This unexpected game shines a light on the Switch 2's best feature a year later
120fps mode is a winner, even a year on
When the Nintendo Switch 2 was first unveiled, there were plenty of parts of its specs sheet that drew attention, but the inclusion of a 120Hz display was surely one of the most eye-catching inclusions. This means that games on the Switch 2 with some headroom in terms of performance can enjoy ultra-smooth performance, whether in handheld mode or when connected to a compatible display.
The reality, though, is that the there haven't been all that many games in the year since the Switch 2 arrived that have taken advantage of the feature. While the Switch 2 is drastically more powerful than its predecessor, it's also far from the power of a PS5 Pro, for instance, so only less graphically demanding games have a shot at utilising 120Hz mode properly.
It's been a little while since I've played a game that offers it, frankly, so I was really pleasantly surprised by its inclusion in Mina the Hollower, an indie game released last week that deserves the praise it's been getting (and some more sales, too). The game was actually announced with its 120fps mode as a flagship offering, so it's great to now get my hands on it to see how it fares.
The short answer is, "smoothly". The difference between 120fps and 60fps isn't always that obvious, but when you play both extensively you'll start to feel the extra smoothness offered by the higher refresh rate option, and it really does help with a game that's as fluid and responsive as Mina.
The whole game's built from the ground up to mimic the best titles from the Game Boy era, as a love letter to that time. That said, it expands on the sort of experience you could get on that old handheld, not least with a widescreen presentation and freer movement thanks to analogue sticks replacing D-pads.
The game sees you take on the role of Mina herself, a small mouse whose big plans have gone awry when a series of generators she designed malfunction due to evil influences. You then have to journey around an island fixing them, with a structure that's very Zelda-like, including some freedom to tackle things outside of the suggested order.
While doing so you'll juggle weapons and sidearms in a way that recalls the Castlevania series to mind, while a mechanic that sees your XP put at risk when you die is also quite Dark Souls. That's a heady blend of influential titles, but from the same developers that made the excellent Shovel Knight, it all knits together really nicely.
Tying things together is the extremely fluid action that makes it really fun to take on new areas and platforming challenges, as well as surprisingly crunchy and difficult combat. Impressively, the game's pause menu hides a wide array of modifiers and difficulty settings that you can tweak if you're finding it too frustrating, an approach which really should be copied by more game developers.
A couple of hours in, I'm still grinding away without activating any of them, but I make no promises about sticking to that, given that having fun is the whole point of gaming. Still, it's that 120fps smoothness that I've been enjoying most of all. If you pick up the game, be sure to head to the settings menu to turn it on, as it'll default to 60fps at first.
