PC User Reviews

Un capolavoro incredibile di genialità, meccaniche sempre diverse per ogni dungeon che si incontra. Combat system preciso e molto punitivo, posizionamento dei nemici straordinario. Segreti in ogni dove. Questo gioco diventa un'ossessione. Congratulazioni a Yacht club games per aver tirato fuori una gemma in questo mondo di tripla A tutti stereotipati.

Mina is a mix of Zelda with Dark Souls combat, but it fails to understand what makes these games special, while trying to incorporate their main features. The lack of a map makes exploring the super intricate scenarios more complicated than necessary and the slow movements and attacks with limited direction from the character do not create a fair combat situation with faster and powerful enemies that attack from all sides. Added to this, there is a lack of guidance, excessive punishment and bureaucracy that for me is just irritating and makes me feel like I am wasting my time. Fortunately, there are difficulty modifiers that allow you to alleviate many of the obstacles artificially created to increase the game's difficulty. Thanks to that I was able to enjoy the best it has to offer, and there are some really cool ideas. However, still not a very memorable experience. I think the characters were not too captivating and the plot kinda weak and predictable. In my opinion, the most overrated 2026 release so far.

One of the best indie games in a long while feels like hyper light drifter, Castlevania,and Zelda. This game is challenging but you have many customizations options through different weapons and trinkets. Mina feels good to control and the game looks amazing.

I enjoyed my time with this game but it fell short the lofty initial reviews for me. The gameplay is tight, great combat and platforming. Personal preference but I’d prefer a 16 bit art style over the 8 bit. Story was serviceable but forgettable, as was the music. Most of the fun for me came in “boning up” my character. It’s just a shame your levels max out so quickly. Battles started to feel repetitive and pointless after I had maxed out 2/3rds of the way through my 20 hour play through. This game needs a mapping system of some kind! You’ll get lost, you’ll want to revisit locations you’ve already cleared, and you’ll have no idea where they were. Hollow knight, Zelda, Metroid, all show me where I’ve been, why can’t I here? Just makes backtracking so tedious. Kudos to the devs for so many was to modify gameplay to make it easier or harder. That’s a really cool way to let more people meet the game on their level.

When it's firing on all cylinders, this a joyful game. When it isn't – which is often – it can be tiresome. The balancing is off the wall, being either too hard or too easy most of the time. The lack of a detailed map is a misjudgement that's hard to fathom. Some of the level design is A+, some is C-. A strange one. A 7/10.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Playing Mina made me realize that this is what id always wished 2D Zelda games were, but never realized until now. This game has the love and attention to world and character building that made me fall in love with Zelda games as a kid, but with a depth and maturity to its precision combat, exploration and platform puzzles that Zelda has never managed to reach. I'm blown away by how great this little game is. I hope you're paying attention, Nintendo.

Hard on the eyes and would rather play Batman LOTDK. Locking away achievements due to using modifiers is garbage

if i had to define this game with a word, i would use "dense": every screen is hiding something from you, no pixel is wasted. i loved every single area, maybe with the exception of some rooms of the last one, where the game becomes kind of obnoxious with shifting floors and enemies and stuff, and makes it hard to spot secrets and look for stuff. a very small number of secrets seemed un-findable to me without a guide (not a fan of hidden breakable walls); i wish i was able to find everything without resorting to external sources. i don't care too much about the story in games, but i wish its development wasn't so obvious. the only other little criticism that i have is that i would've liked a faster way to get a specific sidearm when you needed it, even if it's kinda mitigated (but not really) with some upgrades you get for your bases. music is great, the world and atmosphere are great, exploration is sensational, combat is very good, i found myself switching pretty often between weapons depending on the enemies in the area and bosses (i just wish you could hit diagonally with the whip). i think the game is a great spin on the classic top down zelda formula, and i wish there were more games like it.

Mina the Hollower is wonderful, and it has quickly become one of my favorite video games ever. Coming from a menagerie of influences, this game is loads of fun to play, with an exceptionally-designed overworld and fun combat system. The game is extremely difficult, but deaths almost always feel like your fault and teach you something new about how the game works. There's also tons of customization, with five main weapons, probably over a dozen sidearms, and many equippables to boot. The story is alright, not the best I've ever seen but it keeps you interested in the world of Tenebrous Isle and the city of Ossex, its people, and the environments. The game can also be hilarious thanks to its oddball cast of characters. The game isn't perfect as no game is, but the flaws are small enough that they don't impact the experience in any meaningful way. I loved Mina the Hollower, and I would absolutely recommend it to anyone who's interested.

