Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree preview: double or nothing

Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree treads familiar ground to Hades, in the sense it’s an accessible roguelike that’ll cater to those that adore the genre and those that haven’t played one before.

Playing the game at Summer Game Fest, I was given access to a handful of its playable characters, including a buff fish man, before being unleashed into one of its replayable action runs.

While most roguelikes follow a single character at a time Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree have you select two characters, one of which does the melee combat whereas another launches ranged spells.

The main controls utilised are for your main character, moving and unleashing combos whereas the mage character has access to two spells, both cast with a different trigger on the controller. You can also move the mage character independently of your own with the right stick, useful if they’re taking damage due to lagging behind you.

Each run works like most roguelikes, with the player clearing out a room of enemies before being given a choice between two boons, granting you an upgrade to character usually in the form of more damage/defense but sometimes a buff to one of your attacks or spells.

Like Hades you then select which door you want to go through next, with a symbol on all doors denoting what the next reward will be.

Some doors lead to an area with no enemies present where you can recover a bit of health, or visit a hot spring for a temporary power buff.

My demo run was pretty fun, but I did unfortunately die right towards the end which of course sent me all the way back to the beginning.

It was fun to control two characters at the same time though, especially making sure I wasn’t taking unnecessary damage due to my mage hanging around for too long. A longer run would be needed to really see what the game has to offer, but it’s definitely got legs as a decent roguelike.