough but fair action game with a retro flair to it, Mina the Hollower has quite definitely been worth the wait.

Mina the Hollower therefore never feels like a cheap attempt to ride the simple wave of nostalgia. It isn't just another game in an ocean full of new-old indie titles with tacked-on retro graphics. This feels like a game that truly understands why so many of us fell in love with that era in the first place. It wasn't just thanks to impressive pixel art or infectious beep-boop music, but also for the sense of adventure and exploration. The feeling that there was a fantastic WORLD crammed onto a tiny cassette, a world full of limitations, certainly, but one that also felt like something greater than just a collection of pixels on a screen.

The game admirably captures the classic Game Boy essence, adapting it to the modern era with a fascinating and whimsical world to get lost in. Yacht Club Games achieves excellence once again with Mina the Hollower, a creative title that stands out for its exquisite gameplay and constant innovation.

Mina the Hollower does for Zelda what Shovel Knight did for Mega Man. It's a revival of a classic franchise in spirit while having enough of its own flavor and style to avoid coming across as a simple clone or copy. It's clever, creative, and an absolute delight to play from start to finish, while having enough bonus content and modifiers to keep the game exciting even after you complete its roughly 20-hour playtime. In a year that's already filled with amazing games, Mina still shines.

Mina the Hollower was well worth the wait. It gives you all the vibes of the best old-school games, while bringing its own modern sensibilities with smartly paced exploration and tight gameplay. It is an incredibly difficult and rewarding experience that lets you fine-tune things to match what you are capable of. At $20, with over 20 hours, it is well worth picking up.

Mina the Hollower proves that time, effort, and attention to some of the smallest details goes a long way. Mina is a great new hero that controls incredibly well in a difficult but rewarding 2D adventure.

Mina the Hollower is a challenging game with memorable bosses and enemies, numerous secrets, and several interesting systems. The difficulty can be a bit unbalanced at times, but this doesn't detract from the excellent work that Yacht Club Games has delivered.

Mina the Hollower easily cements Yacht Club Games' capacity to deliver high-quality retro experiences. The game takes inspiration from several sources, both old and new, and carefully fine-tunes each into a polished experience that is both curated and customizable.

Mina the Hollower combines strong exploration, tight combat, and a fantastic retro presentation into an atmospheric action-adventure game packed with secrets and personality. Thanks to its smart gameplay systems, memorable boss fights, and a world that constantly encourages discovery, Yacht Club Games delivers one of the strongest retro-inspired games in recent years.

Mina the Hollower is one of the best indie games I've played in a long, long time. It borrows familiar ideas from Zelda, Dark Souls, and a million others to make its own, and offers endless choice and variety in how you carve your way through its world. It's an uncommon tribute to classic games that often surpasses the quality of the titles that inspired it.

Soulsy in difficulty yet beautifully accessible, I find Mina the Hollower an outstanding amalgamation of other titles. Yacht Club Games has poured heart and soul into this title, and the genre change has allowed them to flex their muscles and showcase what they can truly do; Mina the Hollower makes Shovel Knight‘s 2D sidescrolling feel like training wheels in terms of game design. DLC’s inevitable, but I honestly just can’t wait for their next big title that I hope crosses genres once again.

Mina the Hollower looks like a nostalgic throwback, and it undeniably is, but its thoughtful design and larger sensibilities make it play and feel like a contemporary video game – one that has taken the right lessons from the medium’s history.

Mina The Hollower excels through pure gameplay immersion. While its story remains fairly simple, the game shines thanks to inventive level design, rewarding exploration, memorable NPCs, and a unique digging-based movement system that constantly creates satisfying challenges and discoveries. The combat system can feel restrictive due to limited attack directions, but nearly everything else — from the atmosphere and soundtrack to the cleverly designed progression and portable-friendly structure — makes the experience incredibly engaging. Much like Shovel Knight or Animal Well, this is a game whose real magic appears once you start playing, making it difficult to put down.

Mina the Hollower is a truly magnificent adventure. Burrowing isn’t just a gimmick; it’s embedded into the experience, creating a synergy between movement, combat and puzzling. Its open design encourages exploration, allowing you to discover at your own pace, which ultimately leads to many surprises within the world. The strong presentation helps to give the game further character, reinforcing its sense of identity. Celebrating classic design while carving out its own legacy, this confident adventure stands shoulder to shoulder with Shovel Knight.

