Latest news with #Towa
CNET
a day ago
- Entertainment
- CNET
Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree: Anime Hades With a Hunky Fish-man
Behind closed doors at Summer Game Fest, I sat down to play a new game published by Bandai Namco that's tailor-made for Hades fans: Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree, which has its own take on the roguelike hack-and-slash genre. And, yes, a playable hot hybrid fish-man. Towa's isometric combat looks a lot like Hades at first glance, and shares some of the same basic structure. Players start at a hub area and start runs going through a series of gated battlefields filled with enemies. After they're defeated, you're granted a boon -- an upgrade to your skills, weapons, currency reward and so on. Hades players will be able to pick this up with ease when Towa launches on Sept. 18. Towa, developed by studio Brownies, Inc., has its own anime style and diverse group of fighters that sets it apart from Hades. In it, the titular Towa, a priestess of the tranquil Shinju village, charges eight guardians with defeating the evil Magatsu and his minions. With different combat styles, players pick one of these heroes to control and another for spell-casting backup (which a second player can pick up and control, too) to send into battle. Setting aside, it's clear that Towa takes a lot of inspiration from Hades in its gameplay, which Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree director Shuhei Yamashita acknowledged. "Of course, we have respect for Hades, and I had early access to that, and when I played it, the maneuverability was interesting, so that's something that we referenced," Yamashita said. "And the roguelike system, you have a unique maneuverability and you can really incorporate a unique element to it, so that's something that we have put into our game." Bandai Namco Towa is visually striking, with an anime look and vibrant colors -- and even though players wield two swords like samurai, the game stands apart from the recent vogue of period titles like Assassins' Creed Shadows and Ghost of Tsushima with its setting in a peaceful village. "Rather than going with samurai and historical days with a more realistic style, Brownies created this game that we wanted to be more fantastical -- not necessarily Japanese, but the kind of Eastern fantasy-type artwork that would be more attractive," said Yamashita. Apart from the game's aesthetics, Towa stands out for its different take on combat. The players' two swords -- a main-hand honzashi and off-hand wakizashi -- wear down quickly with every slash, kind of like the durability meter in Monster Hunter World's weapon system. You'll need to swap between the two swords to sharpen them (a move that comes with a short dash), which adds a rhythm to combat as you switch back and forth. A list of potential upgrades earned after defeating a room full of enemies. Bandai Namco But unlockable boons and upgrades will add variety to your play style. Some are straight damage, others add effects to your swords like knockback or trigger things like shockwaves when using a spell. The devs sitting alongside my demo hinted that you may even find boons that incentivize unorthodox strategies, like keeping your blades dull to unleash different attacks. There's a depth to the combat that I didn't scratch the surface of during my brief time with the game. I also didn't get a deep look at how the eight fighters differ -- aside from the fish-man Nishiki, there's a rotund Shiba Inu and six other anime-looking heroes to choose from. I chose the hunky fish-man as my main while selecting Origami, the fighter covered in folded paper armor, as my spellcaster and dove into a run. With a mix of melee and ranged enemies, the latter of which show the path for their attacks, Towa has some overlap with Hades' design. But the weapon switching mechanic is a notable difference, as are the spells -- my sidekick Origami had one with an area of attack mechanic that I could splash groups of enemies with. One of the eight fighter's ultimate attacks, which can clear a whole room of enemies. Bandai Namco In practice, remembering to switch between weapons when they dulled took time to learn, and I kept forgetting to use my spells. It also took me a while to sort out that my health bar at the bottom of the screen was split between my main fighter and backup spellcaster. But the game can get overwhelming with all the area attacks and flashy skill effects, so it's easy to lose your hero in the fireworks. After several rooms of enemies, I squared off against the mid-run boss and soundly defeated it, then moved into a merchant room where I could spend currency on upgrades -- all familiar territory for Hades fans. But just before advancing on the main boss, I entered a calm room overlooking a vista with a campfire. Here is where your heroes will take a breath and chat to share their backstories and more details about the world, fleshing out the characters and the game's lore. "Towa is a very story-focused game, so you could find as much story as you would normally find with RPG games," Yamashita said, noting that the characters you bring on runs with you deepen their relationships as you converse at these campfires. Bandai Namco Brimming with confidence -- a little too much, sadly -- I waltzed into the boss room and gave it everything I had, including Nishiki's ultimate ability for massive AOE damage. These charge up with attacks, and certain upgrades can speed up their recharge rate. Despite some nimble dashing and damage, and whittling down the boss to a quarter of its health, I succumbed. (Later in the weekend, I was told that only seven players at Summer Game Fest had taken down the boss at the time.) Players won't have long to wait for their own chance to try out a unique spin on roguelike combat. Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree comes out Sept. 18 on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S and Nintendo Switch for $30.
