VIDEO PREVIEW: Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree's ideas of sacrifice make for a compelling action roguelike

Below is a transcription of our video preview! We encourage you to watch it (and all the other videos on our YouTube, but understand if reading is more your thing!

I thought I had Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree figured out at a glance. It's an action roguelite with some Hades inspiration. You go on a run, you inevitably die, you upgrade future runs in your town with the resources that you've gathered on that, gawk at the cute character art, rinse and repeat.

But what Brownies Inc and Bandai Namco have here is anything but rote and routine. With character relationships placed in the narrative spotlight, gameplay systems that emphasize the collaboration between its characters, and ideas of sacrifice looming in the background of everything that you do, Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree is looking to carve its path in this jampacked genre.

Just the Facts

Developer: Brownies inc

Publisher: Bandai Namco Entertainment

Platform(s): PC, PS5, Xbox Series S and X, Nintendo Switch

Price: $29.99

Release Date: Sept. 18, 2025

VGG was invited to be part of a digital preview event for Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree, where we were given free rein of the game’s first four hours. It offered a healthy sampler of the roguelite and a sense of how its many many runs are going to shake out.

In Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree, a malevolent demonic force threatens reality, a village lays frozen in time, and the only thing holding the line against evil is a team of guardians handpicked by Towa: the ageless child of the gods who protects the village of Shinju. A failed attempt to seal away the evil Magatsu ends with Towa and her guardians separated. The eight warriors are sent to the literal end of time, where they bear witness to a reality where evil has won. Towa, though, ends up protected by the gods, and finds herself assisting her guardians from afar. As they work to defeat demons and send mana back to Towa, she works to build up enough strength to finally put Magatsu away for good.

If it sounds like a lot, it kinda is. If there’s one thing I’d say about the game’s opening hour, it’s that it can be a little overwhelming. Between the various mechanics that are slowly laid out and the eight or nine protagonists they introduce you to, each with their own stats and moves to consider, it can be a lot to take in all at once. Especially in a time-limited situation and especially from a lore lover’s perspective. I couldn’t just skip all the dialogue!

But once you get going, Towa starts to show you what makes it really special. This one’s got THE JUICE, gamers.

At the outset of each run — or journey, as the game calls them — you are asked to pick a pair of guardians to go out and attempt to defeat one of Magatsu’s guardians, then send the mana it leaves behind back to Towa. This duo mechanic is fascinating, as each potential pairing comes with a whole new playstyle and a whole new perspective on the group’s dynamics and lore.

For your duo, you’ll choose one to be the Tsurugi, your main attacker in each run, and the second will be the Kagura, a support character who casts spells. The Tsurugi wields two different blades, switching between them when your attacks deplete your weapon’s durability. And each of the eight guardians utilize the two blades distinctly, making them feel completely different from each other.

Nishiki, a giant buff fish man, glides across the arena with each slash, making him an easy pick to try and land backstabs for extra damage. Origami, notable for her origami clothing and penchant for pranking, has kind of a shotgun blast vibe: heavy damage short-range attacks with one blade and with the other, a charge attack that makes up for her range shortcoming but makes her a static target in turn. Mutsumi, a firecracker fox girl and sibling to the lovable Bampuku, has a more standard slash combo as her main attack — but with her second blade, she flies into the air and bombs down on enemies with a targeting reticle that you're able to aim while charging the attack.

Every guardian plays incredibly differently from the last, making your duo decisions critical not only to your success in any given run, but also to your longevity, keeping your enjoyment up through the dozens of runs you’ll endure across the game’s main story.

For your support character, the Kagura, your second choice isn’t AS groundbreaking. At least in the beginning. Most of the guardians pull from a similar batch of spells, so you don’t end up feeling their diversity in this support role. It’s more about the stat bonuses your Kagura may provide through the upgrades you give them between runs. That and the bits of lore you’ll uncover about the guardians and their relationships when you pair them up and listen in on campfire discussions.

Their relationships are key to the story being told here by Brownies. Seeing these characters fight together, bond by sharing stories of days gone by, and generally support one another on their way to saving the world they left behind makes the inevitable all the more powerful. You see, at the end of every journey, when it comes time to send Towa the mana the guardians earned by defeating a boss… they perform a sacred rite. And in that sacred rite, the Kagura is sacrificed. Forever gone. Not just from the story but from your game as well. The game makes it particularly cruel too, by asking you to press the button to slide your blade through your friend to send them on to the next life.

This single twist makes for one of the most compelling hooks I’ve seen in a roguelike in a while. It’s not just some gimmick; it’s intertwined into every piece of the experience. On the gameplay side, every journey has stakes, because you know when you pick your team, there’s a chance only one of them is coming back. Every level up, upgrade, and other statistical boost you invest into these characters could be gone in an instant. And if it is, somehow, that’s supposed to be a good thing, because you’re one step closer to sealing away Magatsu for good. Yet as the player, you’re regretting that loss of what could’ve been.

Even before you’ve had much of a chance to know these characters, you have to come to terms with potentially never learning their full stories. In my preview time, I beat the first journey’s boss on my second attempt, and it immediately dawned on me that the character I brought with me was just going to be gone. A character with lines of dialogue brought to life brilliantly by the game’s stellar voice cast that I’d never hear. A character with gameplay quirks I hadn’t even explored because I’d mainly used him in support. The loss was felt by the world, its heroes, and me. It changed how I approached every journey after that.

The action gameplay is mechanically sound, snappy, and fun. It takes away all the right lessons from its genre peers. And the Japanese mythology setting allows for some truly incredible art design from Brownies’ art team. But it’s this exploration of sacrifice that has me most excited about playing the full game.

I might have to SACRIFICE my social life when it comes out, but it’ll be worth it to see what Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree has in store with its full release on September 18 on PS5, Xbox Series S and X, Nintendo Switch, and PC.