The Indie Informer

On the surface, Mina the Hollower presents very nostalgia-coded. Although I just coined this term a minute ago, I’m sure most people who have seen the marketing understand exactly what I mean. The pixelated, retro art style, along with the chiptune music and very specific UI design, evokes feelings of a bygone gaming era. It’s bound to stir up nostalgia in any person who grew up with old-school classics like The Legend of Zelda defining their childhood. There’s only one problem… I’m not that person.

I have no nostalgia for the costume Mina the Hollower wears on its exterior, and in fact, I’m traditionally averse to the art style and gameplay it emulates. So for players like myself, Yacht Club has a tough task ahead of them: Prove that Mina is selling more than nostalgia, while also modernizing retro-inspired gameplay enough to appeal to audiences that aren’t accustomed to the quirks of games from that generation. Sadly, it’s a mammoth and nearly impossible ask for an indie studio that—

Oh, wait, they did it. They actually did it.

Mina the Hollower is a fantastic video game with no caveats. It does not let its insistence on paying homage to games of the past hinder its ability to deliver gameplay that is clearly the culmination of countless lessons from both retro and modern games alike. While the souls-adjacent gameplay does serve as a persistent and daunting challenge, players who persevere are rewarded with an adventure jam-packed with an assortment of tools and weapons, dynamic encounters and interactions, set-piece dungeons, and what seems to be an endless well of secrets to find.

The general format of the game takes the same shape as many Zelda and Metroidvania games we’ve seen in the past: Visit several dungeons to beat a boss that allows you to fix a thing that builds toward this overall goal. In Mina, you return to your home to learn the generators you’ve created all around the island are broken, and you must visit each distinct location to fix them. While the overall structure is nothing new, the execution of this structure is where Mina the Hollower shines.

Every different area of the map is incredibly dense with content. What first seems like an overwhelming maze slowly starts to show its carefully planned layers as you discover how interconnected everything is. Each biome sports its own color palette, enemy variety, and platforming mechanics that make each new step in the story feel like a fresh and unique mini-adventure along the way. I saw this very early, battling through the all-out chaos in the opening moments of the game, narrowly surviving and finding refuge in a bustling city filled with shops and an extravagant city hall, only to end up fighting for my life once more while navigating the crypts of a nearby castle. Mina the Hollower expertly staves off that repetitive pitfall many games find themselves in. It’s one of those games that will always end up giving you at least one moment to smile about, regardless of whether your session lasts for 30 minutes or two hours.

Those experiences may not always be positive, though. Mina the Hollower is not one to hold your hand. Very early on, the game demands a certain level of focus if you wish to make steady progress. While there are multiple weapon options and a large bag of tools you can swap in and out depending on your play style, this game does not fulfill a player power fantasy. As you are constantly running into new enemies and environmental hazards, the game often puts you on your back foot. All but the smallest of enemies require patience and strategic attacks to avoid costly damage, and when death means a loss of bones (which is effectively a reset of progress), the classic souls-tension is almost always creeping in. You are constantly thinking about what’s around the next corner and where your next checkpoint will be. This delicate dance of difficulty will be seen as a familiar challenge to some, and a discouraging pain to others. Luckily, Yacht Club provides a wide array of accessibility sliders to tune the game to your liking.

Everything I’ve touched on so far, even when executed perfectly, isn’t really novel by any stretch of the imagination, but during my time with this game, I kept noticing what I’d like to refer to as “Magic Yacht Club Glue”. It was my first time reading the town newspaper and seeing it highlight my latest dungeon run while including my stats and clues on where to go next. It was finding a random NPC in the crypts who asked me to lead him to his lover, only for an unexpected resolution to the random side quest. It was interacting with a random object after hearing a rumor around town, and being transported to a completely different level. Mina the Hollower is absolutely inundated with these little touches that make me think that my time with this game will be a memory I carry for years to come. Knowing that I will have conversations with friends and there are undoubtedly unique stories that we’ll have to share with one another feels like such a luxury in modern gaming. It’s that Magic Yacht Club Glue that turns an average, good experience into an unforgettable, great one.

Before I close us out, I want to give myself a little room to air out the most minor of grievances I have with this game. As I stated at the top, I don’t necessarily love this particular expression of retro style and some of the baggage that comes with it. I’m not at all averse to pixel art, but as expressive and fantastic as it is, in some cases, objects lose detail, which makes it hard to discern what I’m looking at. For example, deep water that I can swim in if I burrow, and a pit that will always lead to me taking damage. Another nitpick is the way hazards and edges are conveyed during platforming (you can actually burrow a bit off the edge). The line between safety and falling is a little blurry in my opinion. And maybe most frustratingly of all, the knockback effect, coupled with the platforming and enemy attacks, can be incredibly rough in parts. I know most of this can be boiled down to a “me problem” or “get good,” but if I find it annoying, I’m sure there are others who will as well, so take this as a little PSA.

As much as I love Yacht Club, Mina was promoting an era of gaming I have no connection to, and its nostalgia-coded marketing honestly started to become more of a warning than a boon as time went on. It’s a feeling of apprehension I know many players will have when they first see peeks at the game. Well, I’m happy to report Mina the Hollower has won me over. The retro elements that I was so cautious of take on a completely different persona when paired with such modern and carefully crafted design decisions.

When you pick up the controller, the passion immediately bleeds through the screen. The amount of gameplay mechanics and modifiers, the intricate dungeons, and the handcrafted secrets and encounters around every corner culminate in an experience that only this team could deliver. It’s an adventure that will not be replicated with cheap imitations or even the most verbose of AI prompts. It, ironically, is the new modern touchstone that will cast a longstanding shadow similar to the games of the past it pays homage to. So whether Mina’s nostalgic trappings entice you, or you couldn’t care less about a nostalgia-coded game as a youth in 2026, I would urge you to give Mina the Hollower a try, as it is very much poised to be a timeless classic.