Mina the Hollower Review - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Summary

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Kinda Funny Gamescast: Mina the Hollower Review

Date: May 27, 2026
Hosts: Greg Miller, Andy Cortez, Tim Gettys
Main Theme: In-depth review and discussion of Yacht Club Games’ Mina the Hollower, including gameplay impressions, design philosophy, personal anecdotes, and comparison to other classic and contemporary games.

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Episode Overview

This episode is a spoiler-free deep dive into Mina the Hollower, the much anticipated action-adventure from Yacht Club Games (of Shovel Knight fame). Andy Cortez leads the critical review, sharing his extensive hands-on impressions while the crew discusses the game’s design, inspirations, accessibility, and whether it delivers on its ambitious promise. Listener questions enrich the discussion, focusing on mechanics, replay value, and its place among the year’s best games.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Mina the Hollower – Initial Impressions and Context

[14:55] Greg Miller, [15:13] Andy Cortez

• Mina the Hollower took Andy 28 hours to complete, aligning with the developer’s estimate of 20-30 hours.
• Andy declares:

  “Mina the Hollower is currently my game of the year. I love this video game. I love this experience... They knocked it out of the park with this.” [15:32]

• The game is praised for depth of systems, surprising world/level design, and how it balances nostalgic visuals with modern gameplay sensibilities.

2. Replay Value and New Game Plus

[18:25] Greg Miller / [18:50] Andy Cortez

• Highlight of Mina’s robust New Game Plus, with up to seven unique permutations—each changing up the experience with things like fewer save spots.
• Andy notes he’s unlikely to replay soon unless there’s a Nier Automata-level twist, but is impressed by the design for multiple playthrough incentives.
• Notable Quote:

  "If the experience keeps on expanding and if there's...wildly different moments in the game, then I would definitely want to keep on playing..." [19:33, Andy]

3. Game Feel: Zelda & Souls Influences

[25:47] Andy Cortez, [30:48] Greg/Andy

• The “elevator pitch”: “A Zelda, an old school Zelda video game with an awesome like 8 bit art style...and the most modern version of an old school Zelda game.” [25:47, Andy]
• Strong Zelda structure (overworld, dungeons, equipment) fused with Souls mechanics (drop and retrieve currency when you die, challenging combat).
• Player agency and accessibility: numerous modifiers allow increased/decreased difficulty, random items, God mode, and more [27:51 Greg / 28:11 Andy].

4. Criticisms and Areas for Improvement

[22:04][60:00] Andy Cortez

• The game is slightly too long, with a sense of “false ending momentum” near the finale.
• The story, though serviceable, is seen as a bit obvious and not always elegantly presented.
• A repeated post-dungeon generator-activation mini-game is cited as the only "annoying" gameplay element:

  “When you do all of [the generator segments]...it's probably about 10 minutes worth of your experience. But it's enough to where I'm like, ah, this is like annoying.” [60:20]

5. Review Score & Final Take

[18:08][60:34] Andy Cortez

• Andy rates Mina the Hollower 9/10, then surprises with a 9.5/10 at the very end, citing its joy and polish:

  "You got rewarded for staying till the very end, everybody." [60:37, Greg]

• Currently Andy’s personal Game of the Year for 2026.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On difficulty and accessibility:

  “If you're struggling, you're in the wrong spot. Go somewhere else.” [24:30, Andy] — highlighting player freedom and smart world design.

• On the game’s polish:

  “This feels like the version of a game that comes out eight months after it releases... It is so feature rich.” [27:12, Andy]

• On exploring and secrets:

  “It’s a game full of life...full. It’s so quirky and adorable...perfect melding of an old school Zelda game with the combat you want from a souls game.” [34:46, Andy]

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Listener Questions & Detailed Q&A

Exploration, Puzzles, and Secret Design

[43:14] Big Five / [45:13] Andy Cortez

• The game has frequent, satisfying “aha!” moments, smart puzzles without “getting stuck” frustration, and a sense of clever world building.

• “There are unending moments of you going, ‘Oh, shit. I feel smart because I figured this out and because they allowed me to figure this out.’” [46:00, Andy]

Replayability and Top 100 Discussion

[46:20][47:26]

• Exploration is lauded—NPCs, side-quests, and clever secrets encourage experimentation and discovery.
• Would Mina make Andy’s personal top 100 list? “Yes...it would be the biggest trouble for me...but yes, it would go over God of War Ragnarok.” [48:37, Andy]

Best Weapon & Loadouts

[49:09] Mellow Fellow / [54:53] Andy Cortez

• No scythe (yet), but weapons are diverse and upgradable: Hammer, dual daggers (“Whisper and Vesper”), whip/mace, casket-shield, etc.
• Trinket loadouts are flexible—Andy swaps between exploration and boss fights, finding meaningful variety and customization.

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Technical & Platform Discussion

• Mina runs well on any device, but feels best on Steam Deck/small screens:

  "I would say play this on your Steam deck, OLED. You will not regret it." [40:28, Andy]

• The “efficient, small-scale” game design means exceptional battery life and performance on handhelds.

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Comparison to Contemporaries

• Unlike strict “souls-likes” or pure retro throwbacks, Mina synthesizes both, appealing to new players and nostalgic fans alike.
• Comparison to Silksong (Hollow Knight sequel): Mina is easier—Andy prefers Silksong’s movement, but Mina is highly enjoyable and more accessible [58:07].

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Reasons It's Not a Perfect 10

[60:00] Andy Cortez

• Story lacks subtlety and elegance.
• Generator tasks after each dungeon are tedious.
• Slightly too long near the end—momentum falters.

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Review Score & Overview: [14:55]-[18:08], [60:00]-[60:34]
• New Game Plus and Replay Value: [18:25]-[21:53]
• Design Philosophy & Comparisons: [25:47]-[34:20], [30:48]
• Puzzles & Exploration: [43:14]-[46:57]
• Weapon & Loadout Discussion: [49:09]-[57:19]
• Listener Q&A: [38:14]-[58:34]
• Why Not a 10/10? [59:30]-[60:34]

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Episode Tone & Style

The conversation is warm, lively, and packed with both analysis and personal stories—balancing critical insight with trademark Kinda Funny banter. Andy’s enthusiasm is palpable, with the rest of the crew chiming in to challenge, add context, and relay audience questions for a thorough, entertaining review. The tone is inviting even to those unfamiliar with Mina the Hollower.

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Final Summary

Mina the Hollower stands out as one of 2026’s best games—a meticulously crafted blend of Zelda and Souls sensibilities wrapped in nostalgic modernity. Andy Cortez’s glowing review (ultimately a 9.5/10) underscores its depth, polish, and charm. While not perfect—thanks to some pacing and story nitpicks—it’s a must-play for fans of action-adventure games, especially those who cherish satisfying exploration, smart puzzles, and rewarding replayability. The episode is packed with actionable impressions, tips for platform choice, and thoughtful context for anyone deciding whether to jump into Mina’s gothic world.

Transcript

[Greg Miller]

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[Kinda Funny Patreon Ad]

If you want to get our shows ad free and our exclusive shows go to patreon.com kindafunny.

[Greg Miller]

What's up everybody? Welcome to the Kind of Funny Games cast for Wednesday, May 27, 2026. I'm one of your hosts, Greg Miller alongside the Hispanic heartthrob Texas treat Latino heat. Clicking heads and ripping them to shreds. The globe trottin head shotting Rootin Tootin. Three point shootin'. Number one spurs fan in the world. Nitro arrived from Twitch tv, Andy Cortez.

[Andy Cortez]

Rough one last night, but spurs in seven.

[Greg Miller]

Wow. Okay. Yeah, so you're not. How, how much are you sweating? Tomorrow's do or die. Do or die against the Oklahoma City Fun.

[Andy Cortez]

You know I, I trust in that corgi that did the predictive.

