There’s no shortage ofroguelikesandroguelitesthese days, but that still doesn’t mean that I’ve quite had my fill yet. This is a genre that still feels like it offers an exciting brand of gameplay based on trial and error, getting good, and rolling the optimal run. I’m into all that.
Still, it does take a special game to really catch my eye with the plethora of options already out there, specifically in the isometric rogue space. I mean, we already have Hades and Hades 2.Lost In Random: The Eternal Diecame out in 2025 and was also a bright spot in the genre. For something else to fit in with these, it’s gotta be a cool and fresh idea.
Enter, Towa And The Guardians Of The Sacred Tree, a game created by Brownies Inc. and published by Bandai Namco. This is another top-down roguelite, but I’d argue that it’s got some more going on under the hood that could easily catapult it towards the top of the genre’s roster of games once it’s finally out in the wild.
Recently, I got to go hands-on with the game for four hours. In this time, I played the game from the very beginning and essentially had full access to get as far into the game as I could before my timer ran out. After sinking so much time into Towa, I’m walking away truly excited about the full release in mid-September.
This is an entry in the genre that feels like it’s going to bequite a bit deeper than many competitors, mechanically, narratively, and in terms of systems and choices you’ll need to make along the way. Let me tell you all about my time with it so far.
A Roguelite With Emotion And Cozy Vibes
While many rogues sort of just throw you into a game, vaguely explain the reason for the loops you’re stuck in, and then turn you loose to die over and over, Towa takes a more directly narrative-driven approach. I think this is an awesome choice that helps the game stand out and gives it staying power that many games lack.
I walked away from my demo wanting to live in this little village.
While the story setup itself is basic enough – an ancient evil comes to the world, a group of guardians led by one special person must fight it off – there is so much world and character building both between and during runs that it’s impossible not to get invested.
Controlling Towa herself between runs, you’ll bop around town chatting with colorful and charismatic NPCs, upgrade skills, level up all eight of your party members, craft weapons, go fishing, improve the village, eat food, shop for items, and more. This is pretty above and beyond for the typical roguelite, and Towa seems like it’s nailing this cozy, fun, lighthearted vibe between runs. I walked away from my demo wanting to live in this little village.
What shines through brightest is the banter between the Prayer Children, who are the eight playable guardians that you’ll spend your time controlling during your runs. Every character is totally unique, wonderfully drawn, and voice-acted by a pretty accomplished and renowned cast. From a muscly Koi fish to a goofy Shiba Inu and everything in between,this band of heroes is ridiculously fun and likable.
Regardless of who you choose to play as, characters have well-written, charming, and emotional connections between each and every dual combination you can choose to take along for a specific run. This almost immediately endears every party member to you, which is also where things get interesting… and difficult.
You see, the most surprising thing about the direction of Towa is that after completing a section of a run,one of your characters will need to be sacrificedin order to harvest the Mana/life force within them to aid the team in their ultimate journey. As you’d expect, it’s emotional being forced to kill off one of your favorite characters, and this is going to happen on the regular.
What this also means is that as you progress and slowly have to whittle your party down, you’ll have fewer options for usable, living characters to take on the next journey. This is an idea I’ve never seen before in the genre, and it’s something Ireallythink is going to resonate strongly with the game’s eventual audience.
All of this is backdropped bytruly gorgeous art and character/location designs, as well asan absolutely beautiful soundtrack. I mentioned to the Bandai reps in our preview Discord chat that I loved the music, hoping I was giving a shoutout to some up-and-coming composer. Turns out, the OST was created by Hitoshi Sakimoto of Final Fantasy Tactics, FFXII, and Valkyria Chronicles fame, soof courseit bangs.
Runs With Two-Pronged Combat
Runs in Towa themselves feelmostlyas you’d expect from an isometric roguelite, but with yet another big twist this time. Each attempt, you’ll choose two characters; a Tsurugi, your melee character, and a Kagura, a support character. You’ll control the melee player, but the support member will follow behind, meaning you always have to keep them in mind too when dodging out of danger.
…extreme levels of spell loadout customization…
Each melee player has two weapons, and each degrades with use until it breaks entirely, prompting you to switch to weapon #2 on the fly to deal damage again. Once this one degrades, you’ll swap back and repeat the process infinitely for the rest of the run. This keeps combat constantly varied and super active, as you’ll be swapping back and forth at a near break-neck pace. Both weapons behave differently from one another and also from character to character, soyou’ll have a lot to master here.