Geek Culture
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Geek Culture
‘Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree' Carves Bold Addition To Rogue-Like Genre With Weapon-Switching Focus
Replayability, procedural generation and non-linear progression – these are the core pillars of rogue-likes, a subgenre of role-playing games (RPG) often lauded for creating unique and unpredictable experiences with every 'run', the term used to describe each playthrough of the game, where death means starting over almost from scratch. With the roguelike genre dominated by titles that have perfected the formula, like Hades or The Binding of Isaac , what more can newcomers bring to the table that hasn't already been done countless times before? For publisher Bandai Namco Entertainment and developer Brownies Inc., their answer lies in Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree , an upcoming 2D action roguelike oozing with charm and visual flair, and most importantly, offers a refreshing take on the traditional hack-and-slash format with its heavy emphasis on weapon durability and hot-swapping. Over the course of a roughly half-hour gameplay preview session, we were able to experience a taste of what's in store for the ambitious title, and after trying out its innovative combat mechanics, left with an eager yearning for more. As a studio known for turn-based RPGs like the Egglia franchise, or relaxing farming simulators like 2019's Doraemon Story of Seasons , Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree marks a bold departure for Brownies Inc., not only due to a shift in genre, but also the overall intensity of moment-to-moment gameplay. This intensity isn't immediately apparent from the get-go, as the game presents a similar cutesy visual aesthetic seen in the studio's past titles, with heavily stylised designs for characters and environments alike. Players take on the role of Towa, the priestess of the fictional Shinju Village, who is tasked with gathering eight trustworthy companions, known as Guardians, as they embark on a quest to defeat Magatsu, an evil god who threatens to consume the land with his dark miasma and armies of creatures known as Magaori. Unlike traditional roguelikes, though, Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree features an overarching narrative that's directly influenced by the completion of runs, with the inclusion of a unique time-progression mechanic. Due to Magatsu, time has come to a complete standstill in Shinju Village, with players needing to complete runs to progress the game's main plot. 'Once you defeat the final boss in each run, the village's time progression will be altered, constantly progressing with each run cleared,' explains game director Shuhei Yamashita in an accompanying interview session with Geek Culture and other Southeast Asian media. 'This is one of the unique essences of the title, as not only will each run feature multiple paths to choose from, but clearing them will directly affect the game's storyline and push its narrative forward.' The essence of any rogue-like lies not only in its procedural runs but in the core combat mechanics that tie everything together. In Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree , players don't venture on runs alone, but always in groups of two. Furthermore, Towa might be the game's protagonist, but she doesn't actually embark on runs, instead leaving it up to her eight companions. Players have a choice between two of the eight playable Guardians, each with their own distinct visual style and backstories to discover. Take Nishiki, for example, a towering humanoid Koi fish who laughably loves eating seafood and can't swim despite his appearance, or Origami, a woman who, like her namesake, wears a giant Origami boat as a hat, and Bampuku, a giant bipedal Shiba Inu who's the definition of the word huggable. Interestingly, the wacky designs of some of the Guardians weren't an idea inspired by other games, media or folklore, but rather the creations of Yamashita himself. 