[Greg Miller]

Sure, sure.

[Andy Cortez]

You know, hit the ball, hit the, you know, fall into the basket. They're five for five so far that dog.

[Greg Miller]

Okay.

[Andy Cortez]

They have nailed every in order.

[Greg Miller]

Okay.

[Andy Cortez]

You know, Spurs, Thunder, Thunder, Spurs Thunder. They've done it all. So it's like, all right, we trust in the process. The last two gave the Spurs a win. So I trust in that process.

[Greg Miller]

Okay, cool. Okay. Wow.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

All right. All right, good. I'm glad. I'm glad about it. I'm still. I, I want you to know I told Jen, I was like, baby, you know my mouth writes checks and then that ass has got to cash them. And I said just so you know that if Andy spurs get to the finals, I said by hooker crook, I was getting us into a game in the finals. So we're going to be going to San Antonio.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh wow.

[Greg Miller]

And she said can I come? Can Ben come? Like yeah, sure. I don't know. Why not? Yeah, we'll figure it out. I'll go to Pluckers. It'll be good.

[Andy Cortez]

It'll be real cheap.

[Greg Miller]

Ye. We're not paying for tickets.

[Andy Cortez]

Ah, okay.

[Greg Miller]

We're not gonna pay for.

[Andy Cortez]

No, but like well they would be paying for ticket, right?

[Greg Miller]

Like, well, no, cuz if I'm getting you and me tickets, I also throw two tickets in for the wife and the kids.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, so they wouldn't be going to the game?

[Greg Miller]

No, I'm. I'm saying we'd all four of us go to the game.

[Andy Cortez]

Okay, but how are, how Are they getting in?

[Greg Miller]

Don't worry. Well, I'm gonna say when I ask the people, I'm asking you for our tickets. Oh, I'm not paying for your and I tickets either.

[Andy Cortez]

No. Oh, I know. I know that. I know that. I know that.

[Greg Miller]

I'm saying we will pay for the flights. Kind of funny. We'll pay for the flight.

[Andy Cortez]

Right, right, right.

[Greg Miller]

To make your dreams come true. But then all of our connections will get us into the game.

[Andy Cortez]

But how are you getting the tickets?

[Greg Miller]

Don't worry about it. I'm not ready to reveal my sources, but I'm fairly confident I could get us into this game. Are Jen and Ben going to the game? Here's my thing. I don't think I need to worry about.

[Andy Cortez]

Be a great experience.

[Greg Miller]

It's that thing where I say it, but it's. It'll be like a seven o' clock thing. Ben would already be getting tired. He just gets crazier the later he stays up. So he'd be in the skybox doing cartwheels and shit. He wouldn't be paying attention to the game. I feel like that's just go to Pluckers with us. Then we break away. Bath time at home. Jen reads her book. You and me go out there.

[Andy Cortez]

They could go to Peter Piper Pizza.

[Greg Miller]

But why? I mean, we're going in. This is going to be a quick turn. We're going. We get pluckers. It's a pluckers. We got a pluck.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

You know what I mean?

[Andy Cortez]

Got a pluck. Knuck if you pluck.

[Greg Miller]

My name's Chuck and I like to pluck.

[Andy Cortez]

It's going to be delicious. It's going to be a good time. I mean, I would love to get there. We'll see, you know, again.

[Greg Miller]

I know. That's the problem. You can't look too far.

[Andy Cortez]

We're ahead of schedule. We're ahead of schedule. Nobody but we. Everybody was expecting. Even I was expecting be lucky. Oh, I hope we make the playoffs this year. Sure to come this far. It's like, damn, we got something special cooking. Let's, you know.

[Greg Miller]

Okay.

[Andy Cortez]

Let's keep the momentum going.

[Greg Miller]

Okay.

[Andy Cortez]

You know. But did the big question is did Wembanyama call him the code red? That's been the big discussion all morning.

[Greg Miller]

What's the code?

[Andy Cortez]

Last night, he just wasn't. Last night the spurs weren't playing great. You know, they're pulling out the starters as women. Yama is going to the bench. He whispers in two of the bench players. Ears that are coming out and he whispers in both of their ears. And, and I saw that and I was like, I hope he's calling in the code Red.

[Greg Miller]

What is the code Red?

[Andy Cortez]

The code Red is sure enough, Mason Plumlee, big ass white dude, knocks the out of Jared McCain in his back. Like, it's like, all right, let's, let's, you know, let's put a stamp on this. You know, you're not going to be roughing us up the rest of the series unless you, you know, unless the rushes don't call. Like they haven't been all serious.

[Greg Miller]

Fair enough.

[Andy Cortez]

Anyway, this is gonna be a good podcast.

[Greg Miller]

Then on top of that, I got you with the Spurs. I got Jen with the Canadians.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Canadians making a run here in the Sandy club playoffs. You know what I mean? And so that's the whole thing. They're right now behind to Carolina 2 1.

[Andy Cortez]

Ooh, Carolina Hurricanes.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. And every time we watch these games, it's bad. Carolina Hurricanes got like 30 shots on goals. Like 11 for the Canadians. Like you got to shoot more.

[Andy Cortez]

You know what I mean?

[Greg Miller]

You got to be shooting the fucking puck.

[Andy Cortez]

Hockey, Hockey experts. Who's. Who's expected to win in that series?

[Greg Miller]

Carolina.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, okay, so Carolina's like the favorite.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

Gotcha.

[Greg Miller]

Okay, I believe, if memory serves, from last round when they beat the Sabers, I went and looked at the thing and everybody who still left. So Carolina on our side, everybody was the number one seed except the Canadians who were third seed. They're not supposed to be here.

[Andy Cortez]

You know what I mean?

[Greg Miller]

People are pulling their hair out. They can't believe what they're fucking seeing. That the Habs have come this far.

[Andy Cortez]

You know Montreal.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, the Bell Center.

[Andy Cortez]

Why are they the Canadians? I don't get that.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, they're in Canada. If you didn't know everybody. This is the kind of funny gamescast. Each and every weekday we run you through the biggest video game topics we need to talk about. Whether they be reviews, previews or just sports things Andy and I need to talk about. If you like that, of course, pick up a membership. YouTube.com kindafunnygames Apple Spotify, patreon.com kindafunny to get everything ad free. Get your daily dose of me and get good karma for supporting an 11 person 11 year old. Small business, remember? Of course you can. Super chat to be part of the show live. YouTube.com kindafunnygames I want your Mina the Hollower review questions. Okay? That's what Andy is here to sound off on. I'm very excited to talk to him about it.

[Andy Cortez]

Give it to me.

[Greg Miller]

Give me your 007 impressions too. We can talk about that if you want as well. Right now, Bode Bodily K, we'll say says, can't wait for this one. Also bumping a message for Andy to check his whispers for an easy fix for his wither. I think you mean Witcher mod woes.

[Andy Cortez]

Bodily.

[Greg Miller]

What's going on?

[Andy Cortez]

Guess what I did this morning, Big dog. I did it. Oh well, that was last night.

[Greg Miller]

Okay.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, I'm a nighter. I'm a sure night cranker. But you know, Bodily sent me some information of, you know, there's a lot of people watching me do the Witcher playthrough and they're like Andy. But you got to play naturally. You can't just like do cheats and get money. But here's the thing.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

I have to play like stuff for work off stream.

[Greg Miller]

You do, and I appreciate that for

[Andy Cortez]

you when I'm on stream it's like this is kind of all you're going to get. I really can't dedicate a whole lot of time to playing off stream.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

Because not only do I have like just a life, but there's also like review stuff and things that I should be playing for work and want to play for work. So it's like I don't want to be inundating you all with a boring time of me grinding and trying to do quests to just get the, you know, to get money or whatever. So Bodick was like I. He twitch whispered me a little like dev console thing to get more money. So I'm basically typing rosebud doing the Sims feed, getting, getting in easy crowns or whatever. Sure. And so do you feel like less

[Greg Miller]

of a gamer because of it?

