Towa and the Guardian of the Holy Tree First Hands-On Preview: Double Stick Hades

If I hadn't known to play Towa and the Guardian of the Holy Tree last weekend on the day of playing the game, I might have overlooked its trailer during the summer game festival. The announcement itself is less than two minutes old and most of what we see looks like hades, but there are character choices. But after playing for 15 minutes on game day, I was more interested than initially interested in Towa's Roguelite type… although I will need Waaay for more than 15 minutes to be good at it.

Towa and the guardian of the Holy Tree Star, Towa, the guardian of Shinfu Village and the children of the gods. When a dark god began to consume the land around the crescent with the evil Miasma, Towa summoned eight villagers to fight back. These “praying children” enter the fields again and again to fight against the dark slaves, one plays the role of “Tsurugi” or Sword, the other plays the role of “Tsurugi”, and the other plays the role of support staff or “Kagura”.

At the start of each run, you choose which of the eight characters you want in each character, all of which have different abilities, depending on the role they play. In my preview, I chose Solumn Rekka as my sword, which attacked with short and fast cuts and lingering spin attacks. My staff is Nishiki, a koi-inspired fishman who can summon lightning balls to surround the player and shoot a wave of water in any direction.

Immediately, I struggled to adapt to the double sticky controls. Nishiki automatically followed Rekka, who controlled with the left stick, but it was obvious that for the best match I needed to get Nishiki out of Rekka and run him around with the right stick while I was fighting the enemy. It's easier said than done. I think it's a really interesting twist I used to use the top-down game, almost reminiscent of when the world ended, you controlled two characters on two different screens. But I do think I need more than 15 minutes of demo to get used to it. Obviously, you can also play Towa in the co-op, where one person controls each character, which is also an attractive prospect.

The second unique element I really want more time to master is the quick draw. In Towa, your sword Wielder carries not a sword, but one at a time. Each sword has a different ability, Rekka's short slash is attached to one person, and the other sword carries a spinning attack on the other. When you use a sword, it starts to become passive until it becomes unusable, you have to use the quick pull ability to exchange with another so that the first one can charge. Successful battles in TOWA revolve around a smooth exchange between two swords, so you never catch you when you need an attack preparation, but have a dull blade and be able to get stuck in inefficient abilities. This is a cool system in principle, and of course a unique system, and I'm curious how it works at a high skill level.

Everything else I see in Towa will familiarize your normal Hades-Lover. You will clear all monsters in the room and select “Grace”. From straight-forwarding power to changing the way different abilities work and interact with each other, you strengthen your strength in a variety of ways. The door to the next room can represent enemies, shopkeepers, or other room types, and when you collect currency for currency upgrades, you will crush things in stores and special ores that can enhance the character's abilities and then bring them back to the village.

My time on Towa was cut short when I walked into a boss fight, so unfortunately I couldn't say how that would behave. But this preview definitely succeeded in making me want to play More. I want to bother with different character configurations and see what other upgrades are available, I want to practice my double sticky game so my employee users won't die on me even before reaching the midway point (Oops). I don't know if Towa and the guardians of the sacred tree can live up to the lofty legacy of Hades, but I do think it has the potential to have a place in the Roguelite genre.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior journalist at IGN. You can find her post on bluesky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Is there a story tip? Send it to [email protected].