- Primary Subject: Mina the Hollower Preview
- Key Update: The game offers challenging Souls-like combat and rewarding exploration with a GBC aesthetic.
- Status: Preview
- Last Verified: 2026-05-20
- Quick Answer: Check out our preview of Mina the Hollower, which highlighting its challenging gameplay, retro aesthetic, and captivating world.
In a year that's jam-packed with highly anticipated AAA behemoths, Yacht Club's Mina the Hollower is shaping up to be a potential personal Game of the Year candidate.
Thanks to the developers, I've been able to play the full build of the game for the past few days, and while my full thoughts will be reserved for the review next week, I can confidently say that the Game Boy Color-inspired journey through Tenebrous Isle has been a blast. A punishing, highly rewarding blast.
If your first thoughts upon seeing the retro-GBC aesthetic of Mina the Hollower are that a) the game will likely be a breeze to power through, b) it likely plays like a bit clunky just like those old Zelda games on the GBC, or c) it's probably a short and sweet experience, you are wrong on all accounts.
Yacht Club really cooked up something special. While the visual style of the game harkens back to an era of games we rarely see receiving the same amount of love as 8 and 16-bit nostalgia-inducing home console classics do, Mina the Hollower plays like a super polished newer action-adventure game.
In Mina the Hollower, you'll play as... Mina, the Hollower. She's a highly capable mouse known as a Hollower, which are rather polarizing figures in the world she inhabits. As you arrive at Tenebrous Isle, you'll immediately notice all hell has broken loose, and you're sent on a quest to try and get things under control.
The setting is amazingly captivating. You can feel the Victorian era inspiration in those early areas you explore, including Ossex, the game's main hub, where you'll find all sorts of shops, hints at secrets in the form of newspapers, random NPCs with very eerie vibes, and more.
Even trying to relax in Ossex from all the dangers Mina will face in her adventure is ill-advised. There's a sensation that Hollowers aren't particularly well-received around town, and there will be odd conversations characters will have with Mina that accentuate this. Not everyone, of course, but it does help depict a picture of complete isolation, with pockets of hope in the form of well-intentioned NPCs serving as a truly welcoming sight for sore eyes.
As you set out on your adventure, Mina will have access to a wide variety of weapons to dish out damage, trinkets to power certain aspects of her abilities, and side-weapons to help keep enemies at bay. As I said, I won't go too in-depth in this preview as I'd rather keep things for the full review, but there's so much variety and sauce in each one that it's been hard to pick a favo... It's the dual blades; it's not even close for me. I love how nimble and fast they are at the cost of having to be extremely close to your enemies. I pair this with a trinket that gives me a speed boost every time I deal damage, highly recommend.
Combat is tough as nails. The devs took inspiration from how Souls-like games work and have prepared some truly devious encounters that will test the patience of even those who live for grueling challenges in videogames. The bosses I've faced so far have, oftentimes, multiple phases, with hard patterns that don't ever feel cheap. I'm always one step closer to figuring things out, and that's the best kind of feeling you want a game like Mina the Hollower to instill in players. It will get frustrating at times, especially if you end up permanently losing all your Bones (incredibly versatile currency that can be used to level up stats, improve weapons, get more gear, and more), with Yacht Club including options to tailor the experience to however you want it. I've not messed around with modifiers; however, I have to commend the developers for just cramming in as much accessibility or other wacky challenges as they could come up with right from the get-go.
The platforming is challenging, with tight responsive controls letting you make the most out of Mina's main traversal mechanic, burrowing, allowing you to find secrets, navigate perilous rooms with traps and enemies throwing as many projectiles as they can at you. You'll quickly come to realize how free you are to explore the entirety of the vast map at your disposal.
You can go to any region you'd like at any moment, and although some will be naturally harder than others, the game never discourages you from adventuring deep into a super tough area if you like to painstakingly take care of business ahead of schedule.
Overall, I can't wait to keep sinking many, many more hours into Mina the Hollower. A game that so far, it's oozing with polish, charisma, and incentivizes exploration in a way that's hooked me as few action-adventure titles in recent years have.
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