[Andy Cortez]

You not only cheated the you cheated,

[Greg Miller]

you learned nothing, you earned nothing. You didn't do anything.

[Andy Cortez]

I mean it worked out though. Yeah. I was able to upgrade everything to Grandmaster. I got all the dyes, the colored dyes. Cuz again, blood and wine introduced the. The blood and wine is so unbelievable. Holy fuck. Like there's no amount of hyping it up that could have overhyped it. It is so God dang good. The best storytelling I've experienced in games.

[Greg Miller]

Excellent. Yeah, I love that. Andy. Hey Greg, would you like to, before we get into the mean of the Hollow review, have another quick gamescast conversation? Sure. It's only possible of course because of our producers on patreon.com kindafunny so thank you, Carl Jacobs Omega Buster and Delaney. The som Twining.

[Andy Cortez]

Thank you guys.

[Greg Miller]

You and I have had a long running joke where often you'll some, you know, Tears of the Kingdom comes up in conversation. Witcher comes up in conversation and you say something to the effect of. What we got to do is send Jen and Ben away, put them on a vacation, do a thing.

[Andy Cortez]

Tim, San Antonio.

[Greg Miller]

No, we want to go. We want to go.

[Andy Cortez]

We just send him at a different time.

[Greg Miller]

Right now there is a plan percolating over here, homeboy, that Jen and Ben go on a camping trip while it's Benny's summer break. Because I'm taking the two weeks off like I always do, right? But three weeks off, Come on. Who am I? Yeah, you know what I mean? I'm not the Monopoly Man. This place would fall, you know, Tim goes away for three, four years, nobody notices. Greg Miller's not here three days. It's content, you know, and it's a problem.

[Andy Cortez]

I don't know if I'd agree with that. We have to watch a lot of shitty moves of the.

[Greg Miller]

We had to watch a lot of shitty movies with Nick for very few views. You know what I mean? Lord of the Rings did.

[Andy Cortez]

Lord of the Rings did pop up really, really well.

[Greg Miller]

But now the conversation becomes if I have a Monday, a Tuesday and then a Wednesday, they come back. You know what I mean? Those. But two and a half days, three days. What if we got wild with it? And what I mean is I got these two dogs over here. Yeah, they're just sleeping right there.

[Andy Cortez]

Two wieners.

[Greg Miller]

Clearly they could just sleep in the studio. What if I moved to the studio for two and a half days, you know what I mean? I'm off all shows, but I'm. I'm playing whatever. I'm playing whatever game the entire time. And so it's like picture in picture of it is I commit to one of the games that I've just. I love the Witcher. I've played, yeah, 25 hours of the Witcher when it first came out and then recently went back for another five. Will say or whatever. Like. But then reviews get in the way and I can't do anything. Tears of the kingdom. I played 40 some hours just doing shrines, never actually getting to the end and finishing. What if we. We picked one, we put it up to an audience vote and then I just moved into the studio for nice and like you all go home. I just sit there and stream. I order the pizza. I'm just. I'm playing.

[Andy Cortez]

Where are you going? To Mike's Oh, I guess I'm not that far away.

[Greg Miller]

Right. Yeah. Yeah. We got hose, too. That could be part of the bit. We get one of those camping showers. I shower out in that soap. Kevin's got a rag on a stick and he's just wiping me down. I didn't think about the shower thing. That is a good point. But other than that, I think it's a pretty rock solid plan that I could do some. I could do some damage.

[Andy Cortez]

I think this sounds great. I mean, hey, we got a big Witcher DLC coming.

[Greg Miller]

I know. Next year.

[Andy Cortez]

Expansion.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

Not dlc. Expansion.

[Greg Miller]

Expansion. That means it'll be big, man.

[Andy Cortez]

I just. I think about when we had Radic here.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

And Radic was in the studio and I was like, by the way, guys, I'm playing Witcher 3 right now. Really good game. Congratulations on this game. You helped make 12 years ago, 50, whatever it was. And. And I was like, and I'm going to get to the DLC soon. This was like, probably GDC time.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

I think it actually was. This is right before I went to Helsinki and mentioned the dlc. And I was like, yeah, I'm soaked to get the dlc. And they're like, well, we call them expansions, like dlc. We think that's, like, kind of a. That minimizes what it actually is.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

When we do dlc, it's download, you know, T shirt. Yeah. Get little cosmetics or get a little, like, challenge or whatever the hell these are. These are, like, big expansions that we think add massive value to the game.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

And ever since then, I've just had that in my mind. And then I saw on Twitter a couple of CD Projekt Red CD Projekt Red devs saying it's. It's an expansion, it's not dlc. And I am just so pumped for whatever the heck this is going to be, especially hearing that CD Projekt Red is, of course, like, really, really involved. Like, yeah. It's not them. Yeah. Or whatever. But yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

I. This gets me super excited for, like, future possibilities of what this could. Of what could happen in the industry.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

When inevitably people keep punching or pinching pennies way more and it's like, why

[Greg Miller]

would they do that?

[Andy Cortez]

What if we. What if. What if there's a new expansion to another old game that we do and we, like, make it count and make it good. I don't know. It gets me excited about the possibilities out there.

[Greg Miller]

I'm excited for this.

[Andy Cortez]

The Witcher 3 could. I think that would be the choice though, for me.

[Greg Miller]

You think so over tears. Again, neither are games. I don't feel. I know. Or you know. I mean, I know that I. I love both of them, but I need. I've never rolled credits in either.

[Tim Gettys]

What if I throw in the ring? Persona 5?

[Andy Cortez]

No. Why not?

[Greg Miller]

Again, the whole turn based thing. We've had this conversation on the show. It's a strange turn based one that grabs me sometimes.

[Andy Cortez]

It hits you.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. Yeah. I have to be in such a mood for that.

[Andy Cortez]

You know what I mean, man? Like, I. I cannot overstate how blown away I am by the storytelling in the Witcher. Like, it does not.

[Greg Miller]

There's no bad side questing quotes because they're all great quests.

[Andy Cortez]

Well, so, I mean, you know, there would be some filler stuff that maybe don't hit great and maybe they're fine to do off stream, but like, there's been a lot of great people helping me from the community saying, do this on stream.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

People are going to want to watch your reactions to this, to this, to this, to this. And the level of quality, the level of interconnectedness that so many of these missions have.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

But especially with Blood and Wine right now, like, holy, man, I thought Hearts of Stone was awesome. Blood and Wine is like even more incredible. It's. It's quite an experience, man. I. And I totally get it and I get that I'm not really saying anything too surprising right now, but holy crap, man, it's so freaking good. Okay, really, really great.

[Greg Miller]

Let's think about that. Let's do on that. Okay. For now though, let's do Gotz. On topic of the show, Mina the hollower is one day away. And of force is coming out Thursday, May 28th. Price 20 bucks, $19.99 from publisher and developer Yacht Club Games. Of course, coming to everything Steam. Description reads, take control of Mina, a renowned Hollower hurdled into a desperate mission to rescue a cursed island Whip foes, burrow through the ground and explore a pixel perfect world in Mina the Hollower, a brand new game from the developers who brought you Shovel Knight. Andy. Just two weeks ago, we sat down here and did a preview of Mina the Hollower. The first few hours, you, me, we talked it up, we chatted it up. We had a good time over here. And as I said on that show, you know, I respect it. I just don't have a lineage with these games. It's not my. I see the quality. Everything else, you. Even through the preview, I could feel you glowing and how much you had connected with this game and how much you would love this game. How many hours into Mina the Hollower are you? Did you roll credits? And what would you put it on the kind of funny scale?

[Andy Cortez]

Well, it's funny you asked that, Greg, because during the preview we had the review codes already and it was kind of an odd one where I didn't really know how much we could talk about during the preview like that. We knew what we couldn't say, but I wasn't sure progress wise.

