How was Bandai Namco’s first time roguelite

The feast last week during the summer game, you would forgive the patron saint and guard of the sacred tree. He got a very short trailer and another information or fanfare that he got a very short trailer and got little. But his unusual development stories can make one of the most interesting games that appeared during visible.

With Daisuke Nagaoka, I talked to the Bandai Namco producer in Towa and Shuhei Yamashita, the director of the developers brownies, after the game ad and you can read it here. Both of Brownies began to catch in the history of Brownies, with a fascinating pedigree.

Brownies evolved with Nintendo’s owned Brownie Brown Inc, based on Shinichi Kamereka and Kouji Tsuda. As Brownie Brown, the developer loved several games such as Mana, Mana heroes, Super Mario 3D land and fantastic life. But in 2012, the company reported that it officially became a Nintendo Support Studio and changing that name to 1-up studio. When that happened, Cameoka went on, and brownies formed brownies with others Brownie Brownie Brown.

Since then, Brownies have a name for games like Fantasy Life Link!, Egglia series and Doraemon Seasons of Doraemon, published by Bandai Namco. Nagaoka explained that this existing relationship went well while the teams were finishing Doraemon, decided to work with Brownies again. “Their creativity was so wonderful, we decided that we wanted to create something original and work together.”

But Bandai Namco didn’t get what he had finished. Yamashita explained that Bandai Namco originally reached Brownie by asking for an original RPG “Japanese flair, Japanese flavor”. The request is sensible, the past work of Brownies. But it was a great fan of Yamashita, Roguelar and Roguela, they had a different idea. Bandai Namco countered the company that never published in the game genre.

So why did Bandai Namco said yes?

“There are three things,” says Nagaoka. “First of all, it’s a market. So it’s the customer’s base. So from business point of view, that’s because we deserve a challenge. So we were ready to take this challenge.

“And the third point is that RPGs are based on good stories, but there is a lot of roguel to roguelite games. So we wanted to create something with a good story with Roguelit, and if we thought we separated ourselves.”

However, there was a roguelita, which had a kind of story and Brownies and bandai were looking for Namco items: Hades.

“That’s a very convenient game to play,” says Yamashite. “The playfulness is good. So it was something I wanted to achieve even with this game.”

Bandai Namco got his way, however, is a game of “Japanese flair” in that Towa. The Japanese and the wider eastern motifs inspired, Yamashite says, even if you don’t add a folklore or myth that is directly withdrawing in the game. The characters, for example, are all covering another motif, such as Shiba, Koi and a Samurai. Brownies were originally placed in 24 different characters, all of the silhouettes and unique personalities, and an internal competition that only reduced the field.

But that’s different from Towa Hades and other games of the genre. Instead of playing one character at the same time, players control two: one leads the sword, and another carrying a worker on the support paper. Each character has different capabilities, depending on the role being played, and both can be independently controlled using left and right sticks and different buttons. It is a configuration that used to get used to (as I wrote my preview), but in the end, he proved that I was an interesting tour of games like Hades.

“Having two characters there are two advantages,” Yamashite says. “In the beginning … 3D games, the right stick camera is to maneuvers, so when you are looking down, this mechanism would allow you to be able to have two characters or to maneuver. So it was our thought.

“And then secondly, having two characters from the point of view of the story, having relationships or having relationships between these relationships, which would give them more deeper. So we thought it would be that two characters would have these two characters.”

Towa and the guard of the sacred tree are on September 19, 2025, on the Xbox Series consoles, vapor and nintendo switch through PC. Here you can catch our short experience with the game.

Rebeka is the main reporter for Valentine Ignore. You can find publication on Bluesky @ Duckvalentine.bsky. Did you get a tip in the story? Send to rvalentine@ign.com.