It’s never easy to come second. For a long time post-1988, any action movie that took place in a single location was slapped with the descriptor of “Die Hard in a…” The same’s true for gaming. Every so often, a release comes along that’s so singular, it cements its own subgenre for others to fit into. Metroid and Castlevania begot the Metroidvania; hell, today, practically every game of any high difficulty gets roped in with soulslikes (referencing Dark Souls).
Hades, which came out in 2020, has quickly become one of those games, even though it gets strapped with the label of “roguelike” (i.e. things that play like 1980’s Rogue). With an isometric perspective, layered action and build customization, and a wonderfully illustrated aesthetic, it became a smash hit — frankly, it’s one of the best video games ever made. Naturally, there would soon be Hades-likes (please don’t make that a phrase).
Bandai Namco’s Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree (out Sept. 19) is one of the first big swings from a major publisher to riff on Hades. Swapping out sexy versions of the Greek pantheon for a twee take on Japanese folklore, it scratches a different itch that might appeal to kids and anime fans while still retaining the familiar action gameplay of its inspiration.
But while it’s a solid action game in its own right, the comparison to Supergiant’s beloved indie is inevitable. Despite nailing some of the beats, and even introducing some great ideas of its own, Towa ends up faltering where it could’ve thrived.
Play it again, Towa
Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree follows the titular character, a priestess of Shinju Village, on a time-hopping quest to protect the realm from a malignant entity called Magatsu. Rapidly spreading its toxic influence across the lands, Magatsu and its minions are a world-ending threat, and the early tutorial bit sees players square up against the baddie only to ultimately lose.
Towa and her eight guardians battle through time to defeat Magatsu.
Bandai Namco
Through some mysticism and timey-wimey shenanigans, the priestess and her eight companions manage to fight another day, but Towa becomes a timeline-jumping specter in the process. For at least the first few hours, she serves more as an avatar in the town while the actual missions are undertaken by the guardians.
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Each of the guardians (and Towa herself) are all designed to play somewhat differently. Some, like the samurai-esque warrior Rekka, are nimble with sword slice. Others, like the adorably chunky furball Bampuku, are slower and meant to soak up more damage. The cast are all cutely designed, with gorgeously illustrated portraits that appear in menus and conversations. In-game, however their 3D models do less to express their personalities.
Overall, the game plays very similarly to Hades. Players must fight their way through randomized arenas of procedurally generated foes, wiping out waves of enemies until they’ve cleared the stage. At the end of each, they’ll be awarded a choice of power-up that can boost their health, attack or defense, or imbue their abilities with elemental attributes. Then, they usually get to choose from a branching path based on what treasures lie ahead. Some rooms contain currency gems or the lottery boosts; others contain healing pools, hot springs, or merchants to buy temporary upgrades.
Selecting the right combination of graces is key to build synergy.
Bandai Namco
The big hook is that players get to choose and control two guardians at once — to a degree. The fighters aren’t exactly swappable, but instead one is selected as the primary Tsurugi (sword) and the other acts as the supporting Kagura (staff). Every guardian has a different set of skills to match each role, but the Tsurugi skills are bespoke to each while the Kagura abilities can be selected from an unlockable pool that overlaps among the group.
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In practice, it means that you’re leading two characters at once, working in lockstep to use the sword attacks as the main offense and the supporting magic abilities for additional damage or defense. The system works mostly well, allowing for tons of different combinations of pairings — and that’s before the randomly generated power-ups appear during the run to build the fighters to your liking.
I say “run” because it is, of course, a roguelike. Unlike Hades, where the goal is to beat the entire four-world campaign in one attempt, Towa breaks its trials into individual levels that range from five to eight (or more) rooms to tackle before getting to the specified boss. But like Hades, dying at any point will send you back to the very start.
End-stage bosses need to be vanquished, otherwise it’s back to the start.
Bandai Namco
The game can be challenging at times, especially if you’re approaching a boss battle after losing a ton of health en route. The guardians both share a health bar, and each remain playable in a limited capacity even if they’ve expended their meter as long as the other person is still standing. But some key deficiencies in how the action is designed make frustrating errors a recurrence.
The old ball and chain
The first issue is that the game, although functional in most of its action, is clunky. Characters may move smoothly when running around doing nothing, but mostly every attack or ability leaves weird gaps in their animations. Some guardians swing swords with a momentum that pushes them too far forward, leaping right over enemies when trying to line up multiple strikes. Others force themselves into helicopter spins to automatically land them in hazardous traps or areas of effect.