Questo gioco é stupendo. Un tributo a giochi come Zelda Oracle of ages, pixel art sopraffine con un level design sorprendente. Il gameplay è un po' difficile ma nulla di impossibile come dicono quelli che lo criticano aspramente. Gioco ottimo per 20€ veramente ben spesi consigliato

terrible experience. heard it was like Zelda but the difficulty is rocket high level.

It's almost perfect, if there was a conversation log it would be the best game not only this year, but one of the best of all time. It's still really fun, lots of exploration, plenty of challenge, and it's only $20

I love souls games, love zelda, love hollow knight. But this is sadly one of the worst gaming experiences i have ever had. I never fight an enemy. I only fight the controls. The fighting mechanic is the most broken system i have ever encountered in 35+ years of gaming. The enemies are all over the place. I can only attack in four directions. And my character moves so slow its all down to luck. Its infuriating and never feels like a skill issue but pure trash mechanics. I cant believe they released the game in such a state with such fundamental flaws. Did their cats playtest this mess? The modifiers show me that they had no idea on how to balance this. I had very high regards for this company. Its gone. This is the most infuriating game i have ever touched. And its a shame as there seems to be an awesome world hidden behind all this mechanical frustrations. LET ME ATTACK IN 8 DIRECTIONS!!!

Gioco tirato in ballo per un effetto di empatia. Si doveva salvare lo studio dal fallimento e hanno deciso di dargli voti assurdi come mixtape per attirare l attenzione del prodotto... Lo studio è famoso per una saga di giochi.. Se non vendevano 300k di copie chiudeva... Normalissimo gioco in 8bit solo più difficile

I love this game! The combat, while tricky to get used to at first, feels amazing once it clicks. The exploration is addictive, especially since you can go anywhere and aren't limited in which dungeon you'd like to tackle first. The amount of items and trinkets is similar to Hollow Knight, allowing you to change up the gameplay in significant ways. The art style is beautiful, and the music is great. Yacht Club Games took what Nintendo has done with 2D Zelda and evolved it into a super fun action-adventure game. This is the Breath of the Wild moment for top-down 2D Zelda-style games, and it's more than just an inspiration drawn from Zelda, Castlevania, and Metroidvanias. This is a must-play game!

What a disappointment. I was so hyped for this game but what a mixed bag it is. The level design is all over the place. The game has horrible platforming, the difficulty is totally broken. Easy and hard all the time. It almost feels like the game was designed by a esquizofrenic person. Even though the music is amazing and the overworld is 10/10, the combat, story, dungeons is 3/10. I’m on the last dungeon and I just can’t take it anymore. I ALWaYS finish every single game I play for more than 5 hours but this is not fun but a job. You can’t just create the flow and enjoyment of playing. You are always dying and repeating but this is not Silksong when you strive to be better. Just a chore and an exercise of patience.

The game is overrated; it might be acceptable to some, but it doesn't deserve a 90. The combat is terrible and offers nothing original. The graphics are awful, even for a retro game. I also found the difficulty curve poorly designed; it suddenly becomes much harder, and you get the feeling you've gone down the wrong path.

It's unbelievable that those old-fashioned ghost face-jumping scares from the internet are actually in a pixelated indie game. Isn't this pure malicious intent towards players? Dev is probably quite proud of it. There are also many other details that are simply inhumane and designed to disgust players.

Make sure u go in the right areas first. Its acts like u can ho anywhere but its not worth the annoyance. Once i got past the start and learning that it just got better and better znd i dont usuallly.like most 2d games

I tried really hard to like this game. I was excited for it to come out, bought it on day 1, talking about it with friends who are also playing it... but, it is just not appealing to me at all. It's difficult and not always in the good way. I could probably slog through though if there was something motivating me to continue. There just isn't though. The story is as basic as you can get, the characters aren't particularly interesting and I am just not getting anything that would motivate me to continue. Giving up on it and going to go back to playing something more fun.

