Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree was supplied by Bandai Namco for evaluation. Thanks!
Not too way back, I had the pleasure of testing Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree forward of its launch for a preview, and it captivated me. I beloved the visuals, the fight was stable, and the customization choices, like swordsmithing, had been superior. With so many roguelikes on the market proper now, particularly ones that take the Hades-style and attempt to make their very own model of it, these video games have to essentially stand out and make an impression. Whereas there are components of Towa I actually like, and it does stand out, the execution of all of it makes it a much less pleasant expertise than it may very well be.
The side of Towa that actually stands out instantly is its presentation. Visually, it is attractive. I really like the colourful artwork fashion and nice character designs. The environments are actually lovely as properly, with an honest selection all through the city and the biomes we’ll encounter. The characters themselves are fairly attention-grabbing and the voice appearing is nice as properly. Combine within the implausible soundtrack, and we now have a sport the place it is only a pleasure to be in.
The story takes middle stage right here as properly, and whereas it’s attention-grabbing, there are some holes that preserve me from loving it. You might be on a quest to carry peace again to the land, enjoying as 9 fighters, all with various personalities and movesets, with Towa as their information. You must battle towards Magatsu and the evil that sprouts, all to revive the timeline and convey your well-deserving heroes house.
The story goals to be an emotional one, the place the bonds between the heroes, Towa, and Shinju Village come middle stage. It is intriguing watching all of it unfold, and whereas there are some real moments tucked in, it does not all the time hit the mark. There are loads of conversations between the individuals and our controllable heroes, to the purpose the place it appears like it may interrupt the gameplay. This can be a fast-paced roguelike, so it feels slightly off to take a seat by lengthy conversations when going into runs constantly is the main target.
The emotional moments do hit within the second, however can really feel sullied afterward. The gameplay is structured equally to story chapters, the place you progress to the following chapter when you full the run. Nonetheless, on the finish of it, we now have to sacrifice certainly one of our heroes. It is unhappy, and the choice will be robust as we slowly whittle down our choices of heroes to maintain alive with us. In a method, this feels sullied afterward within the story, which I used to be slightly let down by. It additionally simply feels just like the heroes do not care as a lot, seeing that they need to sacrifice their companions. On one hand, they’re ready for it, however on the opposite, they appear fairly content material to simply float.
I do like seeing how the city evolves and adjustments because the story progresses. It is an attention-grabbing concept that I believed was charming as individuals we knew and had met beforehand had grown up or handed away. This made coming again to the village after every chapter and speaking to individuals to see what had modified extra pleasant.
When you’ve got performed Hades earlier than, then the gameplay of Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree will come like second nature. You run round and assault enemies, utilizing your assortment of strikes, dodging, and upgrades you get in every run to make your self extra highly effective and get so far as you possibly can. It is fast-paced, chaotic, and when the whole lot works, it is a ton of enjoyable.
To separate itself from the pack, Towa has you controlling two characters as a substitute of 1. You will have a main that you simply primarily management and assault with, and the opposite who will solid two totally different spells to help you. Every has their very own well being bar, and also you solely lose as soon as each characters have misplaced all their well being and die. We even have two swords to handle, with one giving us a fundamental combo assault and the opposite being a rechargeable Space of Impact assault. They every have sturdiness, so we should constantly swap between the 2 to deal most injury.
The extra distinctive in-run development grew on me the extra I performed as properly. As a substitute of simply flat upgrades, we now have an assortment of themed upgrades to switch our run. These are sectioned off by their secondary skills, normally giving a injury improve whereas additionally a modifier, like a gust of whirlwind popping out for additional injury or regaining some well being with every hit. There can solely be one improve like this per sort of harm you do, so you possibly can solely have one linked to every sword, fast draw, and Deadly Blow assault. This wasn’t one thing I favored at first, however with the ability to hyperlink totally different modifiers to the totally different assaults was attention-grabbing. There are additionally some normal upgrades as properly, like elevated assault pace or reroll makes an attempt, in addition to some spots in-game to simply heal up, store, or get non permanent buffs.