'We did want to make strange and interesting characters for the game, and we thought it was a good idea to make them stand out a little bit. I designed the looks of Nishiki, Origami and Towa, and it doesn't matter if they look strange, I mean, there are eight characters, so why not make some of them look a little weirder?' It's not only looks that set the Guardians apart, as each also possesses unique movesets and abilities to mix and match. Players will take two Guardians across each run, one taking on the role of 'Tsuguri', the main damage dealer wielding two swords, and the other a 'Kagura', a supporting role which offers a choice of two spells, each bound to a trigger button. Once a run begins, players will encounter the traditional rogue-like format of progressing through procedurally generated instances, choosing different paths with varying rewards along the way. What sets the game apart, however, is its focus on themes of duality in its core concepts, as apart from having two characters and their aforementioned roles, hot-swapping between weapons also plays a key part in combat. No matter the character chosen as the Tsuguri, each will enter battles equipped with two swords, the Honzashi (Main) and the Wakizashi (Sub), with each character possessing unique attack patterns for both: Origami, for example, performs a slow but powerful sweeping attack combo with her Honzashi, while her Wakizashi requires the attack button to be held to charge up a ground slam that deals damage in a straight line. Shingin, a fox-ninja hybrid Guardian, throws his Honzashi forward to attack at range, while his Wakizashi calls down an explosion from the sky at range. The use of both weapons is tied together by the game's blade sharpening system, which causes the quality of each weapon to degrade with every attack, reducing their effectiveness unless the player performs a 'Quick Draw', a move that causes the character to quickly swap weapons, striking with the new one while simultaniously sharpening the other. Unlike most games with a weapon degradation system, however, both swords lose their sharpness extremely quickly, usually after five or so attacks, making constant weapon-swapping essential and encouraging equal use of both. With the combination of two swords, two spells, and a final ultimate move known as a 'Fatal Blow' that's unique to each Guardian, combat quickly becomes a dance of utilising everything at each character's disposal while dodging an enemy's telegraphed attacks, resulting in an addictive gameplay flow that's equal parts hectic and engaging. After clearing each combat encounter, players will receive rewards based on a chosen path, which can range from materials, currency, or a choice of four Graces, run-specific upgrades that can enhance the capabilities of swords and spells, or provide new abilities like a window of invulnerability upon dodging. Instead of combat encounters, players can also choose a path after battle that leads them to a shop to exchange currency for a Grace, or a spring that refills their health. This pattern then repeats until the player reaches the final boss for the run, or until death. Upon death, runs are reset, which removes all Graces earned, but players will still be able to retain any materials found. These can then be brought back to Shinju Village and used for weapon crafting and ability upgrading for the Guardians, although we were not able to try this out due to the curated nature of the preview. This limitation also extended to the game's time progression narrative, but in theory, these systems will serve to supplement to the game's already solid combat foundations by offering gradual improvements to each character, keeping gameplay engaging even after multiple runs. Despite the relatively brief preview session, it's clear that Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree is an ambitious title for Brownies Inc. There's always something impressive about a team willing to step out of their comfort zone, especially when the resulting game effectively balances familiarity with innovation. This could very well be the next sleeper rogue-like hit, which is impressive considering the project itself was a happy accident of sorts. 'It started with us trying to challenge ourselves with something new,' Yamashita concludes, 'We wanted to start a small project, and thought the rogue-like genre would be a good start. But it ended up becoming bigger than we expected, and now it's a super big project, and we're just bulldozing through it with sheer willpower.' Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree will launch on 19 September 2025 for the PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch and PC. Kevin is a reformed PC Master Race gamer with a penchant for franchise 'duds' like Darksiders III and Dead Space 3 . He has made it his life-long mission to play every single major game release – lest his wallet dies trying.
