Mina the Hollower

⭐ 9.5/10

This is everything I want in a video game. By the people who made Shovel Knight, a game I loved, its in the style of older games like Zelda Link to the Past. It has fantastic music and terrific art direction. Every screen you visit feels packed with detail and love. It features fun puzzles, excellent bosses, and a perfectly high difficult level.

I think the story here is another great element, in that there is some darkness to this game that looks so innocent. When someone says something like that I think of Undertale, that goes for this cutesy humour, dark in attempt to get a laugh. I feel like this actually attempts to be serious, despite some funny moments, so it manages to feel like an adult game despite the old style. Kind of like older Final Fantasy, it manages to pull off a tone despite an art style that can feel childish, and I think that's really cool.

There are two downsides to this game. One is that I got to the final boss' final form, lost, and then didn't touch the game for a couple months. I think I had burned myself out on it, and when I returned to it yesterday I was in love with it all over again, beating the boss and getting a really satisfying and dark finale. The actual thing I hated were these fast-paced tower climb sequences that ended every section. It felt like it was meant to be a fun finale to cap off each victory, but I found them incredibly frustrating and annoying, something that maybe others would say about the rest of the game's difficulty. Its a weird choice for a game that does everything else perfectly.

The fighting is fun, and despite it being a top-down game there is an element of dimensionality to these fights because of the burrowing abilities. Speaking of abilities there are so many different things to equip to change how you play, and I loved that I was constantly switching these up. Games with many collectables often make me feel like a hoarder with no purpose, so I loved that somehow this game encouraged experimentation. I will say I felt a bit of this hoarder frustration with the main weapons. It felt hard to get good at other weapons. I did try since there are only 5, but by the end I was kind of sad that I beat the game without touching 2 of them. This has become a huge complaint for me in many games, and I know some people solve this with extra playthroughs, but there is no time for that. Incentivizing switching up your weapons is something I always love, a recent Ratchet & Clank memory being a prime example, trying to max out and upgrade every single weapon kind of baked into the story of the game.

Anyways, this was a real surprise treat I hadn't even heard about until the week it came out. It had me craving another Silksong run, a game that is comparable for many reasons, but for a lot of people probably the punishing difficulty. But you know what? I didn't think this game was comparable at all in that way. It wasn't easy, but I found dying to not be nearly so painful, and it often resulted in more experimentation. A perfectly balanced game, and while I like the joy that comes with overcoming something hard I like that this never made me want to throw my controller.