Yacht Club Games strikes again with a brilliant homage to Game Boy Color’s favourite titles. Mina the Hollower is a charming title with gorgeous presentation, one apt to be well received by those with an affinity for old school dungeon explorers. Just be warned: looks can be deceiving in its very high difficulty level.

Mina the Hollower masterfully blends nostalgic 90s retro aesthetics with punishing Soulslike mechanics to deliver a highly rewarding action-adventure experience. While its intentional unfriendliness creates a steep barrier to entry, the game's exceptional polish, deep exploration, and deeply satisfying combat make it well worth the struggle.

Mina the Hollower expertly captures the classic exploration of Zelda and the challenge of Dark Souls to create a unique and cohesive experience. Mina the Hollower is a joy to play, and I can’t wait to see what Yacht Club Games comes up with next.

Mina The Hollower provides a great experience - it's fun, it's excellently designed most of the time, and it's very rewarding in terms of the combat system and the exploration experience, but each of these truly good elements also has a negative point, whether it's the level of difficulty and the reliance on Soulslike systems that sometimes feel simply unrelated to this game, or if we're looking directly at the design of some of the game's areas.

After Shovel Knight, Yacht Club Games strikes again: Mina the Hollower is a dense, inspired and surprising action-adventure.

Far from perfect, Mina the Hollower is still a particularly satisfying game, skillfully blending 2D Zelda, Souls-like elements, and original mechanics, all wrapped up in a Game Boy Color aesthetic that will melt the hearts of nostalgia-seekers. It does have a few collision issues and some odd game design choices, but nothing enough to detract from a solid experience from start to finish.

Mina the Hollower isn't perfect or even close to it, and given expectations following Shovel Knight, that's kind of disappointing for me. Nevertheless, it's still a very good old-school action-adventure with strong combat fundamentals and undeniable charm.

Mina The Hollower is a curious experience : despite the development team's obvious overall mastery in areas as significant as level design, game systems, and art direction, Yacht Club Games occasionally loses its way with a handful of design decisions that border on sadism, ultimately undermining the overall pacing of the experience. That said, this zealous streak of mischief hardly warrants too harsh a verdict, as the attempt radiates both the passion and the artistry of a team generous in sharing its craft. Mina, much like Shovel Knight before it, certainly has what it takes to push the boundaries of the genre it seeks to emulate or, at the very least, to deliver a remarkable twenty-or-so hours of fun, outbursts of frustration, and scattered moments of wonder.

Nailing its GBC aesthetic, Mina the Hollower doesn't just ape the past; there are many more modern mechanics and sensibilities at work under the hood.

Ultimately, that’s what really made Mina the Hollower for me. The more I explored this world, the more things I found that I admired. This world is so well designed, and connected, that the fact that I don’t love certain choices the developers made doesn’t spoil the experience. This is a fantastic game, but one that you do have to work at to see what makes it so special. It’s worth that effort, and I really hope players will stick with it and see all the wonderful things it has to offer.

At the end of the day Mina the Hollower is a good game that cannot get out of its own way. I appreciate the inclusion of modifiers so that anyone, regardless of skill level or patience, can experience the game from start to finish. It accomplishes what it sets out to do which is to marry the top-down Zelda experience with the difficulty of a Soulslike. In that respect it is extremely well made and if that sounds like your jam, this could be a game of the year contender for you. For me, I enjoyed my time with it in spite of itself. I’m curious to see where this franchise goes next.

Mina is at its best when it's channelling Zelda, less so when it lens into Soulslike territory or becomes ascetic in its early-'90s sensibilities, trying too hard to retain a link to the past. [Issue#425, p.116]

Mina the Hollower has the weight of expectation upon it, and it's a game that meets many of them. The retro aesthetic is lovely, the world is well made, the boss fights are varied, and there is a lot to find, but it also has its frustrations. Poor navigation is the main factor that sucked some of the enjoyment out, with the game really wanting a better map to aid you. Still, Yacht Club Games has made a good game overall with Mina the Hollower.