Xevious: The Avenger

Here is a game that feels like an adventure. And it feels like it was an adventure to make, too. Mina the Hollower took six years to design and build, six years that took it from what sounds like a kind of coding doodle to a panoramic journey across a richly imagined island, taking in platforming and combat, puzzle-solving, and sheer immersion in the world building. It's Zelda and it's Bloodborne. It's smacking bosses and reading the in-game newspaper. All of which is to say that those six years of design work are apparent throughout, in the complexity of the landscapes you travel, in the dens