A few years ago at GDC, I played a public demo for Mina the Hollower , Shovel Knight developer Yacht Club Games’ long-awaited ode to Zelda’s Game Boy era. I kind of hated it at the time. It didn’t control very well, I couldn’t figure out what I was supposed to do in it, and it was punishingly difficult. It faithfully recreated the look and feel of a Game Boy game, but I struggled to see what it had to offer beyond a nostalgia gimmick.

What a difference years of development time can have on a game. At this year’s GDC, I played another Mina the Hollower demo on Nintendo Switch 2 with a developer from Yacht Club to guide me. When I mentioned that I’d played a slice of it a few years back at the show, they nearly cringed and assured me that I had played a very early version of the game. But this demo, they said, was the real deal. I can understand that response after spending 20 minutes with Mina the Hollower .…