After the opening hour of Mina the Hollower, I found myself dropped into a hostile world with no obviously “correct” path to follow and roaming enemies that could kill me in just a few hits no matter what direction I chose. That’s about when I realized this retro RPG was hiding far more than I expected beneath the surface – and once I burrowed on in, I never wanted to come back up. Mina is a tough-as-nails adventure gorgeously done up in the style of the Game Boy Color’s best, and it isn’t shy about those influences. It borrows The Legend of Zelda’s open-world structure, adds a healthy amount of Castlevania’s horror setting and haunting chiptunes, and peps things up with a surprising dose of FromSoft’s Souls games in its combat and progression. But somewhere in that mix, Mina becomes more than the sum of those parts, cleverly riffing and remixing them them with consistent brilliance. Its blocky exterior disguises rich combat systems, some of the best puzzle solving ever put to screen, and a funny, deeply weird world I loved to explore.
Developer Yacht Club Games is no stranger to retro tributes, with its standout Shovel Knight series drawing heavily from NES classics like Mega Man. While Shovel Knight stuck to its source material pretty closely, Mina uses Zelda games like Link’s Awakening and the Oracle duo as a foundation for a much deeper, more modern take on a top-down action-RPG: You have a jump that will get you over small gaps but never up to a higher ledge, an overworld that partially scrolls but has distinct edges between regions, and of course start out with a stubby little weapon (actually, several to choose from). These are not the Zelda games you usually see developers aim their sights at, but I love how the seemingly-limiting constraints of imitating the early handheld Zeldas conceals Mina’s inner complexity.
However, very much unlike the Game Boy games it draws from aesthetically, and more like The Legend of Zelda for NES (or Breath of the Wild decades later), Mina has a completely open world. There are no paths blocked until you get some special item, and nothing but your own skill level keeping you from going to any one of its four initial dungeons first. You just need to fight your way there. And if you can’t cut it, there’s probably another area to try instead, a clever place to grind for money and levels, or some side quests that lead to optional upgrades.
Mina’s world is often surreal, dreamy, and uncanny. Built around the central village of Ossex, the Tenebrous Isles are an entrancing mix of gothic fantasy and magically-infused steampunk tech. There are plenty of adorable animal denizens, like Mina, but also building-busting giants, perfectly friendly abominations, and a whole lotta possums – which are a type of monster. Cutesy overworld sprites are sometimes subverted by ghoulish character portraits when you stop to chat. It all smacks of the David Lynch-inspired characters that make up the otherworldly island of Link’s Awakening in just the right way (and that’s not some snooty art school connection I’m making, Twin Peaks has been widely cited by the devs as a major influence on that 1993 Zelda game). Additionally, these characters all have lives that are affected by your actions, and many end up holding a greater purpose in the larger story, which has some fun (if predictable) twists and turns, but really saves the good stuff for the end.
Mina herself is a bit of an enigma. She’s a monster slayer, but also something of a mad scientist who has outfitted Tenebrous Isles with tech that is being mysteriously sabotaged. The plot follows whether her machines are actually good or bad, and while brave little Mina seems to act heroically in this kill-or-be-killed overworld, often solving problems for the Islefolk, she also causes a few: Without spoiling anything, those can come back to haunt you. This little white mouse explores a lot of grey areas, and I love that!
There are six main dungeons spread across the Tenebrous Isles, each with a matching area that leads up to it – a swamp, a beach, a crypt… you’ve played a video game before. There’s even a small but very cool nod to Castlevania here, with short establishing shots showing the boss towers silhouetted in the distance for every area – and then those creepy spires showing up in backgrounds as you climb, just like Dracula’s perched lair. While most of Mina’s art choices are limited to blocky tiles, these sweeping scenes and backdrops show off some stunning pixel art that helps set the mood.
(And then there’s the soundtrack: Pure Castlevania! Baroque jams performed on a glorious, beepy boopy NES/Game Boy soundalike instrument set. I’ve been associating this sort of gothic Casio sound with tense horror action games since 1987 and it still feels totally rad when executed this well in 2026.)
All six areas are filled with charm and challenge, but one called Septemberg especially stood out as a piece of storytelling I’d never experienced before. It’s a region frozen in autumn, with gusty winds that blow you around, piles of fallen leaves, pumpkins, and a general Halloween vibe. All of it is out to kill you. You quickly learn of a lurking terror in your midst there, and the escalating nightmare of trying to manage that threat through a hedge maze, a lightning storm, and more is an absolutely bonkers, adrenaline-inducing sequence I couldn’t stop talking about with others who had seen it; just an incredible amalgam of schlocky, spooky-season fun.
While you could go to Septemberg as your first area or not find it until much later, there are areas you can’t access immediately, but the way to reach them is never a dungeon-based upgrade. It’s a secret passage, a side quest, or, in some cases, by using a specific Sidearm (secondary weapon) or Trinket (ability-modifying equipment) that you find while exploring the overworld. This is the best and most pure kind of open world, and it’s executed excellently here. Mina dangles a prize just out of reach to challenge you: Can you get to that treasure chest from another screen? Can you survive long enough in the water to reach that gap under a bridge? Should you go in that creepy hole in the ground right now with no save point in sight?
