The best part of Mina the Hollower is how it randomizes the Zelda formula

After rolling credits on Mina the Hollower , I did something unusual for me and immediately started a new file. I’m not typically one to replay games right after I beat them. But Mina , a new action-adventure title from Shovel Knight creators Yacht Club Games, offers something that got me to jump right back into a brand-new adventure: a built-in randomizer. Randomizers shuffle things like items and enemies so that players can experience games they might be very familiar with in a whole new way. Imagine tackling The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time , but not finding the Kokiri Sword in the chest it’s supposed to be in. A randomizer forces players to adapt on the fly, which can breathe new life into familiar games — and they can be extremely entertaining to watch, especially in races . I’ve always wanted to try one myself, but I haven’t because they’re typically mods for classic games that require a bit of tinkering to set up; having one baked into Mina could open them up to a broader audience. “I have really gotten into randomizers in the fan community over the past few years,” Sean Velasco, Yacht Club Games cofounder and director on Mina the Hollower , tells The Verge , mentioning randomizers for Super Metroid , A Link to the Past , and one that mixes them together as inspirations. Early on in development, Yacht Club thought adding a randomizer would be fun but also too difficult — basically like making an entire other game, Velasco recalls. …