Someone has found a secret “bad” ending to Mina the Hollower that’s wildly difficult to get and, frankly, pretty depressing!
Everything involved with getting the ending is very spoilery, so here’s the best summary I can offer for those who haven’t beaten Mina the Hollower yet. You’re not going to stumble into the secret ending by accident. Mina the Hollower generally only has one ending no matter how you play, unless you pay very meticulous attention to avoiding a long list of specific actions throughout your entire playthrough. If you do, then in a pivotal cutscene before the final dungeon, the dialogue will be different, and Mina will be given a choice. One option triggers the ending as normal and sends you to the final dungeon and battles, while the other option skips the dungeon and boss fight entirely and sends you straight to the credits after a very depressing cutscene.
Okay. That’s the most I can tell you without spoiling how cool both the ending of this game is, and also how wild it is that someone managed to find this ending. Strap in, we’re headed into major spoiler territory for the end of Mina the Hollower:
Before the final dungeon of Mina the Hollower, Mina arrives at a banquet being thrown by Lionel for the town’s elite to celebrate the relighting of the generators. At this point, Mina is aware of Lionel’s betrayal, but has to sit down anyway and make polite conversation. As she tries to convince the room that Lionel’s really the villain here, Lionel points out that Mina’s not exactly a pure hero either. He begins listing off a series of crimes and sins Mina has committed throughout the game in a sequence that’s like the famous Chrono Trigger trial cranked up to 11. Essentially, the game remembers actions you’ve taken and decisions you’ve made throughout and throws them back at you, whether that was accidentally killing a leaf man on your way to Septemburg or breaking way too many candles or stealing a present from an orphan. This sequence is so effective the first time because up til now, you’ve had no notion that there was any morality system in this game at all. You probably just did these things unthinkingly, as part of the game, which emphasizes Lionel’s point: destruction is fine for you, if it’s in service of your goal, but all of a sudden it’s bad when he does it.
Lionel is, of course, still actually a villain, so in a typical playthrough Mina weathers this criticism, gets thrown out a window, and heads for the final dungeon. But what happens if you literally didn’t commit a single sin throughout the entire game?
Turns out, it’s possible, according to a YouTube account named “Registered Just To Post This,” which seemingly registered with YouTube just to post this. They show a run of Mina just over 16 minutes long that manages to skip every single crime, including ones that seem to be unskippable. The run was completed on New Game+ with modifiers turned on, because there are certain skips that may not be possible (or, if they are, will require speedrunning strats) without the mods you gain access to after completing the game once:
I haven’t seen a full list yet of every possible crime and how to skip it, but in the description, Registered Just To Post This includes a few. At the start of the game, you have to speak to Cappy repeatedly to get him to come with you so you don’t abandon him on a burning ship. You have to skip the orphanage ribbon-cutting scene, save all the kids from the Carving Man in Septemberg, donate to all the beggars, sell at least one item to the pawn shop, climb to Coltrane to skip the entire train sequence and avoid crashing the train, not smash candles, not hit stray piles of leaves, and for God’s sake, stay away from the kids kicking the can around in Ossex.
That’s a lot! The result is genuinely kind of darkly cool, though. When you get to the banquet, Lionel acknowledges that you’ve actually been a model citizen, and gives you the option to join him. If you refuse, he’ll still throw you out the window and the ending will proceed as normal. But if you accept, you’ll be taken straight to the credits, with a scene of Lionel and Mina escaping Tenebrous Isle. Lionel and Mina look out over the ocean to the island, Lionel says it’s thriving on spark and Thorne’s rebellion has been wiped out, and that’s it! That’s the end. As the top commenter on the Reddit thread point out, it’s ironic that by doing no “crimes” Mina actually ends up committing the biggest sin of all, damning the entire island and siding with a rich fascist.
It sounds like this was certainly one of the “secrets” players still hadn’t found that Yacht Club mentioned earlier this week, and it sounds like there are more where that came from. I actually interviewed Yacht Club Games, both about the past and future of Mina, which I’ve written up here, and also about the game’s incredible ending sequences. I’ll have the interview about the ending coming later next week once more folks have had time to finish the game.
