Mina the Hollower is a top-down, 2D action-adventure title with souls-like and metroidvania elements. Levels are vast and intricate, and dying takes you back to the last checkpoint. These are star-shaped holes on the ground, which shouldn’t be too hard to spot.
If you haven’t played titles such as Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Bloodstained Ritual of the Night, or any souls-like title, progression may feel tedious at first as you may consistently die and restart from the last checkpoint.
Unfortunately, there is no option to quick save or manual save your progress. While you can quit your session and pick up from where you left off, if you die, the game will start from the last major checkpoint you had reached. Depending on your pace, it may take 15-20 minutes to reach the next save point.
You can enable certain modifiers in the game settings to double Mina’s walking and burrowing speed. These are great ways to reduce unnecessary backtracking if you’re not used to playing games such as these. However, doing so will disable achievements, so keep that in mind.
Fortunately, even without modifiers, the duration between checkpoints in Mina the Hollower isn’t as huge as the levels in 2D Castlevania games. If you have played those, making progress in this game should be easier.
That said, you can still easily lose progress in Mina the Hollower. One wrong dodge or an untimely hit from a notorious enemy can result in Bones loss, the resource you need to level up weapons, defense, and sidearms.
There are modifiers to increase Mina’s damage and reduce bosses’ health, but they can make the combat way too easy, so we won’t recommend enabling them until it feels necessary to do so.
If you have just started the game, there are some other things you can do to save bones and make re-runs less frustrating in Mina the Hollower.
How to save Bones in Mina the Hollower
Bones is the XP you gain by killing enemies in Mina the Hollower. Like soulslike titles, if you die, you’ll lose Bones but get one chance to recover them. You can do so by collecting the blue Spark Orb at the location of your last death or by killing the enemy at your last known location.
However, the game also provides a way to save Bones, so even if you die, you can recover it. For this, you’ll need a Bonestone. You can either purchase Bonestone using Bones when you Bone Up. Or you can collect Bonestone Dust (or Flakes) while exploring the world.
You can find Bonestone Dusts or Bonestone Flakes in chests tucked away in the optional areas of Mina the Hollower. Once you collect a certain amount of these materials, head to the Underlab, the area under the checkpoint burrow.
Here, interact with the Bonestone Sinterer. It’s the machine in the top right corner of the screen. It will allow you to manually convert any stored Bonestone material into Bones using the two switches on the screen. Make sure to take out Bones only when you’re close to Bone Up.
Once you have accumulated enough Bonestone to Bone Up, you’ll automatically get a prompt that will let you do so. Fortunately, you’ll never lose Bonestone, not even when you die, so it’s a great way to store some Bonestone here for backup and future use.
Since there’s no potential for save scumming, preventing Bones (XP) loss by storing them using Bonestone is an essential step to make progression relatively easy in Mina the Hollower.
