Three years after I last attended PAX West, I’m back at the show ready to try new demos and new games coming to Switch. Not everything I’ve played has been confirmed for Nintendo’s platform, but Shovel Knight creator Yacht Club Games’ Mina the Hollower is finally launching on her Switch.
A top-down 2D Zelda experience with an art style reminiscent of the Game Boy Color, Mina the Hollower is incredibly fun to play, amazingly rewarding, and stands apart from similar games. . Its gameplay also includes a healthy dose of classic Castlevania, with Mina’s standard whip attack and an ammo-fueled sub-weapon she can pick up. , Castlevania’s difficulty, Dark Souls’ soul retrieval mechanics, and Bloodborne’s battle to restore health, it’s pretty clear what Mina brings to this horror-themed game. table. Oh, and the stair-down animation is basically an excerpt from A Link to the Past, in case you need some more nostalgia.
The hour-long PAX demo progressed from about a third of the game into a dungeon. From the outer area, we collected bearings while learning how to perform basic attacks, sidearms (sub-weapons), jumps and burrows, and healing vials. Mina’s basic attack stretches her whip in front of her to deal damage, mow grass, and destroy barriers. Like in Castlevania, you have to pick up a sidearm from something like a shattered candelabra, and the two I’ve encountered are blades that are thrown forward and come back like a boomerang, and arcs. It was an ax that was drawn, thrown, and landed on the ground. Blades were useful in defeating bosses in demos, and even whipped them back when they returned.
Jumps and burrows are a little more complicated than you might think. In addition to Mina’s normal jump, holding the button allows her to temporarily dive into the ground. This allows you to cross long gaps, hide under ropes and other barriers, excavate treasure from the ground, as well as avoid enemies and traps. Similarly, the health vial mechanic also took about half the demo time to fully understand. Basically, any damage you take from enemies can be healed in combat. Red Health When her bar is partially depleted, attacking enemies fill the empty portion of the bar. This yellow can be turned red using her one of her vials of health. There are only a limited number of vials and you have to be proactive to build yellow health, so there’s a built-in risk-reward system that’s attractive.
I died several times during the demo, returning to the active checkpoint each time I died. Luckily, whatever killed me, whether it was a hazard or a monster, I could always get my blue sparks back, so I didn’t lose the ‘bones’ I had accumulated. is one of her ways of taking pages out of the Soulsborn book. Another is the way bones not only act as experience points, but also as currency used by shopkeepers. Level ups are distributed in the same way as in Zelda 2: The Adventures of Link, so you can redeem them at predetermined times, save them to increase specific stats such as attack or defense, or use them in stores. There are also slots for equipping relics that boost stats, there are many discoveries throughout the adventure, and if the full game is as difficult as the PAX West demo, you can keep them. will become necessary.
From the moment it was first announced as a Kickstarter, Mina the Hollower has been my curiosity. Now it has my attention. It should get your attention too. The way it pays homage to its predecessors while exhibiting an incredible level of detail raises hopes that Yacht Club Games might get another star. But there’s no need to rush what could be a retro-flavoured masterpiece. I can’t wait to see how bright Mina’s shooting star will shine in the future.