Mina’s move set as you meet these challenges is all her own, and it is a ton of fun to learn and master as you explore. Her ability to burrow beneath the ground and then pop up for an aerial leap is multipurpose: It’s a dash, a dodge, a long jump, and eventually a graceful way to dance around an enemy like a furry lil’ ninja. There’s a learning curve for sure, and effectively working this move into my hacking and slashing took time. There are no counters or dodge rolls here, just sliding under an enemy to get the better of them. But once I got the hang of burrowing, it became a versatile combat tool that made Mina feel extra nimble compared to, say, a certain squat, little Hylian.
There are two other aspects of Mina’s arsenal that will surely catch Castlevania fans’ eyes – and ears – right away. First off, the whip: Mina’s Nightstar (actually described as a mace on a chain) is one of five possible weapons to pick from, and it’s a fantastic go-to option (and, of course, any aspiring Belmont’s choice of weapon). I stuck with the Nightstar for most of the roughly two-dozen hours it took me to reach the credits, but I ended up also falling in love with the daggers, Whisper and Vesper – more of an Alucard thing. The Nightstar is good for delivering fast, heavy damage at a safe distance (and you can upgrade it to do the useless, dangling chain thing, ala Castlevania IV!). But the daggers, when boosted by a Trinket that adds an attack multiplier for landing hits without missing, became an awesome boss killer.
The other system ripped straight out of Castlevania are the Sidearms, which give you a variety of secondary attacks depending on which Sidearm pickup you grabbed last (all of which are in predictable locations you can remember to return to). Options like the sword and axe function almost exactly like sub weapons in Castlevania, and are even replenished the same way, with a resource called Joules that is spent each time you use one (just like so many Hearts in classic Castlevanias). There are some weird Sidearms, though, like the Iron Steed – a bicycle with a sort of jousting rod attached that serves both as a quick option to dash around and a way to jump over huge gaps to reach secret areas. Other Sidearms I liked were a little ghost that attacked enemies and drained Joules over time, and a demon pet on a leash that acts as your own personal Chain Chomp.
You can augment most of Mina’s moves through swappable Trinkets, which provide buffs that boost your movement, attack, or defense in helpful and sometimes wacky ways. I was able to expand my Trinket slots to activate five at once, and my preferred combos for exploration (long jumps, increased burrowing time, wall grabs) were very different than those for combat (DPS multipliers, a revive, health extenders). For instance, one Trinket allowed me to float slowly down after a jump, and that became essential to how I moved through this world – but it was useless in most boss battles, so I’d replace it with an attack buff that shocked enemies at the save room right before a big fight. There are dozens of trinkets to find – some extremely useful on their own, and others that only add up to huge results when used together. Unlike many games where I tend to stick to a formula I find that works, I was always excited to experiment in Mina.
The other way to upgrade yourself brings us to Mina’s third major influence: FromSoft heavy-hitters like Dark Souls and Bloodborne. The “Souls” currency equivalent here are Bones, and they serve the exact same purpose: Experience points gained from both combat and exploration that you must either spend or risk losing upon death. Mina isn’t nearly as punishing, however, as you can quickly gain multiple Sparks that will prevent you from losing your Bones on death, getting stuck inside the enemy that killed you or in the room where you died until you can recover them. This leads to a loop familiar to Souls players that’s just as hard to resist here: Do you delve deeper on this outing, getting more Bones and items, or do you run back to the nearest save point and “Bone Up” first?
Boning Up allows you to spend an escalating amount of Bones to level up either your main weapon attack, defense, or Sidearm attack, with a fourth option to store the Bones for safekeeping in a “savings account” of sorts, which is impervious to death. I found that going all in on attack was the best bet early, and did a fair amount of grinding to do so.
Finding grinding spots proved a major component of Mina, which I had a lot of fun with in the late game especially. It was cool to feel slightly OP at times if I found a really good spot, though that does mean pushing through the already tough intro first. Dumped into the open world after the on-rails opening area, you are nudged in the direction of the Crypt to the east of Ossex as your first dungeon, but the path there is really, really hard at starting levels. Once I hit an area with a particularly invincible-feeling set of knight enemies, I was caught a bit off guard by Mina’s difficulty curve. But fear not: This first hurdle is also the biggest, and it can be solved simply by spending some time to level up your attack, maybe some defense, and look for secrets.
This is because Mina starts to throw a lot more Trinkets at you, as well as opportunities to score Bones naturally as you explore. In this way, Mina, which is a very hard game, sets itself apart from another recent 2D action game notorious for toughness: Hollow Knight: Silksong. In Silksong, your primary options are usually to “get good” or just go somewhere else. There are items and upgrades to find, but grinding just to level up your stats doesn’t exist, and that limitation made that particular Metroidvania-with-bugs feel less open than something like a Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.
