Mina the Hollower (2026)

I think I’m going to be the odd person out, but I’m really not digging this game and it’s mostly down to the platforming, which feels very bad and inconsistent. I’m in a section where I need to use a parasol to float across a gap, but jumping and pressing the secondary weapon button produces two very different reactions even when my timing and button presses are identical, and one result always means plummeting.

I can get behind a lot of games with a challenge, I just beat Saros with as many extra hard modifiers activated as I could have for fun. I just can’t get behind a game that doesn’t behave consistently from moment to moment. When I’m struggling with the game’s UX rather than its challenges, I’m not having a good time.

Started a second save file where I picked the big hammer as my weapon, and once you get over the initial hump (specifically, learning that you can start your attack charge during a burrow jump for better range and speed) it becomes so clearly superior to the whip that it's absurd. The giant AOE of its blast means you can play way faster and looser with your positioning, its range and speed are just as good as the whip, and it does like twice as much damage.

Running around destroying every enemy in one hit moves a lot of focus off the combat and lets exploration take the spotlight, which I think is to Mina's benefit.

Crossed a big chasm and randomly stumbled into a super tough, seemingly totally optional boss fight that I had to rework my entire trinket loadout to beat! Stacking the Brisk Brew, the Uranium Bracelet, and the Chain Capacitor all on top of each other makes for a Mina who is positively zooming around the screen dealing 4x damage, but gets 2-hit KO'd by everything and needs to land every single attack. Seeing how wildly each trinket can change up your playstyle is a real strength of the game, and feeds back incredibly smoothly into the exploration to make each new discovery feel worthwhile and exciting.

(Also the boss dropped 7000 bones when I won and I'm filthy rich now woooo)

Playing this in an odd way, where I'm trying to find the entrance to (and beat the entryway boss of) all six of the main dungeons before setting foot into any of them. Really loving how much stuff there is to find just in the overworld!

Like, last night I found the air dash and the chain hollowing trinkets basically back to back, and everything about how Mina moves feels 100% better now. It's rad to have such meaningful upgrades hidden away, though I do sorta feel bad for players who might wind up stuck with the less-fun base moveset for hours and hours.

I like so many things about Mina the Hollower but there's so much that just isn't vibing with me. The combat was sooo frustrating prior to finding the Battery Buster, and the Plasma Vial system makes recovering health so annoying. That combined with the Soulslike mechanics made me want to quit this game until I tried messing with some of the difficulty modifiers to make healing less frustrating.

Also, I really don't get Yacht Club's crusade against having a detailed map. Like, there are 50 different modifiers to make the game easier but having a map showing what places you have visited and what POIs you've uncovered in this huge world is where they drew the line? It's not a game breaker but wandering around trying to remember if you've visited an area before or not isn't very fun.

Article: Digging For Gems - Weeks before launch, Yacht Club Games’ founder shares new details about Mina the Hollower by Marcus Stewart

As Yacht Club focuses 100 percent of its energy on completing the game, the staff is feeling the full brunt of the stress, fear, and anxiety the final development stretch often brings. “If before there was an air of hope, now there’s an air of desperation,” Velasco says, laughing. “Like, ‘Oh god, we just want it to be done. Please let it be done.’”

It’s an understandable sentiment. Mina the Hollower is Yacht Club’s first new IP in a decade, but Velasco isn’t necessarily concerned about whether players will enjoy it. He’s confident the team has crafted a fun game. His primary worry is if it sells well, and the existential fear of what could happen if Mina doesn’t make enough money.

“But who knows if that fear is founded or not”, says Velasco. “With Shovel Knight, it was like ‘Oh god, if the game doesn’t come out, we’re going to go out of business.’ And now it’s like ‘Well, I guess if Mina didn’t sell, then we would be in pretty big trouble. We’d have to figure something out. So yeah, it is existential. You’re always only as good as the last thing you did.”

Mina has been delayed out of the month and I say good. I will never complain about a game delay again. There are too many good games all the time. Persona 3 Reload will be on Switch 2 any day now but I still haven't finished Hades 2 but I really should get back to Silksong before my muscle memory for its combat goes away but what I really wish I was playing is UFO 50 but what about the rest of my backlog but...

Everybody just take a minute. Unless you're the Mario Kart World DLC devs then get a freaking move on!