[Greg Miller]

Sure.

[Andy Cortez]

It was a very obvious, maybe not obvious, you know, moment where Tim asks me, how many hours are you into Mina the Hollower? And I just sort of froze. I was like, many.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, yeah, I heard you, I heard you.

[Andy Cortez]

I played many an hour because I just wasn't sure what I could talk about. But really at that point I had already played about 12 hours.

[Greg Miller]

Okay.

[Andy Cortez]

Mean of the hollower took me 28 hours to complete. Okay. Pretty much in line with what their estimations were. They said that it'll take 20 to 30 hours to beat and Meme of the Hollower is currently my game of the year. I love this video game. I love this experience. I wasn't sure exactly what it was going to be and how deep some of the systems would go, but I just really appreciated and, and fell in love with their design ethos and how they, how they tackled certain challenges in world and level design and how they kept on surprising me with awesome, you know, neat little elements about the levels, weapons, abilities, boss fights, random things that would just happen that are the FromSoft thing that a lot of other developers do it as well. But I call the FromSoft thing where, well, if you talk to that person with this or if you do this in that order, then this special thing would happen. There are, there are a lot of little surprises like that that I really appreciate because to me that's always like the dev going the extra mile. And it's not, it's not great to solely judge a game based on things that you could miss because that's a nightmare for developers. I always think back to my time playing Me and Mike got to preview Split Fiction.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

And Joseph Faris talked about all of that stuff. He just, just experienced and loved. That's all optional and you could miss all of that, which a lot of our developers are like, fuck, are you serious? Like, we think people need to see this, but we think it's also super special when people happen upon this sort of stuff. There's plenty of things like that In Mina the Hollower, I. I kept on trying to drill down the point during that preview that I don't think you need to be nostalgic for this style of game.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

This does not. This is not one of those games that you had to be there when these games rot in order to enjoy this. I think aesthetically it presents itself that way. Everything else is all of the modern game design. You know, things that you would prefer and enjoy in a modern video game. The game's awesome. It's 1999. What a freaking awesome Price from Yacht Club. They knocked it out of the park with this and I'm so glad that they took the time that they needed on this because it. It seems like everything was worth it in the end. There's a couple of things keeping this from a 10 out of 10 for me.

[Greg Miller]

I was going to say you haven't scored it. You said Game of the Year so far. Over Sorrows. Crazy.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah. A couple things keeping from a 10 out of 10 for me. But it is still like one of the most easiest recommended games of me for the year. I give this a. I give this a 9 out of 10. It is a phenomenal experience. You will not be disappointed if you play Mean of the Hollower. I love it.

[Greg Miller]

Here's my jump to the end question, because we'll go through it and everything and yada yada, yada. But one of the things that stood out in Sam Claiborne's IGN review, no spoilers, but was him talking about his latest new Game plus run that there's a whole bunch. Are you still playing Mina 28 hours later or do you plan to put even more time into it? Is this a game you're going to come back to a lot over the year?

[Andy Cortez]

I think because of the current state of just us playing a lot of

[Greg Miller]

things having to me because you haven't even started. You started Bond but you're barely into Bond.

[Andy Cortez]

I would need to. I would need to be told from people continuing their new game. Plus I would need to be told something on the level of Near Automata. Okay, that dude, you're going to want to go back because of what? Like I would need to experience something like that in order to want to go back. But when you do beat it, you know, I did start New Game plus and I haven't really gone far at all. But I mean if the experience keeps on expanding and if there's. If there are wildly different moments in the game, then I would definitely want to keep on playing it because I Loved my time with it.

[Greg Miller]

Can I read you two paragraphs from Sam's review?

[Andy Cortez]

I would love to give you a

[Greg Miller]

little bit of context. I like to see how this hits with you. This is Sam Clayborne ign.com A 10 out of 10 over there, by the way. To get to that ending takes a while too. After 23 hours I rolled credits with 72% completion and immediately started into new game plus to find all the stuff I didn't have the first time around. Those 23 hours were more than enough for me to fall head over heels for Mina, but there's a lot more too. You can go for 100% completion within your original save thanks to a clearly labeled point of no return. But what's interesting is that since your completion rate and all the treasures you've found will carry over into new game plus, you can continue to chip away at that 100% goal in your new save file as well. Returning to boss fights with all your gear or noticing that crack in the wall you forgot to delve into the first time around is a blast. I've never played a game that allows you to do a second playthrough with a bunch of chests sitting there open while others remain undiscovered. Extremely cool. On top of that, each new game plus through the seventh run has unique permutations. The initial version I'm on now has far fewer save spots, making run backs an absolute killer. Which blissfully is not a concern in the base playthrough. And for you old school cheat code fans, then he goes into the modifications and stuff like that. But yeah, this his talking about the seventh run having all these permutations I thought was interesting.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah there was a documentation that we were given to kind of show how things change and I if I if there were any more detail on how much things change, they probably get into spoilers and they probably wanted to avoid that. But they did mention less runbacks here, extra amount of health on enemies, whatever, whatever. And you know, here's how. Here's percentage wise how how things break down for every subsequent playthrough. But yeah, I don't know, I think I would need to have some massive moments where similar in Armored Core 6, which is a game that me and Barrett love and when you whenever you play that game and you do the new game plus it really does require you to play new game plus two and three or whatever because you certain bot you could take the other side this time around and then those people that were on your side the first time will now be against you. And it creates a whole new dynamic. Right. I would need something along those lines of, like, these are the massive differences in this video game. But yeah, I.

[Greg Miller]

It's.

[Andy Cortez]

It's such a special video game, Greg. It's. It's awesome to. To explore. I love every new level. Presenting the new gimmick.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

And it's always just so smartly and expertly done. I do think it. I think it goes on maybe an hour too long.

[Greg Miller]

Okay.

[Andy Cortez]

There are moments near the end where I'm like, oh, man.

[Tim Gettys]

What?

[Greg Miller]

So it's repetitious? It's doubling back?

[Andy Cortez]

No, it's the. It's feeling the momentum of I am near the end.

[Greg Miller]

Ah, okay.

[Andy Cortez]

And you're. Okay. There's. There's a little bit more, which. A little bit more is not bad. More video game is not bad. Especially nowadays when, you know, I see people saying, like, man, 70 bucks for. For 007 first slide. Like, I've. You're not getting a whole lot of gameplay there. And, you know, you could have your opinions about whatever the, you know, how deep the gameplay could go, but I. I think that more video game isn't bad. I just feel like, man, we're really, like, rushing towards the end and things are.

[Greg Miller]

There's good momentum. Good momentum.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, yeah. And then there's like a whole new thing to kind of explore and do and get through. And I was like, ah, dang. I kind of felt like the ending was coming and not. Not because I wanted it to end, because I feel like that everything felt like, all right, if this ends right here, this could be a 10 out of 10 masterpiece. There's some other things that do bother me about the game too, but that, you know, that's neither here nor there. We'll talk about negatives later on.

