My favorite area in Mina the Hollower

Taking elements from other games and building something new and unique is one of Yachtclub Games’ specialties. The biggest ones in Mina the Hollower being Link’s Awakening and Castlevania.

Another big point of inspiration is the FromSoftware oeuvre of games. This is nowhere as evident as the area Septemburg. Besides having a setting straight out of a horror flick the level is an openly written love-letter to Bloodborne. From enemies like the pig that looks straight out Yharnam to the level design. There’s one section in particular that is very open where enemies are roaming everywhere that reminded me of the starting area of Bloodborne. Whereas normally there are only a couple of enemies per screen. In this case though you have to methodically choose who to engage first or you’ll end up in an overwhelming gang fight which is something FromSoft fans should be all too familiar with.

My favorite part was the boss fight though. Near the end there is a weapon that’s hard to miss: the Guardian Casket. The cool thing about the Guardian Casket is, it has a powerful parry, that works on pretty much all attacks. Including the boss of the area whose well-telegraphed repeating attack pattern begs to get parried. Beating him made me fall in love with the weapon even if I was lukewarm on it at the beginning. This is something about Yachtclub Games that I appreciate. All of this could come off as uninspired but they implement these inspirations in their own way that fits neatly into the rest of the game and feels fresh.