Mina the Hollower is out now. The new action-adventure from Yacht Club Games, the studio behind Shovel Knight, takes its retro DNA in a new direction with a Game Boy Color-inspired gothic top-down adventure priced at $20.
You play as Mina, a whip-wielding “Hollower” investigating supernatural events in a creepy, monster-filled world. Her signature move is burrowing underground, which works as a dodge, a traversal tool, and a way to leap further than her limited regular jump allows. Yacht Club has leaned into the eight-directional, handheld-era feel rather than fighting it.
The combat takes clear cues from old-school Zelda and Castlevania. Players pick a starter weapon, with daggers offering fast short-range hits, the Nightstar flail giving safer reach, and a hammer that charges heavy attacks while letting you dodge-roll mid-charge. Sidearms function like Castlevania sub-weapons, while the deliberate pacing borrows from FromSoftware’s playbook.
Progression runs on Bones, a currency-slash-experience resource you spend at shops and lose on death, Dark Souls style. Bonestones offer a safer stored version that converts back at checkpoints. Checkpoints refill healing items, respawn enemies, and double as level-up points where you boost attack, defense, or sidearms. There’s also a “plasma” mechanic that lets you recover lost health by staying aggressive, somewhat in the spirit of Bloodborne‘s rally system.
Tweak it till it breaks
The biggest surprise is just how customizable the difficulty is. Mina the Hollower ships with Story, Easy, Normal, and Hard modes, plus a long list of toggles. You can add checkpoints before bosses, reduce or remove Bone loss on death, speed up healing, and flip presets like Veteran Mode on and off mid-playthrough. Some players have reported that certain modifiers disable achievements, so tinker at your own risk.
Early players are pointing out that the final release feels significantly smoother than the Steam demo from last year, which was widely called sluggish. Movement is snappier, the burrow flows better, and combat lands cleaner. There’s also a charming in-game manual styled after the paper booklets that used to come with cartridges.
The pixel art shines on smaller screens, and many are pegging it as ideal for Steam Deck and Switch. On big monitors, the chunky scaling can get busy, though built-in pixel scale settings help.
Mina the Hollower is available now on Steam, GOG, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S.
