For a few years now, I have lamented the endurance of the “roguelite” subgenre which has managed to infect genres that don’t need to be roguelites (I still mourn GetsuFumDen: Undying Moon). That said, some games manage to embrace and excel in the field, perhaps none more so than Supergiant Games’ 2020 masterpiece, Hades. By building the game’s structure and story around the central conceit of “try again,” Hades handily torpedoes most of its peers. Of course, its success has inspired a cadre of aspirants. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate was one of these Hades-lites, and while I enjoyed it quite a bit, it didn’t have the staying power of Zagrius and his Olympian pantheon. The multiplayer was a nice touch, though.

Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree is another entry in the post-Hades rogueliteverse, and while it does attempt to differentiate itself from its towering predecessor, the game has some fatal flaws that will likely see you abandoning Towa and her stable of warriors.

Towa is the leader of a group of warriors called the Prayer Children, who are attempting to stop the demon lord Magatsu and its plethora of villainous monsters from overrunning ancient Japan. You know, like you do. Towa is not, herself, one of these warriors. Rather, she stays back in the village to run interference and upgrade the Prayer Children's abilities in between their runs through fantastical (but repetitious) environments.

The most immediate differentiator between Towa and Hades is that, here, you will control two characters: a “Tsurugi” swordfighter, and a “Kagura” magic-user. Each of the eight playable characters has their own unique Tsurugi movesets, some of which are more useful than others. Each Tsurugi has access to two swords which must be swapped (with the X button) when they break. This sounds like a pain, but if you find a Tsurugi attack you really like (Mutsumi’s secondary sword is objectively the best), you can literally swap right back to the broken blade and it will be healed again. Tsuragis also have unique “Fatal Blow” attacks which…aren’t fatal or all that useful.

You control the Tsurugi character directly, moving, attacking, and dashing to your heart’s content. Unfortunately, the Kagura character is, in part, controlled by AI. It will follow you wherever you go, at a short distance. Kagura characters all have access to the same pool of spells so you’re not choosing a particular partner as much as a useful pair of spells. Yes, each Karuga only has two spells, both of which are on a cooldown timer. In practice, this is frustrating. You (usually) control when magic attacks are used (with the ZL & ZR buttons) but they always have a bit of a wind-up, during which time the Kagura is an easy target. Additionally, you’re dashing for two, but, again, the Kagura character is on a little bit of a delay so they will often take some of the damage that the Tsuguri is trying to avoid, especially with bosses, who have fast attacks which switch targets with little notice.

The magic attacks, I should also mention, just aren’t very powerful and must be leveled up significantly both in Towa’s village and via run-specific boons. The Kagura character often feels like dead weight because they just aren’t contributing all that much. In fact, after absorbing a lot of cheap hits and becoming less and less impressed with the available Kagura spells, a question began to formulate in my mind:

Why does Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree require two characters?

Their command buttons don’t overlap. The Tsuguri uses R (for some reason) to attack, X to switch swords, and Y for the special attack. The Kagura character uses ZL & ZR. The L button is used to dash. That’s the entire control scheme. A single character could do all of these actions and you wouldn’t have to babysit an easily-targeted secondary character. Yes, you have the ability to play Towa co-op with a friend, but whoever controls the Kagura will have less fun, as they have to stay within a set distance of the Tsuguri and their attacks are on a timer.

(There also appears to be a way to set up online games between friends–I did not get a chance to try this out)

Combat is similar to Hades in that you’ll face a group of enemies who announce their attacks so you can get clear, and each room will have three or four “waves” of creatures to defeat. None are especially hard or interesting, and unlike Hades (but like TMNT), you’ll see a lot of the same creatures between zones, often with palette swaps to denote differences in attacks or HP.

However, unlike either of those games, Towa’s level structure isn’t set in stone. Each time you successfully defeat a Big Boss, you’ll be required to run through a longer set of zones, each ending with a miniboss. Some of these minibosses are surprisingly tough. But once you do finally arrive at the Big Boss, your characters may be so drained of health that defeat is inevitable. As with any roguelite, defeat means that you’ll go back to the start but you’ll keep all your unique gemstone-like currencies for Towa to make use of. One thing that makes minibosses and big bosses a pain is that they are unapologetic damage sponges.

Another unique quality of the level structure is that Towa doesn’t ask you to clear the entire game in a single run. Rather, your goal is to beat one Big Boss, because there are only so many to fight. However, as the road to each subsequent Big Boss is harder than the last one, you will die more often trying to get to the third Big Boss than the second, for instance. I found this structure tiring because you will be going through the same zones–or at least palette swapped versions of other zones–fighting the same enemies, navigating the same room layouts, and fighting the same minibosses many times over just to get to one new Big Boss.

It doesn’t help that the “boons” that your characters find aren’t very exciting compared to their fellow Hades-lites. At no point will your Tsuguri-Kagura duo become a whirling dervish of death daring any enemies to step into your line of sight. I never felt overpowered in Towa. For me, one of the delightful aspects of a good roguelite is that you occasionally find yourself equipped with a combination of boons and weapons effects that make you an order of magnitude more powerful than anything else on the battlefield. The Binding of Isaac still does this better than any of the roguelites I’ve sampled over the years, even Hades.

Anyway, in order to even approach that feeling of power, you’ll rely on Towa back at the village. You’ll accumulate a lot of different currencies during your runs, with which you can increase every percentage you can think of. Increase the Tsuguri’s primary sword damage. Increase their secondary sword damage. Increase their “Quick Draw” (sword switch) damage (yes, that is considered a separate attack which is bonkers). Increase the Kagura’s speed. Increase the Kagura’s mana regeneration. Increase the chances you’ll find this kind of boon or that kind of boon. Customize each character’s Kagura spells. Improve one of the buildings in town. Go fishing! Craft new swords for your Tsuguri!

It’s just too much. There are too many things to upgrade with too many kinds of gemstones and the results are truly difficult to perceive on a run-to-run basis. And, of course, each thing you can upgrade gradually requires an increasing number of gemstones to continue upgrading, so it will take several failed (or successful) runs to upgrade just one thing.

There are just so many things.

(I will say that sword crafting is very fun and reminds me a lot of rice farming in Sakuna: Of Rice & Ruin in that you are actively learning how Japanese swords were made)

The other part of village life is talking to people for a very long time about nothing. After these long talks, Towa will usually be rewarded with more gemstones. The fish that Towa catches can be traded in for more gemstones. If you’re short a particular gemstone, you might be able to buy it at one of the traders, but they will need…different gemstones. Something that should be impactful is that each time your Guardians defeat a Big Boss, time will pass in the village and some characters will age or die and be replaced with new characters. Additionally, every time you defeat a Big Boss, your Kagura must sacrifice him or herself to cleanse the area. This should also feel bad, but it really doesn’t because all the Prayer Children pull from the same spell list. You’re not really losing anything.

A lot of times, a game that’s otherwise mid can be hoisted up by its art direction, but while Towa is a lovely game to look at, it’s also unremarkable. Its biggest strength is its character designs, but I find the character art looks more impressive than the character models. On the whole, Towa looks like a game I would’ve played on the PlayStation Vita not all that long ago. Good, but nothing I haven’t seen before. The palette-swapped enemies and overly-busy environments, which also have palette-swapped alternates, don’t help and it’s sometimes difficult to tell where you can and can’t walk.

Overall, there’s a bit too much holding Towa back from a recommendation. There are better Hades-likes out there, most notably Hades II: Melinoe Goes West. If you’re a dyed-in-the-wool roguelite fan, Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree will definitely fill your cup, but I think it’s too easy to walk away from.