[Greg Miller]

We're talking about 9.0.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah. The game is amazing. I. I really enjoyed my experience. I. I think that it's one of those that will continue to surprise people if you try to get more out of it. You know, when. When Tam and I talk about Elden Ring, and Tam always mentioned that Elden Ring is like the game that keeps on giving. This is that. But like the diet version, you know, this is not anywhere on that scale in terms of the amount of things you could do and explore. But there are so many secrets, so many abilities. You could see. You could see the amount of time that was poured into this game like it is right in front of you. The level of quality with the art and the sprites and the amount of NPCs that have all these little funky, quirky little side quests that you can experience, it's just a freaking joy to play. It's challenging when it needs to be. It's not the, the toughest game in the world, but there will be some kind of skill checks here and there that you could make yourself a little bit better. It very much is the. It has that sort of design thing that they mentioned of. Reminds you of Elden Ring where if you're struggling, you're in the wrong spot.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

Go somewhere else. These enemies are too strong for you. And the game gives you plenty of hints in its design. Whenever you're picking up little messages or whenever you finish a level and you get that little newspaper that says this new area is kind of like up or whatever and you go, okay, that they want me.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

There is an order that is best to take the game on with, but you could kind of just do it in whatever order you want. It's really, it's really surprising in that way that I experience one of. I experienced a level way later on that a lot of people experience way earlier. And I was really surprised by that because for me it kind of capped off a. An experience for me where the, the area that I was in, I was like dming Jason Shar. I was like, this is so genius.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

And he was like, oh yeah. I took that on way later or I took that on way earlier. And I was like, damn, I'm experiencing this way later in the game. I don't know. It's one of those really special video game video games, you know.

[Greg Miller]

So we've been talking. Like I said, I think towards the end of this, assuming everyone knows what Mina the Hollower is, obviously plenty of people are showing up to this review and maybe audio only, not fully understanding what this is. So Andy, what is the elevator pitch for what Mina the Hollower is?

[Andy Cortez]

Mina the Hollower is a Zelda, an old school Zelda video game with an awesome like 8 bit art style that Yacht Club is known for, much like they had with Shovel Knight. And it is, it's the most modern version of a, of an old school Zelda game.

[Greg Miller]

Okay.

[Andy Cortez]

You have, you know, much like you go to the different worlds in Zelda to collect the different jewels or crests or whatever. You're doing something very similar here in Mina the Hollower with a lot of depth in the combat and abilities that you are picking up and a lot of freedom as well. There's like so many ways to Kind of play the way you want to play. And if things are a little too difficult for you, there are plenty of ways to make it more approachable. And if the game's too easy for you, there are ways to make it more challenging. And. And I think they really excel in that. This really feels like this version amino the hollower feels like the version of a game that comes out eight months after it releases.

[Greg Miller]

Okay. With all the bells, whistles, updates.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

With Crimson Desert. Yeah, yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

With all the bells and whistles and. And you know, critiques and, you know, people, you know, the devs listening to critiques and feedback.

[Greg Miller]

We didn't like that. We put more save points. We did this thing.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah. This feels like whenever people say, I'll, I'll let you all. I'll let you all beta test that game for the first couple of months, I'll get the game. A year from now, when the collector's edition or the game of the year edition comes out, this feels like that version of the game. It is. It is so feature rich. And there's. If you have something that you'd like to customize about your experience, it's probably in the video game.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. That was again from my preview time with it. Right. That was something I was putting over as these modifiers. You can go in and really tailor this game to be the experience you want it to be. If you aren't enjoying going out there because you talk about Zelda, the other influence so many people bring up with the souls likes.

[Andy Cortez]

Right.

[Greg Miller]

If you're not enjoying going out there, getting beat by something, dropping all your souls or bones in this game and then having to go pick them back up, you can turn that off, you can turn that on. You can put on a God mode. You can move faster, damage tax can do more damage, your attacks can do less, so on and so forth. If you want it harder, if you want it easier, like they really are giving you a suite of options to make this as approachable as possible. I think is dope.

[Andy Cortez]

Jason and told Jason sh. Had told me that on his. He was already in his second playthrough and turned on random items.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

Where I'm not sure if it's every time you die or every time you venture out, but it equips you with random items. So that's just one way to kind of keep things fresh. There's a lot of different things like that to kind of make your experience and tailor it to your. To what you want to experience.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. I want to bring in a few of the other reviews if you don't mind. Andy bounce them off you. Right now It's a metacritic of 92. Like I said. Same over at IGN gave it a 10. I want to flip over to Steve Watts at Gamespot who gave it a 9. I am awed by what Yacht Club Games has created here. Mina the Hollower is so ambitious and dense and sprawling that it's hard to believe that it is contained in such a modest presentation. It surpasses the boundaries of mere homage or retro throwback to become something new, fresh, inventive and exciting. Shovel Knight was a well deserved success debut for Yacht Club. Mina the Hollower may be its masterpiece. Kyle over at Game Informer gave it an 8.75. Mina the hollower looks like a nostalgic throwback, but is it undeniably. And it undeniably is. But its thoughtful design and larger sensibilities make it play and feel like a contemporary video game, one that has taken the right lessons from the medium's history. And then I wanted your opinion on this one. Over at Giant Bomb, Mike Minati gave it 3.5 out of 5 stars, writing somehow the Dark Souls influences keep Mina the Hollower from being the best Zelda style game it could be, while the Zelda mechanics prevent it from reaching the heights of the best souls likes. Where does that hit with you? Because again, me being excited off the SGF preview, getting all I'm sorry, not SGF GDC preview we did with Nintendo, then getting the building, getting in and being like oh there's more going. There's a lot going on here and I see all of it and I respect all of it, but I don't want to invest my time in it. And I've been really trying to reverse engineer what that's all about. And is it not only the gothic setting, which has never been my vibe, but I love Halloween. Is it the animals, which has also never been my thing. When I talk about how much I love Octopath, Traveler 0 and here are sprite based things. It's not a visual thing. I've been racking my head about it and again for me Souls like stuff is a turn off and just not my bag. Not the difficulty of it but the run backs and the get your head kicked in until you figure out the pattern, yada yada. But I love Zelda so I'm I'm in such a weird place where I really wanted this to work for me and the fact that it doesn't. I'm wondering if there's truth in that.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah. Like, there's something about the gameplay that when I first started, I was like, oh shit, this is way more soulsy in how like frenetic the action is.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

That I wasn't necessarily expecting. But like, at the end of the day, it still very much feels like an old school Zelda game where you drop your shit and you gotta go recover it. Yeah, yeah, like that's, that's kind of as far as it goes. And maybe there isn't that much of a difference there anyway. Like, maybe I am explaining the exact differences that there are, but the Zelda mechanics prevent it from reaching the heights of the best souls likes. I, I mean, I think it's like a almost a perfect meshing of both, melding of both. I think that when you are in these worlds exploring the, what I call like the level gimmicks, I think are just like really genius ways to have fun with that area. Because it's not just an aesthetic, an aesthetic change that you're going to with the way that the game is formatted and structured. You are an island that you are returning to because this technology has gone haywire. And it's technology that you helped invent and this technology helps power everything or whatever, but things are kind of going bad. But all of the generators are off on all of these different parts of the island. So you have to go to each zone to go help out and go recharge these power generators. And each one of these zones is its own place. It's, you know, just like in any other game where you'd have the fire level or the whatever level. Here you have a forest area, you have a, an area in a swamp, you have an area in a castle. There's a lot of different, like, you know, little zones that you go to and each one of them has just really, really smart mechanics that, that as I'm playing it, I'm like, damn, that's, that's real good.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

And it doesn't really go much deeper than that for me.

[Greg Miller]

Like, hey man, that's all you need.

[Andy Cortez]

There's no, there's no real way for me to try to like wax poetic and get like deep in, in the vocabulary thesaurus Duffy, to try to impress people with my, my game critique skills. It's just like as I'm playing, I'm like, that's smart. Yeah, that's such a smart thing to have this level sort of design around. And as you get deeper and deeper into the level, you know that gimmick Sort of, you know, kind of gets twisted and turned here and there and gets a little bit more difficult and the enemies get tougher. And then they might add a new thing that you kind of have to tackle and, and deal with to, in order to kind of deal with the current gimmick that you are already playing through. I, I think it's so smart in that way. And there are plenty of little optional side paths in different rooms that you can go to and talk to a random npc. And the random NPC is like, damn, I, I really miss my wife. Can you, can you take me to her? Like, I, I'm missing her. And it's like, all right, I think this guy's a ghost. And then you take him to an area and suddenly, you know, things go, things go down. And it's like, I love this stuff because I couldn't have experienced that had I not gone down this path. Sure, it has all those surprises that, that you would want, but it also has all those really smart Zelda style things where in Link to the Past, when you fall down that one hole in the ground. Yeah, you fall, you drop down to an area and you're like, oh, I'm here now. If I go back up there, does that other hole mean that I drop down to a different spot? And sure enough, it does. It has all those things that you would want and love from a Zelda game, but man, it's got some just insanely smart ways to kind of.

