Mina the Hollower: The Indie Masterpiece From the Makers of Shovel Knight

There's a moment about an hour into Mina the Hollower where you forget you're playing a game that looks like a Game Boy Color title. The combat clicks, the world opens up, and you realize Yacht Club Games has done it again. Not Shovel Knight again. Something new. Something that proves this studio understands game feel at a level most developers never reach.

Mina the Hollower launched May 28, 2026 to the kind of reception most indie studios only dream about. A 91 Metascore on PC. A 91 on PS5. A 90 on Switch 2. OpenCritic reports 98% of critics recommend it. IGN gave it a 10. Eurogamer gave it a 10. Shacknews gave it a 10. The game sold 300,000 copies in its first three days and crossed 500,000 within two weeks. This is not a niche hit. This is the indie event of 2026.

And it came from a studio that could have rested on Shovel Knight forever.

What It Is

Mina the Hollower is a top-down action-adventure game rendered in a pixel-perfect 3/4 isometric perspective that faithfully recreates the visual constraints of the Game Boy Color. You play as Mina, a mouse and genius inventor who is also a Hollower, a member of a guild dedicated to studying the Earth. She's been sent on a desperate mission to rescue a cursed island, and she's going to whip, burrow, and fight her way through every monster standing in her way.

The game wears its influences on its sleeve. The combat and world structure draw from The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening. The weapon variety and enemy encounters echo Castlevania. The darker tone and atmosphere take a page from Bloodborne. And the whole thing is filtered through the same meticulous design philosophy that made Shovel Knight one of the best platformers of the last decade.

Here's the thing that makes Mina different from a nostalgia trip: the burrowing mechanic. Mina can hollow underground for short bursts, becoming invincible while she travels beneath hazards and enemies. It's not a gimmick. It's woven into every layer of the design. You burrow under enemies to reposition, burrow under hazards to bypass them, burrow to reach secret areas. The mechanic gives the game a rhythm that feels completely its own.

What Works

The combat has real depth. Mina starts with a choice of three weapons: the whip Nightstar, dual daggers called Whisper and Vesper, and the Blaststrike Maul. Each weapon has a completely different move set. The whip has range and knockback. The daggers are fast and close-range. The hammer hits hard in four directions. Two more weapons unlock later. Six weapons, each with distinct feel, in a 20-hour game. That's not padding. That's design conviction.

The Game Boy Color aesthetic is genuine, not a filter. Yacht Club didn't just slap a pixel shader on a modern engine. The game abides by the technical limitations of the original Game Boy hardware. No 3D assets. Four colors per tile. The only modern concession is widescreen resolution. This commitment to authenticity gives Mina a visual identity that no other indie game can match, because no other indie game goes this far. It looks like a Game Boy Color game that somehow has more animation and polish than any actual Game Boy Color game ever did.

The soundtrack is a standout. Jake Kaufman composed the score, with two guest tracks from Yuzo Koshiro (Streets of Rage). The music matches the darker, Gothic tone perfectly while maintaining the infectious catchiness that made Shovel Knight's soundtrack iconic. You'll hum these tracks after you stop playing.

The world is dense with secrets. Exploring the island rewards you with sidearms, trinkets, and hidden areas. Sidearms provide combat support but are lost on death, creating a risk-reward loop that keeps you engaged. Trinkets offer permanent boosts to navigation and combat. Currency called Bones lets you upgrade Mina's stats. The progression feels organic, never grindy.

The boss fights are spectacular. Yacht Club learned from Shovel Knight's boss design and applied it to a completely different perspective. Boss patterns are fair but demanding. Each one teaches you something new about your weapon and your burrowing ability. Beating a boss feels earned.

What Doesn't

The difficulty spikes can be brutal. This is a game that doesn't hold your hand. Some boss encounters and enemy gauntlets spike hard, and the lack of difficulty options means less patient players will hit walls. Edge gave it a 7/10, and difficulty was part of why. If you bounced off Shovel Knight's harder sections, Mina will test you more.

The story takes a back seat. The cast of bizarre characters is charming, and the darker tone is a welcome shift from Shovel Knight's whimsy. But the narrative doesn't have the same emotional payoff as Yacht Club's previous work. The setting and atmosphere do the heavy lifting. If you're here for a deep story, you'll find the plot serviceable but not the star.

Giant Bomb's 3.5/5 is the outlier worth noting. Most reviews are 9/10 or higher. Giant Bomb's more measured score reflects a valid perspective: if you don't connect with the Game Boy Color aesthetic or the burrowing mechanic, the game might not click for you the way it did for most critics. The visual style is a commitment. If four-color pixel art doesn't speak to you, nothing else about the game will change your mind.

Who Should Play It

• You played and loved Shovel Knight. This is the same studio at the height of its craft, working in a different genre. If you trust Yacht Club, they've earned it.
• You love Zelda: Link's Awakening or classic Castlevania. Mina is a direct descendant of both, filtered through modern design sensibilities.
• You're an indie game developer studying game feel. Mina is a masterclass in how to make pixel art feel responsive and satisfying. The animation, the hit feedback, the burrow timing, all of it is meticulously tuned.
• You want the best indie game of 2026 so far. This is it. There's no serious competition for that title right now.

Score: 9.5/10

Mina the Hollower is the kind of game that reminds you why indie matters. A small studio with a clear vision, funded by Kickstarter, delivering a game that stands toe-to-toe with anything a major publisher released this year. Yacht Club Games didn't need to make Mina. They could have made Shovel Knight sequels forever. They chose to build something new, something risky, something that looks like a 30-year-old handheld game and plays like a 2026 Game of the Year contender. That's worth your attention.

Get it on Steam ($19.99, available on Windows, Mac, and Linux)

Explore more on GameMinr: Best Roguelikes on PC | Best Metroidvanias For Switch and Switch 2 | Best Soulslike Games for Beginners

Brandon is a lifelong gamer and indie developer for the last 20 years. He loves to find the creativity and fun in each new game release.

This review was published on June 22, 2026 and will be updated if significant patches or DLC are released.