Digital Trends
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Digital Trends
Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree is very much Bandai Namco's Hades
If this year's Summer Game Fest taught me anything, it's that Hades is all the rage right now. We saw multiple game last week that took clear inspiration from Supergiant's hit roguelike with fast-based top-down action. The appeal is so undeniable that even Bandai Namco is jumping on the trend with Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree. Set to launch on September 19, the game puts its own spin on a popular formula with its ink painting-inspired art and colorful cast of characters. Is that enough to set itself apart in what's becoming a crowded field? I went hands-on with it at Summer Game Fest to find out, trying out my first 15 minute run (and a second one after an initial defeat). While it won't fully be able to separate itself from the inevitable Hades comparisons, Towa does include some bright ideas in its two-character combat that makes battles even faster. Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree stars Towa, a child of the Gods who is tasked with saving a village from a miasma plague. They aren't alone in that task. They enlist the help of eight heroes that range from a little kid to a giant fish man – the clear standout of the bunch. That cast is where Towa really stakes its claim on the genre with a unique twist. I don't just choose one character when I set out on a roguelike run; I pick two. One is my Tsurugi, a primary character that I hack and slash with, and the other is my Kagura, more of a support hero with powerful skills I can trigger. Recommended Videos That little formula shakeup is crucial, because Towa would be a little run-of-the-mill without it. The runs follow the Hades formula to a T, even more so than recent games like Warriors: Abyss. I go from arena to arena, clearing out the few waves of enemies that spawn in as quickly as possible. When they're all cleared, I gain a reward that helps shape my build. From there, I'm given a choice of a few doors and can see what kind of upgrade each will yield. Those arenas are punctuated by sub bosses, more specialized encounters, rest rooms, and a biome-ending final boss. It's not as imaginative as its lovely hand-painted art style, but that formula is so often borrowed for good reasons. The dual character action goes a long way towards filling that premise out. While the slashing is straightforward, the ability to mix and match characters gives players the chance to find synergies that fit their play style. Even just in two rounds of experimenting, I found success by mixing a close-ranged Tsurugi with a Kagura who could perform massive area of effect attacks. It looks as though other characters can be used more in a support role rather than an offensive one, which unlocks a lot of potential. Beyond that, there's a smart layer of gear management. Each character gets two weapons to work with and their energy runs out with each hit. To avoid temporarily exhausting one in a room, players need to use a quick switch attack to keep their blades sharp. That means that arenas aren't just about mindless button mashing tol victory. They're a careful balancing act that push players to cycle between every tool at their disposal. Rooms can be cleared incredibly fast with this system too; I was cleaning up enemies in under a minute once I got the hang of it. I only got a quick taste of the depth here, but there's more to see. I'm especially curious about how Towa's meta progression system works, as it looks like there will be a way to grow each hero's power in some way. Considering how many characters there are, that means that Towa has the potential to be a fairly long-tailed game for completionists. But for now, my focus is on just surviving that first biome, because its boss wiped the floor with my pals. That's how you win a run; one battle at a time. Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree launches on September 18 for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, and PC.
Nikkei Asia
12-05-2025
- Business
- Nikkei Asia
Asia's tariff-hit chip investments to recover by September: Towa
TOKYO -- Japanese chip tool manufacturer Towa says Asian semiconductor investments disrupted by tariff threats from U.S. President Donald Trump could rebound by September. Towa President Muneo Miura said in an online news conference on Monday that the company forecasts a recovery in orders starting in its second quarter, which ends in September. Investment in memory chips used for advanced artificial intelligence applications would likely take longer, he added, forecasting a recovery by the end of this year.