In contrast, Mina let me solve difficulty checks like bosses in multiple ways, which I appreciated a lot. You can certainly learn a tricky boss’s patterns, or you can grind for Bones to up your attack and then absolutely roll it. Alternatively, you could play with your Trinket build until you find some combo that makes that particular boss a breeze. All of these upgrades really matter: Enemies that take 10 hits could take half that after a Bone Up, and then half that again, so just finding a clever grinding spot can make things much easier. Crucially, that grinding feels perfectly tuned to allow for multiple playstyles, not like a slog you are forced into.
Your healing and life bar also owe a debt to Dark Souls, but there’s a really fun and twisted… twist to it. You have a stock of health potions called Plasma Vials, but you can only replenish your health bar if you attack enemies. Each hit you land fills in the missing section of your bar with a yellow part called Plasma, and that Plasma can then be converted into good old fashioned red health when you use a Vial. So that means if you are getting low on health, you have to go on offense. There are a few environmental items that can help you heal, and Trinkets can once again play with Vials and Plasma in cool ways, but the core healing system presents an amusing gamble that I ended up loving – and making plenty of wrong bets on.
Of course, every Souls-inspired game also has its version of a save point that both heals you and restores all the enemies to the world. Mina’s is cute and clever: A tiny “Underlab” specific spots let you burrow down to where you can use stored Bones to level up, swap Trinkets, and change weapons. The main loop of Mina becomes centered largely on whether or not you can make it to (or find) the next Underlab, or whether you should retreat to the last one you visited. This sets up that ultra-tense, risk-vs.-reward version of exploration that makes so many games so appealing and hard to put down, from Resident Evil to Metroid. After each successful outing, you’ll think, “Just one more try – at least I know where the enemies are now!” A neat twist to Mina’s Underlab is that you can outfit it with things like a way to store Sidearms, replenish your Joules, and even look at a rudimentary map that tracks collectibles by region.
Speaking of maps, Mina does not have a detailed, room-by-room one to pore over for secrets. While this makes it a lot more like Dark Souls and Bloodborne in terms of the sheer, terrifying unknown of what’s ahead, it cuts out Zelda, Metroid, or Castlevania’s ability to constantly probe the edges of a pause-screen map to sniff out some collectible hidden past a breakable wall. There are plenty of secrets out there; you just have to probe every element of a room in order to find them. This helped me focus on the combat, platforming, and survival, which I did appreciate, but filling out a map is one of my favorite activities in any game. However, I didn’t miss it as much as I thought I would since it significantly ups the challenge of finding secrets in a fun way. (And over at IGN Guides, you know we are hard at work on a map, so you will have an option I didn’t!)
A game with so many disparate influences like this always runs the risk of becoming a mishmashed hodgepodge, but Mina’s inspirations are all awesome choices that mix well together. The result is a sort of Breath of the Wild moment for top-down adventure games: Mina takes a bunch of ideas found in the most popular open-world games of the modern era and squishes them into the ‘90s Zelda mold. What comes out is a game Nintendo would be too scared to make, FromSoft has already tried, and Konami gave up on for two decades.
And despite being so referential, Mina is actually quite unpredictable, and frequently plays up the element of surprise. These surprises can be small: A giant hand pulls you into a shop; some creep just shows up in your Underlab; a freaky clown jump scares you only to tell a dad joke. Or they can be really big. While I obviously won’t spoil anything here, Mina’s triumphant ending is its biggest surprise of all. It may set up more questions than answers, but this conclusion and the run up to it is undoubtedly one for the books, full of excellent twists I didn’t see coming. And darkness – “Tenebrous Isles” is accurate. Look it up.
To get to that ending takes a while, too. After 23 hours, I rolled credits with 72% completion and immediately started into New Game+ to find all the stuff I didn’t the first time around. Those 23 hours were more than enough for me to fall head over heels for Mina, but there’s a lot more, too. You can go for 100% completion within your original save thanks to a clearly labeled point of no return – but what’s interesting is that, since your completion rate and all the treasure you’ve found will carry over into New Game+, you can continue to chip away at that 100% goal in your new save as well. Returning to boss fights with all your gear or noticing that crack in a wall you forgot to delve into the first time around is a blast. I’ve never played a game that allows you to do a second playthrough with a bunch of chests sitting there open, while others remain undiscovered. It’s extremely cool.
On top of that, each New Game+ through the seventh run has unique permutations: The initial version I’m on now has far fewer save spots, making runbacks an absolute killer (which, blissfully, is not a concern at all in the base playthrough). And for you oldschool cheat code fans, there’s a massive menu of modifications to turn on and off, which range from goofy to helpful. You can even toggle on a sort of “God mode” for when you get stuck – just remember that this disables the “Feats” (achievements) system. I left it alone for that reason, but started a new save up just to mess around with it, and it’s fantastic for making Mina more accessible.