The support player comes with two spells that are on cooldown timers, and you choose when to put these skills into action. Each character’s spells follow the theme of an element; fire, water, earth, wind, and metal. There are also ten total spells for each element you can eventually obtain, then switch out from character to character, ultimately giving you extreme levels of spell loadout customization, which is insanely cool.
All of this combines to create a really active feeling sort of ebb and flow to each run, and every journey will feel different as you try out new characters with unique skills and abilities. I already have a trio of favorite characters to use, and I’m excited to get to know the others better later in the full game.
Runs themselves work about how you’d expect structurally. Clear a room of enemies, grab a powerup, choose between two gates to go to your next room based on the type of challenge, reward, or merchant you’re after, and repeat till it’s over. You’ll also get better rewards after each room depending on your performance, which is a cool incentive to stay locked-in the entire time.
Every so often, you’ll also face a mini-boss or area-ending big-boss, and the ones I got to see were super cool, rewarding careful dodging, punishing with backstabs, leveraging your cooldown spells, and always staying hyper-vigilant.
There’s also a really deep and interesting card system at work here. These are powerups called Graces, and you’ll earn them periodically throughout a run. They come in different rarities, and each gives some kind of super-useful stat boost or status effect bonus for you to leverage for the rest of your current attempt before completing resetting at the conclusion of a run.
I had an awesome time seeing what types of Graces would pop up each time, then trying my best to create a build-type for each specific run that benefited me most on my current attempt. Again, these skills and buffs keep every run feeling consistently fresh, and extra rewarding when you stumble upon an especially powerful legendary Grace.
There’s available local co-op here too, where one player controls the melee class, and the other the support class. I didn’t get to test this out, but I can see it being a blast with the right playing partner.
A Shocking Amount Of Accessible Depth
If the juggling of two breakable melee weapons, the sacrificing of one character each run, and the need to synergize spells and buffs run to run wasn’t enough, Towa also has a surprisingly deep stat and perk system to tinker with between journeys back at the village. What’s more, you’ll customize all of these things individually for all eight characters, leaving you withtonsof freedom to build out everyone exactly as you desire.
I felt like I hadtonsof ways to get stronger between runs, and I love that feeling.
All eight characters will be leveled up separately, so you have full control of who focuses on which stats. All can be given different weapons. All can be setup with different spells. All have nine additional buffs called inscriptions that you can mix and match between everyone. I felt like I hadtonsof ways to get stronger between runs, and I love that feeling.
It sounds like a lot (and it kind of is), but it’s all doled out in a steady progression which gives you time to learn each straightforward but cool new system before turning you loose on something else. I love a deep game full of build customization, and Towa looks like it’ll have no shortage of that for me.
Most shocking overall was the sword-making ability if you pay a visit to the local blacksmith. Here, you go through every single step of the sword crafting process, from tempering to sharpening to molding the blade into whatever shape you prefer (and you can get pretty crazy with it too).
Most stages of this process also have a sort of timing-based mini-game for you to partake in, and how well you do determines the overall stats and quality of the final product. If you thought weapon crafting in a game like Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 was a process, it’ssomehoweven deeper here, and that’s something I didnotsee coming from Towa at all.
Which kind of sums up my experience with the game itself.Towa And The Guardians Of The Sacred Tree has a familiar vibe, but constantly surprised me with its level of depth in pretty much every single regard. I expected just another run-of-the-mill roguelite, but I really think this is one to keep a close eye on after playing it for four hours straight.
The Wrap-Up
Towa And The Guardians Of The Sacred Tree is slated to release September 19th, 2025 on Steam, PS5, Xbox, and Switch. The standard edition has an MSRP of $29.99, while the deluxe edition, with a few additional perks, comes in at $39.99.
There’s a demo of the game available now on all relevant platforms, so you can jump into the action to see Towa for yourself.
You canwishlist the game on Steam right now, and also follow along there for further updates as the game’s impending launch approaches.Bandai Namco also has a landing page for the gameif you want any additional details as well.
At a later date, we’ll also have a full review of the game when the time comes, so stay tuned to DualShockers for my full thoughts and score once the game is out, and I’ve gotten to experience the rest of this promising title.
Check out the latest trailer below as well, which gives a taste of the emotional journey Towa will send you on at the end of each run.