One core mechanic the game intends for players to use is a hot swap between two swords that’s initiated by using a separate quick strike. Each sword has its own attributes, and new ones can be customized and forged in the village between runs, but they’re each bound to the individual character’s move set, so you’ll always know what they do. But the swords also wear down quickly after repeated use — a system that’s intended to force players to change up their tactics.
Players must pick two of the eight guardians (plus Towa depending on the situation).
Bandai Namco
In reality, some groups of enemies are just much easier to defeat by sticking to a single weapon, even if the damage output is diminished. Certain bosses, in particular, are an absolute pain in the ass to fight in close quarters, making it preferable to spam the same long range charged attacks over and over, chipping away for what seems like forever.
While it’s easy to get hit accidentally because a poorly chosen move with a janky animation throws the guardian’s body into danger, the issue is doubled by the nature of having two characters on screen at once. In Hades dashing is a fast way out of harm’s way, but it can also be wielded offensively. Here, even if a dash is imbued with elemental or status effect damage, you’re still dragging along the dead weight of the Kagura. The gameplay isn’t as fast or hectic as others of this type; but while it’s easy enough to dodge a telegraphed strike from a boss once, it’s very likely that the poor schmuck stuck in your wake will take the brunt of the damage.
Technically, you can click a button and control each of the avatars independently at once, with both assigned to different joysticks. This additional layer of lateral thinking is almost never prudent, and usually serves to kill both guardians quicker (and instill a killer headache).
Combat has the right idea, but squishy enemies and janky movement deflates the kinetic energy.
Bandai Namco
The many ways to misstep would be easier to brush off if the action was more satisfying, but it isn’t. The enemies are plentiful but often not that smart. Most of the damage incurred will come from poorly telegraphed attacks that you simply don’t see coming. Rather than using fluid animations to signal what kinds of moves are coming, the bulk of the information players will get about impending hits comes from red reticles and lines drawn on the level’s floor.
That should also be easy enough (it works well enough in Hades), but the cartoonish art and color palette often overshadow the visual alerts. When surrounded by baddies (many of which are red, just like some areas of the maps) it can be almost impossible to even tell if or where one is about to attack. The same goes for bosses, who often end up entirely out of sight off-screen, preparing to drop a bomb-sized blow that takes up almost the entire arena. When fighting two bosses at once? Forget about it.
An okay cover version
Despite its somewhat squishy combat and low-kinetic movement, there’s a solid enough game tucked away inside Towa. Once players figure out its particular quirks, outfitting their guardians with permanent upgrades and honing in on temporary builds to suit how they’ll cheese their way through bosses — it ends up being an engaging loop. It’s just that we’ve seen this done better.
The guardians are visually inventive but their stock personalities are lacking.
Bandai Namco
In between the action, the game spends a lot of time spinning its wheels on things it thinks you’ll want because it worked so well in Hades. There’s a lot of conversations to be had with townspeople and the guardians, although very little of it is gripping. While Hades outfitted its world with (again, very sexy) supporting characters with rich backstories, mysteries, and relationships to unfurl, there’s nobody that’s very interesting in Towa.
Towa herself is a mostly one-dimensional heroic figure, and most of the guardians fit into simple archetypes (the big guy is a pacificist who likes to eat!). The dialogue is dull to the point of daring you to skip, and most of the little encounters and side quests amount to nothing but gaining a pocketful of whatever currency you need to upgrade.
There’s a small attempt to paint the narrative with a shade of melancholy with the nature of Towa’s eternal role as the village’s guardian; after each victory over Magatsu, she jumps forward in time, arriving in a different version of her home. While the idea is sound — positioning the player as an immortal figure who will fight even as generations live and die around her — it doesn’t have the depth to stick. You might find out that some townsfolk have died of old age, but they were never really there to begin with.
There’s little depth to the world or supporting cast. Some sad-tinged framework doesn’t make up for the dearth in storytelling.
Bandai Namco
Without a complex world filled with intriguing lore and people, there’s not much to Towa outside of the gameplay. The mini-games that pop up periodically, like fishing and jumping rope, or even an extremely drawn-out forging process for new swords, add next to nothing.
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In the end, what’s left is a serviceable action roguelike that might get you hooked for its full runtime but doesn’t offer much to return to. While Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree has some new ideas and cute window dressing, it’s lacking in the systemic depth and tactile pleasures of the game that inspired it. It’s a B-side cover track of one of the decade’s biggest hits.
Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree releases on Sept. 19 for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.