The games that Mina the Hollower is not

I was full of regret. Ten minutes up the beachhead. Trudging my way through gremlins and slimes and rebel knights. Hopelessly swinging the flail I picked out of the armory back on the ship, all I could think about were the daggers I left behind. A choice I made without enough foresight. The flail was slow out here in the open, and I was unable to land my hits up, down, left, or right as enemies flew literal circles around me. Surely if I had the speed of those daggers, I would take these monsters out before they got me down. I tried burrowing past enemies—Mina’s mechanical gimmick, arguably the game’s whole premise—but I was always midair in the animation’s initial jump when I’d get hit and knocked back. It was frustrating. I thought the flail’s range would give me some control of the space at least, some safety with distance from my targets, but it didn’t matter. I was failing to hit and to avoid being hit for the same reason, which I did not yet understand. Worse, I wasn’t having…