Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree offers Hades fans a similar action roguelike experience, but with a Japanese coat of paint.

Currently in development by Brownies Inc. game studio and published by Bandai Namco, this cozy-looking hack’n’slasher is likely to capture the imagination of younger audiences. Brownies Inc. have already cut their teeth of a Doraemon farming sim called Doraemon Story of Seasons back in 2019, so comfy is guaranteed.

Take a swing at the demo with us in our first look at Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree!

This is a preview coupled with a supplemental video preview. You can watch the video preview or read the full preview below:

After getting flashbanged by the EULA and (rightfully) recommended to use a controller, we are presented by the the backstory to game’s conflict and introduced to the titular Towa. A daughter of the gods and an eternal child, Towa is an extension of the mountain god Shinju (kinda like Yahwe and Jesus).

She befriends and protects the people in a nearby village, selecting eight individuals with colorful characters, “The Prayer Children”, and blessing them with an existence outside of time. No matter how grave their injury, they will always come back, ready to fight another day alongside Towa. Not even death can yank them out of their timeloop.

After an unnecessarily convoluted explanation, players will be able to play through a tutorial level. The game may be presented like Hades, but it plays very differently. The most important distinction is that each run is done by two people. The game can be played solo or co-op, both couch and over the internet, but there are always two characters being played on screen.

Before the start of a run, players have to select two of the Prayer Children. Each one has their own attack pattern, elemental affinity, and corresponding spells they can cast.

That’s 28 possible combinations before spell upgrades. Spells are relatively simple – you pick two from your spellbook before your run and cast them to your heart’s content, only having to worry about cooldowns. Some even have autocast.

Melee is slightly more complicated – instead of having a light and heavy attack, you have two swords with their own attack patterns. Each will need to be sheathed after a certain number of attacks land, otherwise their attack power will be reduced by half. After unsheathing though, that counter is reset.

What complicated things further is the game’s refusal to use English terminology. The melee fighter is referred to as “Tsuguri”, the caster – “Kagura”, Tsuguri wields Honzashi and Wakizashi to slay the Magahori and Magatsu-hi. So when you receive a Grace (Towa’s version of Olympian Boons from Hades), you better brush up on your kanji if you don’t want to pick a wrong upgrade. 

All of this confusion could have been avoided if the game spent less time trying to present the story in a very long-winded manner like some slice-of-life anime. Even more time could be shaved off by getting to the point.

Everything takes just a little too long for no reason. Every screen transition hangs on a new scene for 3 extra seconds, every dialogue repeats at least one sentence twice and feels empty on the whole, even the forging mini-game takes too long… 

The game is very padded. I have not seen this much padding since I spent a year in the loony bin, locked up with a copy of Brian Michael Bendis’ Ultimate Spider-Man omnibus. And that man knows his padding. His writing is paddirific. Much like this game. Which is filled with padding. Especially the dialogue.

There are three possible explanations for this: poor writing, poor translation, but the most likely culprit is the fact that dialogues had to be written separately for 8 different characters.

So it is no wonder some lines seem identical when characters are presented with, say, a shop or a boss and the following lines are repeated: “This creature is sure to be mighty” … “This must be the leader of the Magahori we’ve faced earlier” … “We will not waver, we will hit him with all we’ve got!” “At last, we stand before the Magatsu-hi.” “Let’s go!”.

And as overdrawn as the smithing mini-game may be (12 minutes including the tutorial), it was interesting to learn about every step of how a sword is made. Plus it lets you get away with the worst decisions in terms of design, but as long as you bring in good materials and do well at the mini-games, you weapon will be as effective as any other god-forged katana.

You can do this and perform all sorts of preparations between missions. Given the ancient Japanese mythological aesthetic of the game, it is very reminiscent of Monster Hunter Portable 3rd or Monster Hunter Rise.

You craft weapons, put skill points into each Prayer Child’s skill tree, eat gourmet food for temporary buffs, shop, talk to villagers… It’s all very slow and methodical this may be the intended tempo.

Perhaps yours truly was stubborn and rushed to the action like earth and fire, instead of letting the game set the mood, like air and water. If you are the type of gamer who enjoys taking it easy and nurturing in-game relationships with NPCs, then this is a game for you as you’ll have a lot of fun.

The fairy-tale soundtrack can help set the mood, but unlike Odin Sphere, the setting is very kid-friendly. Talking isn’t mandatory and can be skipped if engaged. However, you’ll want to talk to everyone you meet, since every interaction rewards you with permanent upgrade materials out of thin air.

There is even a dedicated fireplace spot before each boss where your Tsurugi and Kagura can talk to each other. Remember: 28 player character combinations.

Finally, after lots of padding, we get to the gameplay portion of this preview. With all the variety at your disposal, the core combat still feels as hollow as the dialogue. There is no weight behind your strikes, enemies rarely get staggered, and the telegraphed attacks get lost under all the visual SFX of combat.

It is very easy to lose health and these types of games are often centered around damage mitigation rather than trying to hit enemy as much and as fast as possible. If you try to take the latter route, you’ll only find a shortcut to a game over screen and have to restart the run.

You can’t cancel out of animations and enemies can sometimes turn on a dime, so a previously telegraphed area of attack can appear right under your feet while you’re charging for a backstab. Boss health bars can be unreliable too, an enemy spawner had to be struck at least 5 more after his giant health bar was completely empty.

Wrangling two characters at once is a hassle as well, the caster often stays behind and tanks a fireball you just dodged. Aiming their spells is unreliable too. Sure, you can manually control each character with left and right stick on your controller, but this will take time get the hang of.

The demo ended before we could test this further. After beating the first boss, the demo locks up, preventing you from going on another expedition, forcing you to forego all your possible upgrades and delete the save file. But it’s just a demo and your progress will not carry over to the full release anyway, so no sweat!

Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree may not be the best action experience in our preview, but if you take the time to connect with its world and characters, you can have a lot of fun and just may enter the “comfy zone”. Regardless, we’re definitely looking forward to its full release.

Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree is scheduled to release on September 19th this year on all major consoles and PC via Steam for $29.99.