Some days, even getting out of bed feels as if a nightmarish ordeal, and you just have to summon some grit and bear it.


Unless your day is going to look anything like that thing above….then the bed is probably the best place to be

Yesterday was a bit of a train wreck, not going to lie. Due to a number of extenuating circumstances, both my article and video companion piece that went up ended up being bottom shelf quality, cause a bunch of issues arising at the last minute that left me with no time to edit/redo said pieces. My decisions were either put nothing up at all, or at least a low quality something. Overall, I think my levels of satisfaction in pulling it together last minute to get even a low quality something up, even if shoddy, was better than nothing at all, so ultimately, it worked out.

Just barely, though.



Definitely quite the way to start off my Mina the Hollower playthrough, which is hard enough game to contend with as is, never mind adding metalayers of difficulty with more “on the side bullshit” of everyday life to contend with. Anyways, Mina is quite the slice of delectably designed pie, and as mentioned in yesterday’s post, which wasn’t necessarily brimming with extensively thorough amount of insight on the ins and outs of the title, the major theme running through the article was “How did no one think of this before?” As all of the elements of Mina take from gameplay mechanics and titles that have received no ends of praise in the past, like top down Zelda titles (especially Link’s Awakening), and the Souls series as well, so putting them together is definitely a chocolate and peanut butter moment.



I think one of the low key more hilarious moments that will surround the dialogue involving Mina will be the betraying aesthetic vs the under the hood gameplay, as when most people look at the game, their minds are going to conjure up some metaphysical intimation of what the second to second gameplay is going to be like. The reason this is hilarious to me, is because those people are going to eat shit on a constant basis, because while the game does look like an isometric adventure RPG from the days of yore, unlike Zelda, the combat and progressions system is a page ripped straight out of the Souls playbook, and each and every combat scenario is going to demand you be on top of your game, lest ye perish with mindless movements and stale battle tactics. Like most Souls games, not being on your toes at all times will absolutely cost you dearly, and if one doesn’t have a strong enough temperament, tempers are going to be flaring fairly quickly, at the extraordinary mortality one will be facing on a regular basis.



That’s the big hurdle, I think, for people who are going to be coming into the title first time. The ability to parse the metaphysicality of the game play from the familiar aesthetic, and to not get tripped up on this “watch the birdie” mentality that is initially going to lead players astray. In a similar parallel, though not a 1:1 match up, so use your imagination a little, I’m already forecasting the gaming community will be having strangely familiar conversations that were collectively had not even a year ago, when many were going through the break in process with Silksong. If that game did anything with effortless gusto, it was remind me of what a lack of patience and care people had for difficulty, and the outcry of unfairness that followed.



Which leaves Mina in a tight spot (for a certain crowd of the gaming population, at least), as I think very much in the same way folks were irked by Silksong’s relentless need for you to conform to its metaphysical ways of thinking, the Souls part of these games DNA just don’t quite click for a portion of players; whether or not it was due to the notion they just failed to grasp such a stylization of play (as far as genre consideration need be contended with) absolutely demands you yield to its needs and whims, or that they just don’t like that type of gameplay, I’m not sure, but improvisation and, for lack of a better word, sloppy or low effort musings with the games engagement systems will absolutely punish careless players, and let me tell you: some people really don’t like being told what to do on that level of micromanagement.



Mina definitely has a leg-up on the difficulty front, however, as unlike Silksong, and I wrote extensively about this last year in case you are interested, Mina offers not just varying levels of adjustable difficulty, but modifiers ones can turn on to change any number of elements of the game, to better cater to a larger demographic of gamers needs. Team Cherry and Yacht Club Games clearly have different approaches to design philosophy, and I don’t necessarily think one being restrictive and one offering a choice in terms of how the game plays out is necessarily a clean cut good or bad distinction, due to my dictations on how one views a game, and this boils down to the notion of consumer product vs art debate, which will likely be another article that will pop up down the line as I play through Mina, but at the very least, the options Mina provides will make ecstatic the crowd that wants to join in on the masochistic fun, and has the adjustable means to do so, however paradoxical such a thing may be, but that is a conversation for another time.



I’m not even two hours in with Mina, and I’m already awestruck at the sheer breadth of dimensionality the game has to offer. Early impressions of the game already had me quite elated that such a title was right around the corner, and having been distracted enough recently to have forgotten the game came out, almost maybe in too quiet a manner, is both good and bad. Good because of the pleasant surprise it afforded me when I was finally able to download it, bad cause I think the lack of noise over its release tells me not enough people are excited about it, which is a crying shame, cause my initial reaction leads me to believe this is going to be a top five game this year, and maybe even by the time the credits roll, a game of the year consideration.



Absolutely dazzled by Mina the Hollower thus far, and I greatly look forward to not just what the game has in store for me, but the number of excellent thoughts, articles, and conversations that are about to come out of the experience.

~Pashford