As a big fan of Shovel Knight, I was super excited to find out that Yacht Club Games was indeed present at PAX West. We got to meet the team at a super secret private meeting suite, where I finally got a chance to check out their upcoming Mouselvania title Mina the Hollower.
While just a cute little mouse at first glance, Mina packs enough of a punch to make the Belmont boys jealous. Find out more in our Mina the Hollower preview!
The demo we played for Mina the Hollower may very well have been the same demo that was previously available just a few weeks ago on Switch 2, however, I believe the version I played was on a PC with a PS5 controller.
Jumping into the world of Mina the Hollower instantly brought back that old school retro charm that Yacht Club Games is known for.
Mina the Hollower looks like it would have been right at home on the Game Boy Color, despite the impressive amount of spritework that likely would have been impossible on that hardware.
Mina the Hollower gives off strong Victorian-era vibes while also managing to capture the best of features of an isometric Legend of Zelda, mixed with Castlevania combat. Armed with her trusty whip, Nightstar, Mina slashes through the competition with style.
Combat is fast and fluid, and you can use Mina’s hollowing (burrowing) ability to avoid attacks and dodge under enemies to reposition yourself on opposite sides for an advantage.
There are also subweapons available, such as the all too familiar arcing axe or a dagger that flies out and then spins around in a circle before returning, similar to the cross weapon of Konami fame.
While it’s mostly a Castlevania style experience, Mina the Hollower is also full of hidden underground areas that you can hollow into in order to bank your bone chips so you don’t drop them on death.
Mina’s creators certainly didn’t forget their Shovel Knight roots, as there’s also extremely tight and difficult precision platforming.
The platforming requires you to perfect jumps, hops, and mastery of Mina’s hollowing ability in order to tunnel out into an empty space and then jump so you’ll have enough distance to close the gaps.
Mina’s adventure in this demo wrapped up when I fought a boss named Thorne who was dressed in a fancy dark Dragoon armor that would have made Kain from Final Fantasy IV jealous.
The boss himself wasn’t too bad, but I had more difficulty with some of the purple elite enemies than I did with the boss himself. Maybe I just got lucky, or maybe there’s a slight bit of tuning still to be made, but rest assured, if you just “Bone Up!” Mina is a tough game that’s both fair and a lot of fun.
On the table next to the demo rested a super cute Mina plushie that’s set to release from Fangamer, and it was damn hard not to order one because of how cute she is.
Needless to say, I immediately added Mina the Hollower to my Steam wishlist, and know that her adventure is going to be a sweet Halloween treat when it releases later this year on October 31st.
Mina the Hollower is set to launch across PC (via Steam), Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Switch, Switch 2, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5 on October 31st.
