Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree Review
How did Bandai Namco and Brownies’ new roguelite hold up after my initial preview? I’ll tell you.
Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree. Credit: Bandai Namco / Brownies
Last month, I had the opportunity to spend a couple of hours with a preview of Bandai Namco’s action roguelite Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree. I’ve now played the full release, this time on PlayStation 5. My overall feelings on the game have cooled; I’m charmed by its presentation, but found myself increasingly frustrated by its execution.
As a refresher, Towa’s central gimmick in its Hades-like gameplay is that you take two of eight of your characters into combat when you do a run. The first one is the Tsurugi, who juggles the durability of two swords as your main attacker. The second is the Kagura, who runs after the first character and can cast two support spells. Each playable character has a unique combination of two attacks or skills for each role.
Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree. Credit: Bandai Namco / Brownies
Here’s a brief excerpt from my last article, describing the game’s story:
Towa is a priestess of Shinju who gathers eight guardians to help defend her village from a great evil known as Magatsu. After failing their attempt to seal Magatsu in the prologue, he exiles them to another timeline and freezes Towa’s village in time. Towa can lend her mystical help to the guardians despite their separation, so they continue to fight Magatsu and his corruption.
The game’s writing is a disappointment. Events and twists that are part of the game’s core conceit (which I won’t spoil) lacked emotional impact for me. The game’s writing doesn’t give enough depth to any of the characters for me to care about what happens to them. Conversations that are intended to get players invested take too long and communicate very little. I eventually lost patience with the conversations, and it made me want to completely disengage from the narrative. In retrospect, I should have seen this coming from the preview, considering just how long it takes to get to gameplay if you don’t skip the game’s opening.
Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree. Credit: Bandai Namco / Brownies
Build customization continued to impress me with deep upgrade trees and the swordcrafting system that lets you forge weapons to boost stats. Over my playthrough, however, it became clear that the UI driving those systems is poorly designed, creating more confusion than clarity. This is compounded by the large number of currencies and upgrade items.
Spending more time with the combat revealed how shallow it becomes despite the novelty of the two-character system. While each guardian can fill either the melee Tsurugi or magic-casting Kagura position, the gameplay differences feel less meaningful than they initially appear. Towa becomes formulaic quickly. Combat feels increasingly rote as you cycle through the same patterns of dash, pound, and spell-casting across nearly indistinguishable arena encounters.
Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree. Credit: Bandai Namco / Brownies
My frustration with the supporting character taking damage intensified rather than diminished the more I played. Since both characters share a health bar, but you can only directly control one, watching your Kagura walk into area attacks while you're perfectly dodging as the Tsurugi remains infuriating. The game offers manual Kagura control, but juggling both characters simultaneously feels clunky and only makes things worse, leading to faster deaths.
The more I played, the more irritated I also became at the weapon durability mechanic that constantly forces you to swap between your two swords. Rather than creating the rhythmic combat flow the developers intended, it becomes a tedious interruption that detracts from creating any kind of flow state. The developers needed to find more organic ways to encourage the use of both weapons, rather than creating an artificial limitation.
Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree. Credit: Bandai Namco / Brownies
I still love the game’s art, particularly the character designs, which remain absolutely charming. Each of the eight guardians brings a distinct personality through expressive animations and memorable visual flair, from the anthropomorphic shiba inu to the muscular koi fish warrior. The isometric 3D world’s colorful richness still stood out, as well.
Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree attempted to differentiate itself from other Hades clones with some bold choices in its design and narrative. Unfortunately, it never quite assembles them into a cohesive, emotionally resonant experience thanks to lackluster writing and mechanics that create more friction and frustration than fun.
Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree is available on Steam, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox Series X|S.
Overall Score: 5/10
Played on: PS5