Yahoo
03-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Indigenous-language immersion schools aim to reverse cultural loss
JEMEZ PUEBLO — The words escape slowly from Eleanor Tafoya when she speaks of the decline of the Jemez language among the Pueblo's youth. 'If we don't do anything, we're going to lose our traditions or culture," she said. A teacher and girls' basketball coach for 40 years in Jemez Day School, she elected to teach her mostly Jemez students a word every day in the Jemez language, sometimes referred to as Towa. Students would otherwise only receive at most an hour of Jemez language instruction a day. "We were saying that one hour is OK — but it's not enough," she said. "With what we're seeing now with our little ones — them being more and more English speakers — one hour isn't going to cut it. We need a full version. 'So, I don't know,' she said somberly. 'It's hard.' Restoring the spoken rates of Indigenous languages is one of the goals of Senate Bill 13, which would authorize tribes and pueblos to form their own state-funded schools through a state-tribal education compact, empowering them to integrate their educational priorities into curriculum, including language and cultural education. 'When I was born, [the rate of knowing Jemez] was probably almost 100%,' said Sen. Benny Shendo, D-Jemez Pueblo, lead sponsor of the bill. 'Now we're probably hovering around 60%," he said. "But the tribe has made the conscious decision to do language immersion early on before it drops any lower.' Jemez Pueblo, as of this school year, now has two schools teaching almost entirely in the Jemez language — Walatowa Headstart for kids as old as 7, and the K-8 Hemish Pilot Immersion School. This means, if parents choose, students can be taught almost entirely in Jemez from early childhood through eighth grade, with academic English classes being introduced around fifth grade. Both immersion programs are pilots funded by public and private grants, with the pueblo only this last school year expanding the programs up to eighth grade. For Tafoya, who develops curriculum and occasionally substitute teaches the immersion classes, 'it's full circle,' she said. How does Jemez language immersion look? Creating a curriculum from the ground up is hardly a straightforward task, but an unwritten, spoken language like Jemez presents even more challenges than normal. A packet detailing learning objectives of the Jemez language immersion programs moves from social and emotional development for young learners to development of familial and traditional ideas to culturally integrated learning of concepts like cardinal direction and time. With little local institutional support to build Indigenous language immersion programs, the pueblo looked to the University of Hawaii at Hilo's Hawaiian language immersion program to develop a teacher licensure program for the Jemez language. In the Hemish pilot school, teacher Melissa Yepa walks Ryder Yepa through long multiplication in the Jemez language. Ryder rearranges cube models correlating to 1, 10, and 100 to solve Jemez word problems the teacher poses. At the top of Ryder's page is one of the few spots of English in the classroom: the words "base 10." "What we struggle with here is making sure that the kids have the language at home," Yepa said. English, Yepa said, has become the "easy" language — and parents are concerned about academic English literacy for the sake of standardized tests, which she called "irrelevant" to "the true growth of our students." Yepa, who taught for 18 years as a kindergarten teacher in Jemez Pueblo in a nonimmersion setting, said "as the years progressed, we were beginning to hear more and more English. So that was really a time for me to rethink my role as a teacher within my own community.' Now, after over a year of teaching in the immersion program, "there is a big change in the students and their confidence," she said, especially within traditional practices which rely heavily on language. Compared to bilingual multicultural education Many ideals of the Jemez program mirror the goals of bilingual multicultural education programs, which usually aim to build literacy in two languages in students and prioritize integrating cultural education with language. Where the Jemez program differs is that it assumes students will learn English regardless of instruction — English being the language of technology and, increasingly, the language spoken in Jemez homes. So, English is a little more taboo in these classrooms than in bilingual ones. Both doors have a 'no English' sign on the outside and educators go through great efforts to enforce it, even scheduling students' recess at a different time from English-speaking students from the charter school nearby. There's not much written English in the classroom, but there are blots of phonetic-notation Jemez around. Kids as young as kindergarten are quizzed orally on Jemez vocabulary for birds and local wildlife. Unwritten challenges That's not to say there is no written instruction for students before fifth grade's academic English introduction. Students learn from another written language before English — Spanish. The days of the week for example, are posted on whiteboards in Spanish — and there are a few reasons for it. For one, the Jemez language is influenced by and derives vocabulary from Spanish in place of the words the language lacks, such as the days of the week. Another reason is it presents an opportunity to provide a framework of written instruction to students without resorting to English. Kevin Shendo, director of the Jemez Department of Education, expressed the intention to expand Spanish in the younger grades' classrooms "because of the correlation of the languages from history — but also to give them the written literacy earlier," he said. But it's not necessarily an ideal situation — using a second language in a monolingual immersion setting. That's part of the reason, Shendo said, the pueblo is forming a "lexicon team" made up of teachers and community members, charged with creating new Jemez words for modern concepts like refrigerator, smartphone or airplane. For now, those words need to be either borrowed from another language or referred to descriptively with multiple words — such as airplane, called "one that flies above," in Jemez, Shendo said. 'We don't want to continue saying them in English,' he said. 'So we have to decide: are we going to define them for ourselves?'
