Hades Didn't Prepare Me for Towa's Dual-Character Roguelite

If you think Hades tuned you up for every isometric roguelite under the sun, Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree will happily prove you wrong. After a hands-on preview, I walked away impressed, overwhelmed, and unexpectedly hooked on a combat system built around piloting two heroes at once. Between a sword-forging minigame that shapes your playstyle, a build system that nudges you toward clever synergies, and a rotating roster twist that keeps runs fresh, this one rewires the muscle memory you picked up from single-hero brawlers and asks you to master spacing, swaps, and survival for a duo.

Towa’s pitch is deceptively simple: you command a blade dancer called the Tsurugi and a spellcaster known as the Kagura. One is your frontline bruiser, the other your arcane artillery. The catch is that both have their own life bars, cooldowns, and positioning needs. Think of the Kagura as a fragile satellite orbiting your Tsurugi—deadly when aligned, disastrous when left drifting through enemy patterns. The result is a roguelite that is as much about bodyguarding your partner as it is about carving through mobs.

Where most action roguelites reward pure aggression, Towa rewards rhythm. Enemy tells sweep across the arena in geometric warnings, and your job is to thread two characters through the gaps. Swapping control between Tsurugi and Kagura is instant, but the real mastery comes from learning when not to swap. Often the right move is to shepherd both into a safe slice of the battlefield, then let your combo route unfold: pull a pack with a heavy slash, pivot the Kagura’s cone spell across their flank, dash-cancel to reposition, swap, and detonate a cooldown. It’s a ballet of spacing and timing, and when it clicks you feel like you’re simultaneously directing and starring in your own action sequence.

Don’t worry if that sounds daunting—Towa bakes in tools to help you stabilize. Forgeable swords are the backbone of your Tsurugi’s style, and crafting them is an active process, not just a menu click. A timing-based minigame sets the quality of attributes like durability, burst damage, and on-swap effects. I built one blade that hit like a meteor but needed frequent swapping to refresh, then paired it with a sturdier “workhorse” for wave clear. Because blades refresh when benched, the combat loop nudges you to weave in swaps mid-fight—turning downtime into an opportunity to unleash on-swap projectiles or status effects you’ve specced into.

Builds blossom from there. Run-based upgrades come in themed families—mobility, elemental damage, defense, and more—and the meta progression slowly lets you bias what shows up. That means you can plan a sprinty crit build with dash enhancers and bleed procs, or bulk up a survival setup that invests in shields and damage mitigation for your Kagura. The payoff is in the interplay: a dash that leaves a cutting wake becomes a zoning tool when paired with a Kagura trap, and a weapon-switch shockwave sets the table for a screen-wide spell to clean house.

Boss fights are where the dual-character design stops being a novelty and becomes the test. It’s not just “don’t get hit”—it’s “don’t let your second life bar become the liability that erases your damage plan.” Losing your Kagura turns battles into grueling slugfests as you juggle fewer cooldowns and narrower coverage. This makes defensive picks feel meaningful, not boring. An aura that blunts chip damage or a passive that grants brief invulnerability after a swap can be the difference between a clutch victory and a reset.

There’s co-op, too, and it’s a riot. One player pilots the Tsurugi while the other commands the Kagura, and suddenly those frantic solo micro-decisions become barked callouts and high-fives. The design scales well for duo play: the arenas give you room to set crossfires, and the most satisfying moments are when you intentionally bait an attack path to funnel enemies into your partner’s spell.

Towa’s roster system also keeps the metagame interesting. The roles—Tsurugi and Kagura—are archetypes, not single characters, and each role has multiple candidates with distinct signature moves. One Tsurugi might send out a bulldozing shockwave on heavy hits, while another specializes in circular cleaves that shred close packs. Kaguras vary from sustained elemental pressure to chunky, precise nukes. Here’s the wildcard: your runs and story progression rotate who’s available, encouraging adaptation instead of letting you lean on the same comfy pairing forever. It’s a clever way to force experimentation without feeling punitive, and it makes your forging and upgrade choices matter run to run.

If you’re coming in hot from Hades or similar titles, here are a few tips that helped me snap into Towa’s mindset:

• Protect the orbit: Keep both characters within rolling distance of each other. Your best escapes preserve the duo, not just the active character.
• Swap with purpose: Craft at least one blade with a strong on-swap effect. Treat swapping as an attack, not a timeout.
• Draft defense early: A single survivability perk for your Kagura often returns more value than a modest damage bump.
• Build for the room, not the run: If a region leans toward swarms, pick cleave and area control; for elite-heavy paths, lean into burst and interrupts.
• Practice the forge: Nailing the timing mini-steps pays dividends across an entire run, and you feel the difference immediately.

The best compliment I can pay Towa is that it respects both halves of its idea. The dual-control concept isn’t a gimmick slapped onto a familiar loop—it’s the loop. It changes how you read arenas, how you sequence inputs, how you value upgrades, and how you think about momentum. The sword-crafting adds tactile ownership over your kit, while the shifting roster keeps curiosity alive between sessions. All of it coalesces into a roguelite that feels brash, mechanical, and just a little bit mischievous.

Will it dethrone your favorite? That depends on how much you enjoy the extra brainwork of safeguarding a partner while shattering enemy lines. But if the idea of juggling offense and guardianship in the same breath sounds thrilling, keep this one on your radar. Towa doesn’t just want you to get good—it wants you to get good twice, at the same time. And surprisingly, that double challenge makes every victory feel doubly sweet.