This game is a great single player experience for anybody remotely interested in retro games. The gameplay mechanics and QoL features can be fine-tuned in the built-in mods feature where you can change everything from jump instance to turning on infinite health. There’s probably close to a hundred mods to make the game easier or harder for yourself rather than a standard difficulty setting. There are also visual mods to change the color palette of the screen which I was really happy about. Some boss fights are very memorable while others you’ll blast through. The puzzles were at the perfect difficulty and only maybe one or two I had to look up to solve. There is also plenty of side content with secret bosses and hidden areas, NPC side quests, and late game unlockables. The story is fairly predictable. The characters aren’t anything too unique. And the amount of customizable difficulty mods might be overwhelming or an acquired taste. I’d research what those are before buying and playing this, because I can see how all these mods could ruin the experience for some players.

I love this game when it is trying to be Link's Awakening and Castlevania. I **** hate this game when it is trying to be Dark Souls. I have said it before and I will say it again, the modern overuse of soulslike mechanics as a means of difficulty has really become a crutch in modern game design. There are /plenty/ of ways to make a game challenging without having it constantly waste the player's time, and this game just wastes the player's time way too damn much. Yes, there are modifiers that alleviate this, but that feels like a band-aid added late in the development to plaster over a balancing issue that YCG either could not fix or did not try to fix. To the game's strength, the exploration, world design, sound design, and pixel art are all top notch. I have not had as much fun in a long long time exploring, discovering, and stumbling into new areas while seemingly looking for something unrelated. There is a certain kind of magic here that unfortunately gets mired in soulslike tedium. Still, I enjoyed the vast majority of my time with it.

It’s very fun, I didn’t give up after I died at the start and that’s good, I usually get frustrated when I die often early

Feels like a modern Link’s Awakening. Very challenging and takes some patience but the world and aesthetic and gameplay are all so fun. And the soundtrack will get stuck in your head, so many bangers. Incredible story too, I teared up at the end. Great game all around.

I'm roughly halfway through, and enjoying it a lot. Very creative exploration and challenging but fun boss battles. I'm not big into retro gaming, but this blends a lot of more modern gameplay mechanics with the retro look which has grown on me. It's more pure gameplay than a lot of big budget movie-games that have come out recently, like the new 007 First Light for example. I beat/watched that and am finding Mina more enjoyable.

I am not seeing what others are evidently seeing with this game. I am absolutely the target market for this game, and it is a chore. The combat and the controls overall feel awful and the exploration is pure tedium. Originally gave it a 6, but as I'm sitting here thinking about it, it deserves lower.

Very good game,with very diferent leves and thide gameplay,i realy enjoy it.

As someone who only got to experience the 2d Zelda games on the old 3ds virtual console. This game was a treat, played through all of it before even discovering modifiers and enjoyed every single moment. While some parts were hard and a little frustrating it never took away from my personal experience of the game. Genuinely a 10/10 in its genre and is currently my game of the year so far

amazing game with only minor nitpicks of criticism. If you dont like this game you just dont like video games.

Locking out achievements if you use accessibility settings is an insult to those who need them. At that point, don't include them.

There's a lot here to be proud of for the developers. They've made a game with a lot of heart and it's clear they've taken their time to make it polished. It's a classic Zelda with some Souls elements, as many reviews have said. I can't rate it crazy high though. Ultimately, this game is 30 years out of date with its gameplay and graphics. The difficulty is a little too much for me too, especially late game. The hit boxes are not always fair and even at fully leveled attack and defense the later bosses are punishingly brutal. The pixelated graphics are fine for a GBA game from 1996, but not a PS5 game in 2026. It would likely have been an all time classic in that era but judging by 2026 standards, it's just too outdated.

Visuals and audio are great. The game is a neat entry into the 2d topdown action-adventure category with it's soulslike mechanics. It doesn't seem like any specific sidearm or trinket is needed to beat the game, but they do help in combat and may be needed for exploring optional areas. I did feel unaccomplished beating the game though. The players mechanics felt clunky at times either due to odd hit boxes, delayed dodging mechanics, (large) enemies with mechanics that are hard to read and react too, etc... Felt like I had to rush the enemies down a lot instead of learn any mechanics since there were times where the enemy just reacts fast while you are trying to dodge.

do i really need to talk about this fantastic game yacht club didnt not let us down

Wow I wasn't sure how this game was going to be the demo was fun, and I was hoping for the best. I was not disappointed, this may be the first time a game that looks like a game boy color game may get game of the year now maybe not in the max populace overall but I would not be angry if it won such an award because it looks like and feels like and sounds like it deserves it. Game plays pretty damn great, the music was a banger just an overall good time.