[Greg Miller]

And I think that's where the modern stuff change the formula where it's like, you know, to fall through the hole. I played through that section in this game, right. And when I first fell down, I was like, oh, okay. And then you can get right back to where you were to try out the other holes to find out the other secrets to get down there.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Greg Miller]

So it's like that, it's giving you that reward. Like, everything I was doing in Mina felt doable. Like it wasn't like, ah, what the fuck? And then when it would be that I'd see your chest, I couldn't get to. I was like, I'm looking forward to figuring out how to get there.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, come back to the home city, Essex. Essex Town or Essex City, and you get back and there's always something you do upgrade or discover. There might be an NPC that is you can now talk to because whatever you achieved makes it so that you could talk to them now. It's just such a, It's a game full of life. It's like full. It's so quirky and adorable and yeah, I think it's just like it's the perfect melding of an old school Zelda game with the combat that you would want from a souls game. You don't have a dodge roll necessarily, but you do burrow in the ground to get away from enemies or you burrow on the ground just to stay underground because you know that during that period of you being away from the attacks the there's going to be beams of lasers or whatever and that's how you avoid it. It's got all of that stuff that you would want from modern combat in a way that doesn't feel too old style, old school, you know, like I, I, I love Link to the past. I think a link to the past is one of the masterpieces of all time. And of course as I'm playing I'm like I wish I had a dodge roll or I wish I, I wish as I attacked, you know, things were a bit different because modern things have just changed the way we play and experience video games. But yeah, I it's got everything you would want from a modern top down game. It's not going to feel like old games, old at all.

[Greg Miller]

Okay.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Andy, I have a lot of questions piling in from Kinda Funny Best friends just like you on YouTube.com kindafunnygames where you can super chat to be part of the show. But before then I'll remind you to go to YouTube, to go to Patreon, to go to Apple and Spotify and pick up a Kinda Funny membership so you can get all of our shows ad free. Get your daily dose of me, Greg Miller and a 15 to 20 minute podcast I do each and every day and of course get good karma for supporting an 11 person 11 year old small business. But right now you're not using your benefits. So here's a word from our sponsors. This episode is brought to you by 5 Hour Energy. Meet the energy shot that tastes just like birthday cake. Confetti craze extra strength five Hour Energy tastes like a rich buttery vanilla birthday cake, frosting and all. Light the candles, make a wish and get ready to celebrate with every sip. Feel unstoppably energized with as much caffeine as your favorite favorite 12 ounce fancy coffee but with zero sugar and zero sugar crashes. For more information and to get the party started, visit five Hour Energy or Amazon today.

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[Greg Miller]

got the question stacking up from Kinda Funny Best Friends, but instead I'll start with kinda funny CEO Jr. Aka Tim Jr. Aka Sad Boy Barrett, aka our Zelda expert Barry. You wanted to kick it off with a question we got for me?

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, I'm going to take you on a different route here other than asking about Zelda stuff, because everything Andy is saying has me very excited to check it out. Have not had time to play it yet. But Andy, I have a question for you. What did you play it on and do you think it would run well on my newly purchased Ayn Thor?

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, it would run great. Oh yeah. Hell yeah. Yeah, that's one thing.

[Tim Gettys]

Maybe I wait for my Thor to

[Andy Cortez]

come in then first off, congratulations. You'll get that game native or Game Hub, whichever one runs it better. And then you can run your native Steam games or whatever. That's one thing that I also I'm so glad you brought this up, Barrett.

[Greg Miller]

Is this where to play?

[Andy Cortez]

Huh?

[Greg Miller]

This is gonna be a where to play?

[Andy Cortez]

Well, I I played most of it on my Steam deck and on PC.

[Greg Miller]

Jeff Bull Jr. I want to just slide in here super chat and said am I going to be playing this on my Steam deck oled or on Switch 2? Or do do I want oh do I want OLED pop or do I want the Switch 2's bigger screen? I feel like that's getting involved in the questions kind of. I just wanted to get it out there before we said anything.

[Andy Cortez]

I don't think the bigger screen of the Switch 2 would benefit you in this case. Yeah, especially because I played this game. I have a I have a 32 inch OLED monitor at home. I played this game primarily with this game windowed at about like a 10 inch screen or whatever. And then I had like something else up on the monitor, like just, you know, playing in the background.

[Greg Miller]

Back to it. Like for me, I played that preview handheld and I played it at GDC handheld and when I did put it on the tv, I was like, oh, back to handheld. Like, I don't like it on my gigantic tv.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, there's something about the, the scaling of the sprites that personally, this is like not me saying anything scientific. This is all just pure subjective opinion. I, I don't love the size of those sprites on a screen that large. I think it's kind of like disorienting.

[Greg Miller]

Well, that's why. And this is supposed to look like a Game Boy game.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And then, yeah, it reminds me of whenever I busted out one of my favorite games from my past that I hadn't played in about 25 or 30 years, which is Zelda Oracle of Seasons. And when I busted those out, I'm like, oh, that's right. This, this being a Game Boy game was on a much smaller screen. So the sprites were huge and much larger than you would expect Link to be on the screen. Like he takes up so much of the screen in the old Zelda in the Oracle games. And it's like, it's definitely one of those where I go, oh, I prefer this on a smaller display. So I would say play this on your Steam deck, oled. You will not regret it. And then if you have a PC that's. Well, any PC can play this game. You could play it. You don't need any crazy monster rig to play it. It'll run great. And you could do like picture in picture and play however you want.

[Tim Gettys]

It sounds like maybe I do wait for the Thor for this. Because when I played the Oracle games for the first time for Zelda in review, I played that on my 2D S XL and I felt like that screen was kind of the perfect size for those games where I remember going back to the Minish cap and I played that on Twitch and I had that kind of same experience that you're talking about where it's like that being a Game Boy advance game, seeing how big those sprites were transferred onto a bigger screen, it kind of felt off

[Andy Cortez]

putting a little bit. Yeah, it felt like unnatural. I would say OLED was a perfect experience for me. And another thing that I love about this game is you Know, similar to Shovel Knight, where I don't know if the same exact tech was used here, but with, with Shovel Knight, one of the things I was always lauded about its development was that the sound files of the whole game could fit on a, on an NES cart.

[Greg Miller]

Okay.

[Andy Cortez]

Because they were done exactly the way they were done back in the day. That, you know, it wasn't like some big instrumentation and like that's, that's how efficiently made things were. And I don't know if that was the case for the new one. Love the soundtrack, by the way, but I loved that I played this game for about close to three hours on my Steam deck one night and I looked at my battery and I was at 84%, like crazy. Because this game is so light. It is not like this big resource intense hawk. It just like it is so efficiently made because it is such a small scale experience.

