Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree is brilliant on Steam Deck, but what about Switch and Switch 2?

Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree from publisher Bandai Namco and developer Brownies is now available worldwide for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and PC (Steam). Alongside our review today, I have a feature covering the handheld experience for Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree. This includes Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree on Switch 2 (via backward compatibility), Switch, and also on PC handhelds to go over my Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree Steam Deck recommended settings and ROG Ally impressions. As usual, I've also tested the load times across devices and platforms.

Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree Switch and Switch 2 full game impressions

Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree is a Nintendo Switch (1) game that is also playable on Nintendo Switch 2 via backward compatibility. Bandai Namco Entertainment's official Japanese website lists Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree as capped to 30fps on Switch both docked and handheld. It is also supposed to support resolutions up to 1080p docked and 720p handheld. This sadly also carries over to when playing on Nintendo Switch 2, but there are two notable advantages the stronger hardware provides: stable performance and faster load times.

On Switch, there is hitching during fast movement when playing Towa. Load times are also very long. When playing on Switch 2, the hitching and load times are much better, but the input lag is very noticeable compared to playing the PC version on Steam Deck and ROG Ally. While I could get used to the input lag during each run and combat encounters, the QTE for forging and crafting swords was a lot harder on Switch and Switch 2. I hope a future update can bring in 60fps support via backward compatibility at least if not for a native release.

Right now, Towa looks fine on Switch 1 handheld, but doesn't feel as good as it should be even with a 30fps target. On Switch 2, the performance is more stable, but the visuals are lacking since it is running the Switch version via backward compatibility and is lower than the Switch 2 screen's native resolution. The 3D elements are a bit soft, but the real issue is how 2D elements and fonts are displayed right now. I recommend trying the demo to see if you're ok with the visuals in Towa on Switch 2 before buying it.

Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree PC port features and graphics options

Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree is very well-optimized on PC based on my time with it across handhelds. When it comes to graphics and display options, you can adjust the screen mode (fullscreen, borderless, and windowed) and resolution (720, 800p, 1400x1050, 1440x900, 1600x900, 1680x1050, 1080p, 1920x1200, 1440p, 2560x1600, 3200x1800, and 4K) from the Screen Size under graphics settings. The other options let you toggle v-sync, select an fps limit (30, 60, 120, 144, unlimited), toggle post-processing, adjust shadow quality (off, low, high), anti-aliasing (off, SMAA, FXAA), and toggle water reflections.

As of now, the control options don't let you rebind anything in-game. You are taken to the Steam Input or controller settings to make any adjustments. It also seems to have Steam Input mapping correctly configured for in-game actions as you can see in the image below. Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree does display keyboard & mouse or controller prompts based on your input. Right now, Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree does not support Steam Remote Play Together. It would have been useful given the local co-op included, but Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree does support network play. I was not able to test this pre-release.

One thing I want to note is that even if you play at 4K, it seems like some of the portraits or 2D elements are rendered at a lower resolution. I hope this can be fixed in an update because it looks a bit jarring when you have crisp 3D gameplay with soft-looking portraits in some situations. 

Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree Steam Deck impressions

Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree is already Steam Deck Verified, and this is one of the few cases where a new game being Verified pre-release is appropriate. Not only does Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree have proper 16:10 and 800p support, but it has suspend/resume Steam Cloud support meaning you can suspend the game on Steam Deck and have it sync progress to the cloud to instantly resume on your PC. As for visuals and performance, Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree has no trouble hitting 90fps on the Steam Deck OLED initially with it not even being very demanding with power. Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree on Steam Deck OLED is a fantastic experience out of the box, but I was curious if I could push it more and see if it delivered a competent docked experience. 

Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree Steam Deck recommended settings

Given how light Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree is on PC, I decided to work on two sets of Steam Deck recommended settings for it. The first is for handheld play covering both Steam Deck LCD and OLED. The second is for docked play on a monitor or TV. If you want to play Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree on your Steam Deck docked, you can aim for 1080p and 60fps or 1440p and 30-60fps. I don't like playing at variable frame rates without VRR, so I recommend setting it to 1440p docked only if you want to play with a 30 or 40fps target. It will have some drops, but nothing major. For a solid 60fps docked experience, play at 1080p.

For handheld play, you could leave Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree at the defaults, but I only recommend making sure it it set to 800p and that the frame rate target is set to 120fps on the Steam Deck OLED so it can hit 90fps with full 16:10 visuals. If you want to play at 60fps and save battery life, make sure you set the Steam Deck OLED refresh rate to 60hz before playing with a 60fps target so you get correct frame pacing.

Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree ROG Ally impressions

Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree on ROG Ally runs and plays great on the Z1 Extreme model, but you aren't going to be playing at a 1080p 120fps at maximum settings unless you use the 30fps turbo mode. When playing on the 25W or 15W mode, you can aim for a near-locked 120fps at 720p. I recommend playing with a 90 or 60fps target at 1080p when using the 25W mode for the best possible visual experience if you want to use anti-aliasing. The 10W mode is not worth using here given the frame rate drops well below 60 even at 720p. Another option is playing at 1080p with a 120fps target and using 25W turbo mode, but with the shadows and anti-aliasing off. 

Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree load times: Switch 2 vs Steam vs Switch

For my load time testing, I used the digital version of Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree installed to the internal storage on Switch 2 (Switch version), SD card on Switch OLED, the Steam version on Steam Deck OLED's internal SSD, and the Steam version on the ROG Ally internal SSD. I tested the time taken from the dashboard to the title screen with mashing A to skip any logos as usual. I then tested loading a save until you get control of the character and finally how much time it takes to begin a run going over the load time to character selection and then to begin the actual run. 

Note: All load times above are in seconds. 

As you can see, the Switch on Switch 2 has the fastest initial load, but loading saves and gameplay transitions end up a lot faster on Steam Deck and ROG Ally. The Switch version on Switch is the slowest of the bunch. In fact, the Switch version on Switch does not feel great in general with regular hitching or frame pacing issues right now.

Which is the best version of Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree to play on the go?

Right now, Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree on Steam Deck OLED by far delivers the best portable experience since you can play on the OLED screen and a 90fps target. Since the Switch 2 can only run the Switch version via backward compatibility, it is still capped at 30fps. While it fixes the hitching issues with the Switch version, it isn't remotely as good as playing the PC version on PC handhelds. The second best option is the ROG Ally here given you can aim for 1080 and 120fps targets. I hope Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree gets a Nintendo Switch 2 Edition upgrade in the future because it really is not a great experience right now all things considered, but it is improved over playing on Switch 1.

Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree is set to release on September 19 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch, and PC (Steam).