Beautiful visuals and gorgeous audio aside, I found the combat monotonous and the area design repetitive. The mechanics imply a fast paced or aggressive style of combat/platforming while the gameplay is designed around slow, often meaningless hurdles that don't enrich the gameplay loop but instead simply prolong it. Rather than go into immense detail, i'm going to provide some very simple examples from the core gameplay loop: Rather than having a double jump mechanic, to do a long jump you instead have to jump, burrow, hold x, and then release. Note that burrowing puts you into an ice slide mechanic and can not be held indefinitely. It's not an insurmountable challenge by any means, but it seems to serve no purpose other than annoy and impede without enriching gameplay. Another example would be the healing mechanics, which incentivize aggression to heal- by hitting enemies your next heal vial heals MORE, so you want to move IN at low health, not pull back. Except the design of burrowing replaces the industry standard dodge with an ability that has a longer wind up and a longer invincibility window. If anything, it de-incentivizes aggression, pushing you towards a poke-style of combat more than anything else. ...Unless you consider the presence of garbage mobs scattered throughout levels. Suddenly they seem to exist exclusively to help fill your vials, which is an extremely harrowing (har har) thought, as if that is the case then the 'aggression to heal' mechanic is actually just an incentive to backtrack SLOWER after dying and respawning, because now instead of going back to the boss you have to hit garbage mobs to make sure you have a full heal going into the next fight. Again, the visuals and musical elements are great. I think the charm of the game is apparent to anyone whose watched clips or seen screenshots. If you like this kind of game, you probably already know that it's for you. If you think this game is, say, a Zelda-Bloodborne style mix of gameplay mechanics and exploration, then I found it lacking and unenjoyable in execution.

The best game so far this year, everything feels fully fleshed out and works together. 30 hours and not a minute of filler.

If you need to use modifiers (essentially cheats) to beat a game don't cry when you get locked out of achievements. The game is great, it has a very charming style, it looks great, the platforming has far more depth than I initially expected, the combat is enjoyable (not overly difficult contrary to what some of the reviews are pushing), it has a lot of engaging side content, it does not hand-hold and rewards curiosity while giving just enough tips to prevent traversal from being overwhelming. I also have to mention the fantastic music! I do understand the criticisms about the hammer, I think they should change that weapon from a starting weapon to one that be earned later in the game. It requires a lot of skill to wield it and it being accessible form the begining is going to cause a lot of frustration from players who picked it as a starting weapon. I also have an issue with some of the side bosses and the fact that their fights occur in arenas without borders, the amount of times I accidentally slipped out just to be greeted with the boss regaining it's full health after I got it down it down to a few hp got frustrating at points. This being said, I think the game is truly fantastic and definitely something special. As others have said before- it does what Shovel knight did to platformers but for Zelda like action adventure games. It is disappointing seeing the accessibility crowd review bomb a game because they are unwilling to engage with the games mechanics. The developers have been extremely generous and given a wide range of difficulty modifiers. They have also put their foot down by locking achievements to non-modified/cheated playthroughs.

Mina The Hollower should be a game of the year contestant. I struggled at first with the exploration and combat, but once I started to understand the mechanics, I wouldn't die as often. The artstyle and music are both amazing and the exploration mechanics are really unique.

It's simply really great, as advertised. A world full of secrets, none of which are obtuse. The game is full of great "ah-ha" moments that make it shine. While the game is incredibly open, there is a suggested path that works really well for a learning curve. Only downside, the game would've benefitted from a Map. Even counting the already present overworld map, I would've much more preferred it to be available from the start in order to chart my way around, instead of having to buy it as an upgrade after I had already charted the Island

A good throwback to how gaming used to be, which obviously won't resonate with all players, but it's refreshing to have such a well rounded game with fantastic 8-bit visuals. There's little guidance past the opening act, which can leave some players feeling a little lost, but this is quickly made up for by the feeling of turning a corner to find a side quest, mini-boss, and platforming puzzle all in the same area. The game is challenging, but not hard - that said, you could easily make the game harder on yourself by not exploring areas fully, or not taking full advantage of the abilities given to you. Take some time to talk to the characters scattered around, and explore both the menus & the world, and you'll be pleasantly rewarded with useful information and items. If all else fails, you have the option to grind out a few easier enemies for some levels, à la Dark Souls Generally a very good game all round, the ability to choose a weapon and adjust your build does a lot to set this game apart from its classic counterparts.