[Greg Miller]

I want to give you a question from Big five, who wrote in and said, is it puzzling like a Zelda? I feel like I hear mostly about the combat.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, it's definitely. I mean, I don't know if there's going to be any moments where you're like, damn, I'm stuck. I can't figure out this puzzle. It's more of like you are a puzzle piece in the puzzle. The way that you traverse the world, the way that you deal with the different obstacles and level design. There's a lot of really smart, creative things that you could do in this world. For example, there's a level that, that has different pockets of lava and it's just like a little square, you know, on your grid, your one by one spaces that like Mina takes up one space on the pixel grid or whatever, there might be a square of lava. And if you burrow near the lava, you go into the ground as Mina the hollower. And then if you stay under the ground, you make a trail. The lava will then take the trail of the hole that you dug and you use that as a way to open new doors, to defeat enemies, to unlock secrets or light up paths. There's also some really cool puzzle moments where it's like, this is definitely a secret and you're not supposed to do this, but it's there if you figure out that it's possible. And there will be moments where there's an area you can get to on the very, very bottom right of the screen. But it's like in pitch black. It's just like pitch black, like complete darkness. But there is a lava thing up there that you can then burrow a hole. And if you burrow the track correctly, the lava ends up drying up and then it stops being. It stops like lighting up the environment or whatever. And. But if you do it correctly, the area will then light up over there. And you can then, if you run over there quickly enough before the lava dries up, you'll be able to see what you're doing and get to that spot. So there's a lot of things like that, but I don't know if there's been anything necessarily that I'm like, damn, I don't know how to figure this out. You know, where you get like insanely stuck.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

But there's still like a lot of puzzling moments that the game makes you feel smart still.

[Greg Miller]

See, that was my thing from the preview, the five hours or whatever it was. I forget it was more, but it was like the things that it would present me of like, oh, shit, how do. Oh, wait, hold on. There's a gap over there that I go under here and I pop out over there and I do X, Y, boom. Now I'm to that area I wasn't for. How do I open? Get this. There isn't a bridge here. And this is before. This is when we were previewing. I didn't know the whole, like, you can go anywhere it's open. Where I was like, shit, do I do this later? And then I was like, I'll ignore it. And I organically worked my way all around like, ah, there's the bridge. All right, open the bridge. Cool. I feel good about that.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, it. There's. There's plenty of moments like this game has that shit all over the place. There are unending moments of you going, oh, shit. I feel smart because I figured this out and because they allowed me to figure this out.

[Greg Miller]

So take me then from this Zelda puzzle question over to kenjr61 who super chats on YouTube.com kind of funny games just like you can it says. So hyped for Mina. What was your exploration rating? Hypothetically? Since votes are in, does this fall anywhere in your top 100? We'll save the top 100 for a second. But for exploration, how did that feel?

[Andy Cortez]

Exploration was amazing. Explore. There are again so many different secrets and things to discover and NPCs to talk to and people that have their own motives and people that are in the castle that are talking about random that relates to other things that you go, oh, I think. I think I met your relative back at the home town or whatever. Like There's. Yeah, there's so many things like that that if you go the extra mile, you will be rewarded with a cool discovery or something that makes you feel like, man, not everybody may experience this, but I'm experiencing it because I. I decided to go the extra mile. Love that it has so many moments like that.

[Greg Miller]

And then, of course, we are theoretically approaching kind of Funny's top 100 games of all time, where we all put in our top 100 games and then we do it and we go thing. But there's a whole thing with the city and there's yada, yada. So throw that part of the event part out of it. Barrett would be the first to tell you the cutoff was 2025 games. So nothing from 2026 can enter our top 100s. But if you could, do you think this would go somewhere in your top 100? It's your game of the year right now. A lot of time left on the clock.

[Andy Cortez]

My goatee right now. Yeah, Now. James Bond's been awesome so far.

[Greg Miller]

Hell yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

Maybe that overtakes it. But it's my goatee right now.

[Greg Miller]

Go before this. Yes. Okay.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah. I'm trying to think of the bottom of the list. It's. I'm kind of blanking on what would be near the bottom. It would. We'd be in that sort of territory where we're in the old school in review way of grading stuff, where we go. Yeah, yeah. And so that. I think that would be the biggest trouble for me. I'm trying to.

[Greg Miller]

Look, I was just wondering, you know, like, can I ask. You don't have to have a whole. Can I.

[Tim Gettys]

Can I throw one out? Can I throw one out there for you, Andy? Near the bottom of your list, please.

[Andy Cortez]

Tech mobile. See, the thing about tech Mobile, it's like. It's so, like I have a lot of. A lot of memories that are like a lot of memories tied to the foundation, you know?

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

It wouldn't go over Techno ball.

[Greg Miller]

Damn, damn, damn.

[Andy Cortez]

But if you're asking me, is this a better game than technical.

[Greg Miller]

Yes, of course. Yeah, yeah. 100 different conversation there.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Okay. Okay.

[Andy Cortez]

I'm trying to think of, like, something more modern near the bottom. Okay.

[Tim Gettys]

Another one more modern. God of war, Ragnarok.

[Andy Cortez]

Damn. Damn. Holy shit. Damn. I had that. That low. I didn't know I had it. Ragnarok. That low. Shit. Yeah. I'd say yes.

[Greg Miller]

This over?

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, over. Ragnarok. Raggy.

[Tim Gettys]

I know exactly where it would be then.

[Greg Miller]

Mellow. Fellow super chats. YouTube.com kind of funny games favorite weapon. And is there a scythe?

[Andy Cortez]

Dude, there's no scythe, but that would be an amazing addition. So much. You know, it just goes to show, Greg, how. How inexperienced some gamers can be around. Exactly the. Around these parts here.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

And when I say these parts, I mean like this studio where Tim is like, you get to use three weapons and it's like, oh, is this like a roguelite type of deal? Guys never played bloodborne like us.

[Greg Miller]

Idiot.

[Andy Cortez]

He's never played bloodborne like idiot. You start off with three weapons that you could choose and you could experiment with all three of them. Near the beginning of the. How the game starts and you have access to their version of like the threaded cane. And it's essentially like a whip.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, that's the.

[Andy Cortez]

That has like a kind of mace

[Greg Miller]

on the end of it.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, a little mace at the end of it. Then you have access to a big old hammer and you got access to dual sides. Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

The daggers. No. Dual daggers.

[Andy Cortez]

Well, yeah. Dual daggers.

[Greg Miller]

What are the names again? They got a good name. I forget.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, it was so sick. It was like rhythm and dance. But I, I started off with a

[Greg Miller]

hammer Whisper and Vesper.

[Andy Cortez]

That's awesome.

[Greg Miller]

It's good.

[Andy Cortez]

I started off with the hammer.

[Greg Miller]

Okay.

[Andy Cortez]

The hammer not only lets you what the cool thing about these weapons is they are upgradable. They have two different things that you could make them. You know, you can have them control and cool away. I don't want to spoil the other two weapons.

[Greg Miller]

Sure.

[Andy Cortez]

But there are two other different weapons that you would find along your journey. And they are also very, very cool and have really neat upgrades. And you upgrade them by going to the dude who upgrades weapons. There's a blacksmith in the game and there's again awesome surprises everywhere. So like there's. There's always cool happening. But when you upgrade these weapons, the hammer upgrade goes from. Not when you tap attack. It does a normal little thing. Right. There's a normal little. Just use like the butt end of the hammer.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

Attack. When you hold X, you charge a big old heavy boom hits the. You know, you bonk an enemy and does way more damage. But when you are charging, you can't really move. You can only like kind of dodge roll. But you're always aiming the direction that you started the charge.

[Greg Miller]

Okay.

[Andy Cortez]

So if I'm facing right and I start to charge, I can tap down, tap down and my. And Mina will. Will dodge, roll down, dodge, roll down. Dodge, roll down or back or up or whatever direction you want. But you are always facing that little direction. And when you upgrade that, it then turns into chunkier charge. You could charge extra and it does like an extra blast near the end of it. The. The dual. The Dual Daggers. The Dual Daggers have a really neat upgrade where you just sort of like have that stabby stab. One thing I wish about the Dual Daggers is I wish you could hold down an attack and hopefully maybe that's an approachability or.

[Greg Miller]

I was gonna say, did you check any of the options for.

