Mina the Hollower!

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I’ve been playing this one quite a bit and it really brings me back. It really reminds me of games like links awakening, Mario land 2, Pokemon G/S, ninja turtles on NES and some of its darker aesthetics and gameplay seem to be impacted from things like dark souls or castlevania. There’s some small influence I noticed from over the garden wall as well, which is cute.

I’m mostly enjoying the enemy design and a lot of the trinkets the character uses. There’s a ton of surprises. It’s got the same design philosophies as the games that inspired me to become a creature artist as a kid, so it’s been fun to sit and appreciate all the individual sprites and their environments. My favourite bosses were probably the huge brain and the mud/dung monster that gives you flies for a powerup. As said, it’s surprisingly dark with some good tongue-in-cheek humour.

As always I also appreciate the developers encouraging the players to customize their experience and to play in their own unique style too.

It’s nice to play something that’s actually challenging to complete- and honestly I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to 100% this one, but it’s worth the $20 (underpriced IMO) if anyone wants to give it a shot.