Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree is set in a Japanese-inspired fantasy land. An evil god known as Magetsu has emerged and is devouring all of the land and its people. The one force standing against him is Towa, the guardian of the small Shinju Village. She and her fellow Guardians set out to stop Magetsu, only to discover that they lacked the power to seal it away. The result was Shinju Village being stuck in time and Towa's Guardians trapped in a space beyond time. Back to square one, they must set out once again to defeat the guardians of Magetsu and unleash the potent mana they hold, so Magetsu can be stopped once and for all.

Towa's plot was cute but not particularly fulfilling. Despite the grim concept and some surprisingly dark moments, it's mostly a lighthearted and silly adventure, with an emphasis on the goofy charms of its various characters. I had fun with the cast but got a tad bored with some of the cut scenes that went on longer than necessary. I think Towa shined the most in its quieter moments, and if there's one area where Towa fell behind, it was when it was getting too wordy.

Towa is obviously inspired by the Supergiant game, Hades. The core basic gameplay is pretty much identical. It's a run-based roguelike where you hop into a fast-paced action-RPG mechanic, going from reward room to reward room, punctuated occasionally by boss fights before you go to the next biome, and you gradually gain power until you win or die. It isn't necessarily a bad thing, as there are worse sources of inspiration than Hades. Towa does have its own flavor that gives it its own identity and keeps it from feeling like a shameless clone.

At the start of every run, you'll select two of the Guardians: The Tsurugi (or sword) and Kagura (or staff). The Tsurugi is your main controlled character, while the Kagura represents a secondary character. In single-player mode, the Kagura follows just behind the Tsurugi, while in multiplayer, the Kagura can be controlled directly. The two have a shared-but-individual health bar. One of them taking damage drains their respective health bar, but it isn't game over until both are dead. If one goes down, they lose out on significant damage potential.

Each Tsurugi character actually has two weapon styles, a primary and secondary, and each is done with a different sword. For example, Goldfish Man Nishiki has powerful combo slashes with his main attack and spinning buzzsaw attacks with his other, while Rekka the Blademaster has fast slashes for her regular attack but a powerful AoE charge-up sword slashes for her secondary. Each character has their own set of two abilities, which functionally means that each one plays like a different "weapon."

However, there's a limit. Attacking with a sword drains its durability, and once it hits minimum, it "breaks," and any further attacks with that sword only inflict half of the damage. By pressing the Triangle button, you can do a Quick Slash, which changes the current sword you're using. The sword that's not in use replenishes its durability, and the Quick Slash also counts as a unique attack, so you're encouraged to frequently swap between the two as needed. There's also a Fatal Blow, a special one-use move that is charged up by using your other attacks. This means you're encouraged to attack as much as possible.

In comparison, the Kagura plays differently. These characters represent the magic-using part of your team and are less customizable. Each of the various characters has two associated elements, and you can select an elemental spell to use. For example, Fire spells can be long-range fireballs or area-blocking fire walls, while Water spells can be jet blasts or pillars of water that lock down characters. There's a lot more overlap with the Kagura versions of characters, but each has a distinct elemental combo, so no two are exactly alike.

A major factor in this is the game's upgrade mechanics. As in Hades, you'll find themed elemental powers as you progress through the game. The elemental powers grant special bonuses, like deflecting ranged attacks, the ability to do critical hits, the ability to inflict burns, and more. In addition to a variety of passive boons, you'll also find active ones that are associated with one of your Tsurugi's attacks or your Kaguya's magic, so you can further customize your builds. Do you want your Tsurugi's fast slashes to reflect enemy attacks and their powerful AoE slash to crit hard? Go for it. Would you rather sacrifice all of your Kaguya's HP to boost the strength of your Tsurugi? That's also a valid choice. Similar to Hades, this opens up a ton of fun options for builds.

Distinct from this is the ability to upgrade your characters before you go into the field. In between runs, you can visit the dojo in your village to boost a character's basic stats, number of dodges, and unlock new spells to use. If you are struggling, you can use this to get a nice boost to your abilities. More important is the ability to craft your own swords. Using the materials you find in fights, you can craft a sword by playing a surprisingly in-depth minigame. The sword's stats can be geared toward bonuses to regular slashes, quick slashes, fatal blows and durability, with tradeoffs being needed for each. Thus, you can craft a sword that has tons of durability and a long slash for a rapid-attacking guardian or a slow, fragile and powerful weapon for a guardian that charges their attacks.

The weapon crafting system didn't jive for me. While it's complex and cool, it seemed to detract from the actual roguelike nature of the game. Having to craft swords that best fit each character's play style quietly discouraged me from swapping characters instead of sticking with the ones who worked. This gives too much influence to out-of-run mechanics, which is something I'm not fond of in roguelikes, but it offers chances to boost your power if a boss is giving you too much trouble.

Progress is made on both successful and failed runs. Failed runs earn the materials you use for powering up and upgrading your home village, which in turn gives you access to more passive boosts, like a restaurant that provides temporary boosts or buildings that grant permanent ones. Successful runs advance the plot and cause time to move forward, which can change the status of the village. This does come at a cost, as successfully defeating a boss and unleashing the mana within requires the sacrifice of one of your characters, causing you to lose access. There are some twists to this, but it means you'll need to get used to swapping characters. If you favor a certain combo, it becomes unavailable after a win.

Overall, I found Towa's gameplay to be fun, but it feels a lot slower than Hades did, both in the gameplay and the pacing. There's a lot more dialogue in the village than in that game, and it was sometimes annoying because I just wanted to get to my next run. The actual combat speed dragged at times and never felt as fluid as its obvious inspiration. That might be considered a plus to people who found the intense button-mashing of Supergiant's adventure to be too overwhelming.

Towa is a very pretty game, with some beautiful, lush and colorful environments, and it runs smoothly on the PS5. While I did find some of the character models to be too simple for my taste, the fun character designs went a long way toward making the game shine. The soundtrack is fantastic, with a lot of excellent tone-setting songs to make the game feel exciting. The voice acting is largely solid, and it errs on the side of being goofy and cheesy, which fits the tone but slightly undercuts some of the game's emotional moments.

Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree is a great example of a game that might be inspired by something else but nonetheless manages to be darn fun on its own. It's easy to write it off as a Hades knockoff, but there's enough fun in this game to enjoy it on its own merits. The core mechanics can occasionally be a touch awkward, and the narrative never really grabbed me, but the moment-to-moment gameplay was plenty of fun. If you're looking for a different flavor of action-RPG adventure, Towa hits the mark.

Score: 8.0/10