Mina The Hollower Is Now Metacritic's Highest-Rated Game Of 2026

Comments

• thingsiplay@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I think people give Metacritic too much credit. Better look at OpenCritic in my opinion, where Mina The Hollower and Schrödinger’s Call are the highest rated games of the year with a score of 93. One of the issues of Metacritic is, that it weights certain sources higher than others. And OpenCritic includes sources that Metacritic would not want to have.

  opencritic.com/game/19213/mina-the-hollower and opencritic.com/game/20596/schr-dingers-call

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  • novibe@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    What do you mean by “would not want to have”? Why would we want to have them?

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    • thingsiplay@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Metacritic is selective at what critic is allowed to be on the site. While OpenCritic is selective too off course, its accepting more voices than Metacritic (and weights them all the same).

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  • Cocodapuf@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    That said, metacritic and Opencritic Gave Mina the same score. So… Regardless of where you look, the outcome is essentially the same.

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    • thingsiplay@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      With this one game, yes. I’m not talking about one game, but in general. The overall score of this specific game is not even my main point.

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• popcar2@piefed.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I’ve played around 7 hours since release, it’s really good! It’s literally Castlevania x Zelda, taking so much inspiration from both for its mechanics and themes. The art and music is just chef’s kiss. Everything about the game is full of charm.

  Fair warning though, the game is pretty tough. Not “NES Castlevania” levels of hard, but you will die a lot. The game has a ton of modifiers that can make the game easier if you need them though. In fact, it has a ton of modifiers that can even make the game harder for challenge runs or wackier modifiers for future playthroughs. So cool. I’ll definitely be playing through again once I’m done with it.

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  • brsrklf@jlai.lu ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    The beginning is especially tough, when you don’t have a ton of options yet and every mistake is punished quite harshly.

    The Castlevania inspiration is definitely there in the fact that Mina is kind of slow, her weapons have very constrained damage areas (while some enemies have very annoying move patterns) and every miscalculated attack or jump locks you into a dangerous move. Dodging in general is not easy.

    Once you get used to it, it’s great though. After a first game in which I died and lost exp way too many times, I just tried restarting from the beginning. I almost breezed through the parts that gave me so much trouble, didn’t drop any bone for a while and levelled up a lot before reaching the same point.

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  • addie@feddit.uk ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Enjoying it greatly so far - the difficulty level seems calibrated to ‘brutal’ but everything about it scream polish and perfection.

    I find it hard to believe that some of the platforming sections are intended to be as difficult as they are. If there’s nothing to attack, you can’t heal, and you take a tonne of damage from falling off. Even with the life ring accessory, it’s still wicked in places. Not so bad once you’re able to equip a few more items and have some extra sparks, but at the beginning of the game, oof.

    Some of the bosses having very random attacks is a bit unpleasant, too. If they keep busting out screen-fillers that are very hard to avoid, there’s not much you can do, especially as some of them can finish you in a couple of hits.

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    • popcar2@piefed.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      A lot of the optional areas are very tough, and I agree they can be rough at the start of the game. Once you start having a lot of trinkets though, it gets marginally easier. Some trinkets even let you brute force harder platforming sections of the game - like one that lets you just tank lightning damage.

      Many platforming sections do have yellow flowers though which let you heal up though. Be sure to keep those for when you’re low and not just pick them up when you’re full.

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• cybernihongo@reddthat.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  It’s sold through the European DRM-free-only store GOG and it’s by Yacht Club Games, the makers of Shovel Knight. I put it on the wishlist for now.

  The soundtrack is Pay What You Want starting from $0 through Jake Kaufman’s Bandcamp page. It won’t appear in your GOG library unlike the Soundtrack Edition, but that’s OK if you get the music free or support him.

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  • badabim@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    You put in the same link to Bandcamp twice. Here’s the link to their GOG page

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    • cybernihongo@reddthat.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Oh, shit. Sorry about that, I am incompetence itself. Thanks for coming to my aid.

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• criticon@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  First time hearing about this game, I love shovel Knight and all the spin offs. I’ll get this immediately!

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  • brsrklf@jlai.lu ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    This was the last kickstarter I backed a while ago, before swearing I won’t do it anymore (way too much stuff I backed under-delivered in some way).

    I was not too worried about that one because Shovel Knight was so great and the new parts kept delivering (especially Specter of Torment). It was a long wait, but it was worth it. They really know how to make a fun game.

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• webpack@ani.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  apparently yacht club (the dev) is going broke, hope the game pops off source: https://youtu.be/QA18SdLZN64

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• Prox@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Didn’t this game come out like 39 hours ago?

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  • ampersandrew@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Reviewers get early copies so that there’s a review score available in time for people to buy it.

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• Nosavingthrow@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  This game is like gaslighting me. It’s like I got an entirely different game than everyone else got.

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