An amazing game with classic gba tol vibes. Extremely well made with tons of different weapons and trinkets that make the gameplay a blast.

Proud Kickstarter Backer! From the get-go, I was super on-board with YCG's vision for Mina the Hollower. They did a retro revival like Shovel Knight very well, often cited as one of the best indie games of all time, and I've had a lot of positive interactions with members of Yacht Club and the community. After riding off Shovel Knight's success for the past 12 years, we have a game that draws from the Game Boy era of games. Through the many Kickstarter updates and developer streams, we are able to see how much thought and effort was put into each detail to make it look faithful to that era of gaming while adopting modern game design strategies. I played the demo about a year ago, and I enjoyed the Zelda/Castlevania/Bloodborne inspired experience. The aesthetic was always going to be something I enjoyed, bringing me back to the feeling of playing Link's Awakening for the GameBoy. It thematically takes on a gothic art style, not too dissimilar from what Castlevania was going for, and the music, done by Jake Kaufman, is incredible as usual. However, I didn't get very far in the demo because the game had a pretty steep difficulty curve that I wasn't able to get the hang of in time. But since its original release, the game has really gotten polished up, and its fully realized world yields a lot of content. Its core mechanic, "Hollowing," where Mina buries under the ground, acts as a dodge roll, long jump, method of travel, and a way to solve a lot of environmental puzzles that the developers cleverly integrated into the world. The game is very good at teaching the player intuitively how the game works, forgoing drawn-out tutorials and exposition. The game is extremely challenging, and it especially takes a lot of time to get used to, but it is very rewarding when you figure out how everything works. Mina the Hollower is yet another home run from Yacht Club Games, and I can confidently recommend it to anybody, even if I didn't help back the game.

Ignore the complaints about difficulty - most of them are coming from people that didn't get far enough to find any upgrades. All of the complaints they have are things you can unlock (dodge rolls, more healing vials, revive on death, keep bones on death). They just let their frustrations stop them from engaging with the game. I'm someone who finds games like Dark Souls very hard and I'd say this isn't that bad.

Both nostalgic and forward looking. This game takes inspiration from some of the greatest games of all time, while simultaneously applying modern game design to create something that feels both classic and fresh.

Mina se convierte en el juego mejor valorado por la critica en 2026. Faciilmente será juego del año dentro de su categoria. Enhorabuena al equipo!

The top down Zelda gameplay style mixed with dark souls and some platforming just does not work for me. On top of that there is no map and some things in the world are hard to distinguish. There are pits everywhere and knock back when you get hit or when you hit something. So you will fall in the pits frequently and it takes an obnoxious amount of HP from you. Some enemies are just straight up damage sponges and you can't avoid their onslaughts of what seems like extremely powerful attacks. Outside of all that, it looks nice and music is good. There are a lot of accessibility options but you will lose the ability to get in game achievements if you use them. You can upgrade your character with bones and there are a lot of things to buy with the bones you collect. There is a lot of world to explore and secrets to be found, but the gameplay just makes the experience lack luster. Somehow this is the highest rated game of 2026 on Metacritic, but it is one of the most overrated games I have played in a while.

VERY creative mechanics and level design. Music excellent, characters likable, story simple but good, I must recommend it to anybody who like classic LOZ games and any others to give it a shot.

if you haven't bought this game, i wouldn't recommend it. if you backed the kickstarter and are stuckwoth a copy like me, DO NOT pick the hammer. this weapon is insanely flawed, which makes the game a miserable experience. the hammer is useless and has a 2 second windup, you can't swap weapons until you get TWO THOUSAND bones (most drops give you 5 bones), if you die twice you lose all your bones making it impossible to get bones because the hammer is so ****!!!! enemies deal full damage if you touch them (even if they're not attacking) the platforming feels awkward, the subweapons are lame, the color scheme is boring and dull, etc etc etc. now im stuck between quiting this game and playing something else, or starting the entire game over to pick a decent weapon. and after 2 hours, im leaning towards quitting. it would've been nice if the game had other weapons early on but now im just completely screwed.

As a throwback to the NES era this title oozes charm. There is a mastery here of capturing the feel/atmosphere of that time in gaming while introducing deep gameplay mechanics and a bit more modern pacing and scope of the world. The difficulty is challenging but fair which elevates the whole experience. There are also a ton of secrets. This is a modern masterpiece and one of the very best indie titles to date.