[Andy Cortez]

But right. It requires you to just like tap, tap to do the stab, stab, stab. But then it has an upgrade where if you hit A and Y at the same time, then you do like a. A dash sort of move and you sort of like shing, you know, you like sort of stab them damage. And then the threaded cane variant of like the. The whip with the mace at the end of it. I don't remember what that upgrade was. I didn't really ever use that weapon a whole lot, but I used the hammer primarily along with a different weapon that you eventually. Oh, well, they've showed it plenty in trailers. So I'll tell you about one of the above. It's a. It's a casket. That's a shield.

[Greg Miller]

That's awesome.

[Andy Cortez]

And the shield blocks the shield. Also the shield protect and attack. And so the shield, like, if you hit the attack button, it'll like do a little shield bash. If you tap it and keep it held down, then you attack. And now you're holding it to protect from some damage. And it does protect a decent amount from damage. If you tap at the right time and attack, it parries and a bunch of hands and like monster arms come out of the shield to attack the enemy back. And it's essentially like, that's awesome. You time it correctly, it parries. The way it upgrades. If you double tap attack, you throw it as like a boomerang.

[Greg Miller]

No, like Captain America.

[Andy Cortez]

And then you can. It'll come back to you and damage enemies on the way. But if you don't let it come back to you, you can jump off the shield to get more height and distance on your jump. And that leads to a lot more exploration to where like, there are plenty of times where I'm accidentally tap double tapping the button and throwing my weapon instead of like just trying to.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

You know, I feel like maybe that could be ironed out in some different ways. Maybe we attach the throw to a different button combo or whatever. But there are plenty of Moments where you look in the area and you're like, oh, shit, I have this jumping ability now to where I could jump an extra couple of tiles. I remember that one trinket or the one treasure in this one zone. That's how I can scale that gap. It's so cool and creative.

[Greg Miller]

Here's you stumble on something. You talk a lot during the preview about trinkets. Yeah, right. These things that you can put on and they stack and they do all these cool things and they augment your gameplay. When you talked about it in the preview sense, I didn't think about it in the big picture sense. But again, same over in his IGN review, One of the things he talked about was using a different loadout of trinkets when he was off exploring and then a different trinket loadout when he was attacking. When you needed dps, did you find yourself doing that or did you just, like, set it and forget it?

[Andy Cortez]

No, no, I was always switching stuff up, especially when I got into different moments of the boss fights. Yeah, I totally agree. Like, because of the amount of bonfires, you know, or. Or burrowing holes that would take you back to your little, like, base. The. There's gonna be plenty of those around the world. So you, you know that there's a boss fight that I just died to. I can go, you know, set my. My trinket set up however I wanted. But when you start off with the trinkets, you feel like, okay, I, oh, I can equip two now. I bought this upgrade that lets me have two trinkets and one trinket gives me an extra life. Bam. Sekiro Shadows Die Twice. I come back to life. My other trinket raises my offense by one or my defense by one. Or it. I drink plasma vials twice as fast, and I don't lose plasma vials when I'm hit.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

Because it takes a while to kind of. To chug that juice. Which is the problem that, like, you know, we think of a lot of, like, souls games that Especially me with Dark Souls 2, where I'm like, why does it take so long to just gulp down that juice?

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

Here it's way faster and you don't get interrupted if you get hit while you're drinking it. Another one I have is another one that I ended up discovering was like, whenever you fully drink a vial, you send out like, two missiles towards the enemy. That's like, some damage. There are so many different abilities. I think I maybe have like 30 or something unlocked so far. And they all change up the game in a lot of different ways. So, yeah, I totally agree with that assessment. You will have different stuff when you're just exploring because you want maybe to be able to reach more places. You maybe want to be able to float in the air a bit more. And there's a couple trinkets that help you float in the air, an extra couple tiles. There's a couple trinkets that if you know you're going to be gone for a long time and you may not have the amount of heals you need, there's a trinket that whenever you get hit, a little wisp comes up and, like, gives you a little, like, life. It'll kind of, like, as long as you're around it. There's a lot of different things to kind of make the experience feel really varied. And, yeah, as soon as I got to the final boss of this game, I was struggling after a couple tries, and then I had to rethink my whole, like, all right, what am I.

[Greg Miller]

What am I down here?

[Andy Cortez]

I did. I want to equip that. I want to equip that. It's going to do this attack, meaning I want this to be ready, and I need to unequip that one because it's useless against this dude.

[Greg Miller]

I love that.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, it's. It's really, really awesome. I saw somebody ask about the story. I was. There's awesome moments in the game. It's definitely more about, like, the journey. For me, there are. I think the game is, like, way too obvious in its storytelling.

[Greg Miller]

Okay.

[Andy Cortez]

And it. Where I was having these awesome moments of surprise and discovery.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

The story definitely lent to a couple of those moments, but I was having most of those moments just exploring the world.

[Greg Miller]

Okay.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, sure.

[Greg Miller]

Okay, fair enough. Final super chat on the question and answer section comes from 49 Baker M. I enjoy y', all, period. How does it compare? Slash? Is it more fun than Silksong?

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, that.

[Greg Miller]

Tough question.

[Andy Cortez]

I would say it's easier than Silk Song. I don't. I don't know if I don't think it's more fun, because I. I enjoy the. The movement of Silk Song a lot more.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Okay, fair enough. What haven't we talked about that you want to fit into this review as we wind down. Andy, a nine from you. Game of the year so far. Glowing impressions,

[Andy Cortez]

Man. I. It's so tough to say without getting spoilers.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. The thing you told me during the ad break about the ending. That's insane. That's awesome.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah. Like, yeah, there's a lot of awesome surprises along the way and, you know, ways that the game continues to, to surprise and delight. So that, yeah, there's not a whole lot I can say that wouldn't spoil the experience for people.

[Greg Miller]

Okay.

[Andy Cortez]

I would just say, like, I, I could not recommend this game more. It is, it's exactly, it's exactly what it needed to be. And I wasn't sure what I was expecting it to be. I was thinking maybe a bit more. Maybe a bit more basic and not as deep in how it approached combat and how it approached your character loadout or level design. But it is, it is so freaking great. And I loved my experience with it.

[Greg Miller]

Everybody. That's Andy's review of Mina the hollower. A 9 out of 10 on the kind of funny scale. An amazing game.

[Andy Cortez]

What?

[Greg Miller]

What?

[Andy Cortez]

Great question here from Sad Crab Charlie. Why not attend? Andy, what's holding it back for you? I think if the story was done in some different ways because I still think it's cool. I just don't know if it was told necessarily the best ways. And the moments. Whenever you beat a dungeon and you got to go turn off the generator, the. That gameplay, you do that after time, after every time you beat a dungeon.

[Greg Miller]

Sure.

[Andy Cortez]

You go back to reactivate the generator, the power generator that's powering the city or whatever. And the act of doing that, not great, not fun in total. It's about if you do all of them. When you do all of them and added them all up, it's probably about 10 minutes worth of your experience.

[Greg Miller]

Okay.

[Andy Cortez]

But it's, it's enough to where I'm like, ah, this is like annoying.

[Greg Miller]

Okay.

[Andy Cortez]

And it's like it was just enough to where like it held it back from being higher. You know what I do change it to a 9.5 though.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, the surprise. 9.5 at the end.

[Andy Cortez]

I'm surprising and delighting just like the game.

[Greg Miller]

Look at that. You got, you got rewarded for staying till the very end, everybody. But remember, our program day is far from over. From here, Andy and I are going to run into the streaming room and do 007 first light on max settings, GeForce Barton. And after that, we're doing a very special kinda funny podcast where you can call in if you are at the $25 level on patreon.com kinda funny. So still plenty of time to go over there and get your account activated. Of course, this has been the kinda Funny gamescast. Each and every weekday we run you through the biggest topics in video games, whether they be reviews, previews, or just things we need to talk about. Like subscribe, share. Of course. Remember, you should pick up a membership on patreon.com kindafunny YouTube, do kind of funny games, Apple or Spotify. But until next time, no, it's been our pleasure to serve you.