It was hard to really know what to expect out of Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree, partially because of its crazy name. I’m all for a game having a title that gives you a good idea what it’s about, but when you need to catch your breath after saying it, it’s gonna overshadow everything else.
Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree is a somewhat conflicting experience. For every element I liked, it was hampered by something that bugged me—or kept it from really reaching its full potential. What ends up on offer is a game full of half-good ideas that is by no means bad, but gets a bit stale pretty quickly.
Following my usual structure of review, the first half-issue I have with Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree is with its story. At its root, it’s actually pretty interesting—telling the story of a goddess’ daughter who came to love the humans and town that revered her, and a powerful god named Magatsu spreading a terrible miasma through the land.
However, Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree’s story indulges in a narrative construct that I’ve repeatedly mentioned getting somewhat sick of—giant exposition dumps, primarily at the beginning of a game. I’m a firm believer that a game’s story should only give you a glimpse of what’s going on at the start and allow it to unfold naturally throughout the game.
But here, it’s a solid 15 minutes of world-building in what is ostensibly an action game—it kills the pace before it starts. Towa enlists the aid of eight warriors—called Prayer Children—to help her fight Magatsu and the creatures known as Magaori, who are spreading destruction across the land. In order to do this, she needs a sword-wielding Tsurugi who cuts down the Magaori, and the Kagura who protects them with magic.
However, once they confront Magatsu, he sends the warriors to the end of time. Furthermore, prior to these events, every time a warrior fell in battle, Towa rewound time to keep them safe, which created an unknown number of alternate timelines, damaging the world’s Mana. With the world’s mana weakened, Magatsu and the Magaori were able to spread further, so Towa returns to a point in time where all the warriors are still alive and able to fight to defeat Magatsu.
Do you kind of see what I’m getting at? The game throws so many concepts at you before you’re even able to engage in any gameplay, which runs the risk of completely overwhelming the player all at once. Some of the narrative elements are good—like Towa rewinding time out of fear of her beloved chosen being hurt—since they inform the gameplay. But others like alternate timelines, or where the Prayer Children even are relative in time, kind of contradict themselves and just add to the confusion.
“Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree puts two separate modes of basic attack on two weapons and forces players to swap between them.”
Gameplay is similarly hampered by halves. At its most basic, it’s a fairly decent Hades-like where players move through small arenas, choosing which room to enter next based on which upgrades they bestow. Similar to Hades’ roguelike elements, any skills or buffs players receive during a run are lost upon death, but players can gain materials that allow for permanent stat increases or weapon forging. There’s a good amount of depth that gives the players room to experiment.
However, for me, gameplay is never as satisfying as it could be because of some questionable design choices that inhibit the overall experience. For starters, as was mentioned in the story, players need to choose two warriors to embark on a journey—one who engages directly in combat and one who provides support. On the surface, this is a pretty good idea, but functionally it’s kind of worthless since none of the eight characters feel particularly distinct—at least where being the Kagura is concerned.
So many of the characters possess similar magic abilities, and none of them feel particularly unique in a support role. I will say that, thankfully, the Tsurugi doesn’t have this problem, as characters feel more special—with attacks that better reflect their eccentric designs. But sword combat is pretty straightforward and simple, so even this can feel somewhat surface-level. But the Tsurugi combat is hindered by another baffling decision I just can’t get behind.
Tsurugi have to fight with two swords, a Honzashi and Wakizashi. Each is governed by a durability bar, and once it runs out, the blade will start doing reduced damage, forcing players to continuously swap between the two. Now, in theory, this isn’t a terrible idea, but here, since the combat is so straightforward, it just acts as an unnecessary extra step since swapping weapons immediately refills the other weapon’s meter.
Rather than create a more seamless combat system where players could utilize light and heavy attacks, Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree puts two separate modes of basic attack on two weapons and forces players to swap between them. Half the time, the only reason I remembered to swap was because the game was giving me audio cues to do so.
And the combat, while serviceable, doesn’t feel as fluid or fast as the game that clearly inspired it. Furthermore, while requiring two characters is an interesting idea on the surface, while playing single-player, players are meant to control the Tsurugi with the Kagura just following behind—unless you completely relinquish control to move the Kagura manually.
What’s worse, both characters share a health bar, so the Kagura can just take hits while they’re following behind, which just puts you at a constant disadvantage. Like I mentioned above, you can find skills that buff the Kagura, but the game’s restrictive controls make them feel more like a weight around the Tsurugi’s ankles than an effective partner—unless you’re playing multiplayer.
“Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree is also backed by an awesome soundtrack…”
But one of the mechanics backing the combat is the ability to forge your own sword, but even this isn’t without its missteps. It’s a mechanic I was really excited about at first, as players engage in a forging minigame where timed button presses can affect the improvements bestowed upon their blade. Not only that, but players can choose the shape of the blade, style of hilt, handle and sheath, and even apply little details to the blade itself.
However, the part that bugs me is that the minigame itself is so unbelievably tedious and goes on FOREVER. I’m not joking, there are 10 steps to forging, and a few of them are completely superfluous. Not only that, if you’re not careful, you can essentially ruin any potential benefit the sword can give you since sharpening—the last part of the minigame—increases damage but lowers durability, which kind of makes no sense in terms of video game logic, but okay.
And it was just so many things like that which kept me from enjoying Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree. It was never so terrible that I was having a bad time or hating it, and I think at its core, there’s a lot others will like about it. But, personally, I felt like I was constantly being pulled away from the fun, and just left feeling kind of bored with it. But that’s not to say the game is completely without merit.
While it’s available on all modern platforms, the Nintendo Switch version runs great—although I did play it on my Nintendo Switch 2—and works as a great little on-the-go kind of game, given the nature of its quick battle rooms. Also, I like a lot of the enemy design that finds fun ways to make monsters out of iconic Japanese folklore creatures.
Visually, the game looks great, utilizing an art style that blends a lot of high-quality details with subtle watercolour textures that make the game look like a painting come to life. All eight of the Prayer Children are uniquely designed and have a lot of personality to match their style. I personally became a big fan of Nishiki—the half-man, half-coy fish—who spins and flips around the battlefield like a deadly dolphin.
Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree is also backed by an awesome soundtrack that blends modern synths with classical instruments for an atmosphere that is both tense and ethereal. Boss fights in particular have an almost reverent soundtrack that really captures the grandeur of battling these god-like monsters.
I really wanted to like Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree, but every time I sat down to really give it a chance, there was so much that took it from being a decent game to one that I was just bouncing right off of. I don’t think it’s a bad game, and I think there are definitely things to like within. Other gamers may have a better time with it than I did, but others might just want to wait for Hades II.
