Even at one’s most weakened state, the ideas of our most virtuous selves should remain utterly unshakeable.


Even if we’ve had just about every other measurable metric completely beaten the hell out of us

Yesterday I started to broach on some headier subject material of Mina The Hollower, by beginning to unravel the metaphysical concepts inherent in the games methodologies. While the experience undoubtedly borrows heavily from an influence involving The Legend of Zelda series, the experience is certainly one of a hybridized effort, and the Soulslike DNA that is ever present in the title is quite obviously worthy of discussion, when breaking down Mina’s finer points, as the knowledge will go a long way in not only fully understanding the title on a more robust level, but will also likely severely reduce the significant amount of ass beatings that occur, as the Soulslike elements of an every present nature come bearing down on us, as Mina continues to unfold before our very eyes.



As a fun piece of behind the scenes trivia, I am devastatingly exhausted today, so the amount of pain I will be feeling when writing this article, will most certainly be a considerable ÷amount more than normal, which will add a fun extra layer of delight to this whole ordeal.

One of the more specified elements bed involving Mina I began discussing was knowing the qualitative difference between a good death and a bad one. This may seem paradoxical at first, but upon closer inspection, one realizes at the very least, a qualitative dictate goes hand in hand with strategy and observatory approach in making note of the combat exchange as it unfolds. A lot of productive troubleshooting often boils down to pressing a lot of random buttons and seeing the results first hand for yourself, and making heads or tails of the situation shortly after.

While this kind of morbid sense of whimsical trial and error in real time combat is a general concept to mastering most games, since Soulslike entities are just that, but cranked up a thousand percent, implimenting said strategy as hard as one can, goes an awful long way in understanding how one can make a difference in the face of certain guaranteed inevitability. That was only one of many different facets of the metaphysics I was starting to touch upon yesterday, but truth be told, the overwhelming sense of sleeplessness has made me plum forgot what I was going to segue into next, so a surprise best enjoyed another day it would seem.

One of the greater senses of irony about today’s session of Mina, resulted in the notion that during the day I’m in my utmost aggressively tired state of being, also ended up happening to be the portion of the game where developer Yacht Club Games was done fucking around with their thus far merciful levels of difficulty, and said “let’s get really fucking stupid with all of this dying bullshit”, and just let loose with some of the most heinous levels of unrelenting tortuous absurdity one can fathom, where totally screwing the player was concerned. From enemy placement and type, to environmental hazards on display, to even a stalker enemy eventually turned boss, there is no shortage of absolute bullshit one is going to have to deal with, during their travels on the road to Crow Town (we don’t go to Crow Town.)



Mina definitely goes into overdrive during this part of the game, and I’m guessing perhaps it isn’t just some one off spike in difficulty, as I may have just entered the “getting real phase” of the overall experience at hand, the point at which Yacht Club Games is upfront and honest in thinking: well, if they’ve played this far, they definitely have some impressive tenacity to speak of, so it’s about time to really take this sucker for a spin, and see what it’s worth. Which is a fairness, I think, as when one starts to splice some Soulslike DNA into their own metaphysical bloodstream, why wouldn’t one eventually not go full blown fucking looney tunes with it, and see just how dastardly one can be in flipping the script in the cruelest ways possible?



Speaking to that honesty, I do think a more explicit sense of difficulty does allow for a more pure distillation of a dialectic to happen between the player and the developer, and when the understanding between the two truly begins to flourish. A dialectic for those unfamiliar with, is a type of back and forth of sorts between two parties, but unlike maybe a regular debate or heated conversation, a dialectic has an added benefit, of both participants kind of rebounding off of each other, and even having the exchange helping make and create the other during the process, so it’s almost a cooperative effort in a process of “becoming”, as it were, and ends up having a certain heightened sense of reality shared betwixt the two parties, as they not only start to more fully understand each other, but end up becoming key factors in each others becoming at the same time.



In the world of gaming, this kind of source of information exchange makes ideal sense, where something like difficulty is concerned, as in order to successfully build off of one another, the developer and player kind of need to have and ongoing volley back and forth, being dialectical about the exchange is key in having the entire design organically evolve in a sense, as the player gets an understanding of how the developer desires to challenge the player, and how the player can figure out how to best the developers own logic systems. It’s something I briefly touched upon last year, when I was detailing some of the more hardcore aspects of SIlksong, though looking back now, I’m surprised I didn’t go even further in exploring the concept in a more thorough manner. Given the direction Mina seems to be tending to, I may yet have another great opportunity to take a more comprehensive look, at breaking down some design theory that stems from this kind of dialectic process between both developer and player, as I get into the back 9 of what Mina has hiding in the later half of its ever evolving design machinations.



Though, that is likely a conversation best saved for a less tired version of me to deal with.

~Pashford