Outdoors of every run, there are a selection of how to enhance your stats. My favourite of which is creating and forging your personal sword. It is a fairly in-depth minigame that means that you can customise your personal sword, altering an assortment of stats together with it and the way it appears. That is fairly presumably my favourite a part of the sport, and I beloved creating some loopy wanting swords that I might considerably see when combating. There are upgradeable Virtues to assist heal extra in-run, Jewels to switch what sort of rewards you can get, Talent Factors to spice up base stats of every individual, Inscriptions to additional modify well being and totally different assaults, and the power to assemble and improve buildings that may have an effect on your runs. Whereas every individual has their very own talent factors, I do recognize that once we get extra factors, it applies to all of our fighters as a substitute of only one.
Whereas the fight and its development techniques grew on me, there have been a few points that reared their ugly heads simply as typically. With how frantic fight may very well be, I discovered it onerous to foretell the place the enemy would assault, and within the chaos of battle, I’d find yourself being struck. The pink outlines of the place the enemy would assault blended in with the chaos simply too simply, and I’d endure the results.
This led straight into the following large problem I had, balancing. Particularly to start with, it appears like enemies simply have an excessive amount of well being and deal an excessive amount of injury. That is much less of an issue with the grunts, however the bosses simply felt fully unbalanced. They’ve a ton of well being and deal a whole bunch of harm, with chained assaults that would simply kill in a single to 2 hits. Even with the incremental enhancements to well being, assault injury, and pace, nothing ever modified the result. It took some time with tons of grinding to get to a degree the place I’d have the ability to defeat the bosses that stopped me in my tracks, and it in the end made me really feel like I used to be making no progress in any respect for a while.
It by no means acquired to a degree for me the place I wasn’t having fun with fight, nevertheless it undoubtedly began to really feel repetitive sufficient to take breaks. I really like the mechanics concerned with bringing in two individuals, and there have been real moments of pleasure in fights the place I used to be beating down enemies with a smile on my face, however the chaos drowns out enemy assault indicators, and the stability between enemies, bosses, and myself forces extra grinding than I’d have favored.
All of it comes all the way down to execution. The fight and development techniques are implausible, and I really like the concepts with the story and evolving city, however the execution simply does not hit. There’s some enjoyable available right here, and I loved going again into the grind, nevertheless it was so repetitive that I used to be exhausted and needed to take some breaks. The balancing wants some remodeling as properly, with some bosses simply feeling method too overpowered.
Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree – Steam Deck Efficiency
Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree established itself by previews, displaying me how properly the sport can run on the Steam Deck. Developer Brownies Inc. did a implausible job optimizing the sport, and it rightfully deserves that Verified badge.
90 FPS is feasible all through the sport, although it may begin to drop barely afterward as fights get extra hectic. Personally, I went with a 60 FPS lock to maintain the smoothness the whole time and cease the battery from draining too excessive. You possibly can decrease some settings to maintain 90 FPS for those who actually wish to, however I did not discover it crucial and nonetheless loved the sport at 60 with some additional battery life.
So, I do suggest simply enjoying at 60. The sport appears lovely on the default settings with an amazing battery life, draining solely round 9W – 10W on common. It is the perfect of all worlds.
Accessibility
Within the sport, you possibly can change digicam distance and shake, the dialogue auto-playing, controller vibration, issue, and audio settings.
The sport does not help 16:10 resolutions, nevertheless it does have cloud saves and controller help. There are not any HDR settings.
Conclusion
Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree is a sport with implausible concepts and execution that does not do them justice. The fight and development are distinctive and have tons of nice mechanics, whereas the presentation retains it a step above the remainder. Nonetheless, execution hampers it, maintaining the sport from reaching the total potential it ought to have. It is not essentially unplayable, however there are too many smaller issues that may find yourself being very aggravating.
For many who wish to take pleasure in it on the go, I can fortunately say it is unimaginable on the Steam Deck. It appears and performs extraordinarily properly, and even at 60 FPS, it is easy with over 5.5 hours of battery life. It is an amazing sport to play transportable, regardless of the problems it has.
Our evaluation relies on the PC model of this sport.
In the event you loved this evaluation, be sure you take a look at the remainder of the content material on SteamDeckHQ! We’ve all kinds of sport critiques and information which are certain to assist your gaming expertise. Whether or not you are on the lookout for information, suggestions and tutorials, sport settings and critiques, or simply wish to keep up-to-date on the newest developments, we have your again.
