Full disclosure, before this game arrived, I had no idea that Sand Land had been around so long. I didn’t know it was a manga, or it had a movie – I knew nothing. This had all been a mystery to me prior to this review.
Now, having done extensive research on the story, I know that this is Akira Toriyama’s story and video game legacy. The Sand Land series was born from the mind of Toriyama and illustrated from that same genius and ended up as a perfect fit for a video game structure. That doesn’t mean that it kicked on all cylinders, even with a story that is interesting and animation that is out-of-this-world gorgeous, but it certainly treats the source material respectfully while offering some slightly addictive gameplay to keep it engaging and interesting.
So, grab a bottle of water, sip it, don’t gulp it, and let’s discuss the land full of sand.
Story driving it
The story of Sand Land is a simple, yet tragic tale. The world in Sand Land is one that is void of water thanks to a tragic military event by the evil Royal Army 30 years prior. Water is a hot commodity and because of this, the struggle is most certainly real for the residents, as the world has gone full Mad Max. There are pockets of whack-a-doodle groups roaming around taking what they want while taking out who they need in a mainly lawless land. Those groups are creatively done and are what you would expect from a fun and outlandish manga storyline like this, and understandably exist because of what happened to make the land void of water. And when I say ‘outlandish’, I mean outlandish. There are demons that have made their way to the surface because of the state of everything, and swimsuit-toting gangs.
Now, speaking of demons, you play the lead character, Beelzebub, a demon that enjoys destruction, yet has a small drop of compassion in his dark heart. His entrance into this mad world begins with him stealing and decimating a Royal Army water transport. While demons are certainly not hurting as much as humans for water, as they are used to not having it, they still need water to survive. After obtaining that water, and distributing it among fellow cohorts and friends, the demon runs into a sheriff who begs for help. The sheriff named Rao is trying to find a mythical spring in the desert that will ensure water for everyone on the planet. Also, it will ensure that the Royal Army loses its grip on society in which it dangles water to guarantee loyalty.
Beelzebub gets the green light from his demon father and joins Rao, and the story kicks off from there. The pair turns into a trio when a Thief is invited into the group and eventually becomes bigger as the story unfolds.
For someone like me, who had no prior knowledge about the history of this story, it didn’t take me long to catch on. This was a well-written narrative that featured a lot of rollercoaster hills throughout its multi-act structure. Sand Land presented some haunting visuals to back up its claims that the world really was barely surviving. An endless landscape of dry and dusty desert was everywhere in the game, and humanity teetered on its own existence and dependence on the savory substance. All combined backed up the notion that water was a hot commodity in such a barren wasteland.
The story’s details did their best to represent that bleak canvas through its main characters’ mission, and side character quests. The main quest lived perfectly within the world SL created. The plight of Rao and Beelzebub to find this one last hope for humanity’s survival with a mythical spring injected urgency into the narrative and really stacked on the stakes. It’s a good reason why the adventure happens and is a constant reminder of why the player needs to continue in the face of failure at times.
All this said, my only knock on the story portion of the game is how the characters are developed. For example, Rao’s involvement is major, though how he reveals that is presented in a minor, yet unearned way. I don’t want to get into any details because of spoilers, but his character’s connection to the main story goes from the lowest gear and shifts to the highest gear almost instantly. There’s no real build to his background, it just becomes an ‘AND THERE IT IS’ type of presentation. A bit more gradual development would have been nice, especially with his payoff. You can’t rush the recipe, as you have to bake that cake until it’s ready to pop out of the oven.
It’s the same thing with Beelzebub, though his lack of development is understandable since he is a demon and they’re supposed to be attracted to stupid human destruction. What I enjoyed about Beelzebub’s character is how his compassion for humanity was sprinkled in from the get-go. When you think of demons, you think of ‘things’ that are just interested in watching the world burn. With his character, he has that aspect to him, but he also wants the bad people who deserve to burn to get their just desserts. Kind of in the same vein as Mad Max, where the lead character is disengaged with creating meaningful relationships with good people, but also engaged with making sure that the good people survive because it’s the right thing to do. That is the very definition of an anti-hero. Beelzebub is that anti-hero in Sand Land.
Taking all of that into consideration, I’m sure those familiar with the series had no problem seeing where the video game’s story was going. I’m sure they didn’t need much character development to back up the characters or provide an earned reason for their drive in the overall journey. I do appreciate that connection between original source and this, but if you’re looking for new people to get introduced and involved in SL, then you must make a story and characters for us newbies, where everything is built from the ground up (development, story, etc.). I felt like Sand Land just wasn’t built that way, even though picking up on everything was an eventual and salvageable possibility for those who knew nothing about it.
Anyway, I enjoyed the setting and the setup of Sand Land but wished that the story catered to newbies like me who knew nothing about the residents of SL prior to playing this game. A bit more cooking in the development of characters would have raised this story from good to great. My mind certainly filled in some blanks that weren’t explained, but the game should have come prepared to do that for me. The story just felt a bit impatient in that regard, and that certainly could have been avoided.
Fun in the Sand
While the story sets up some good pieces and parts and introduces some solid characters that fit into the scheme of things pretty well, the real sand in this land comes with the gameplay. The gameplay has a lot of layers to it which work well together for the most part. The first big layer is the open-world aspect of it.
Open for Business
While you may enter the desert of this world in awe of its haunting beauty and its forever draw-distance, you’ll learn quickly that this game truly is a big space to explore. There are massive rock structures everywhere, some containing caves and goodies, and some just jumpable areas that will get you from A to B. There are a lot of places to explore right out of the gate and that sets the tone for the gameplay structure and encourages the player to get discovering. You’ll want to go around exploring and you’ll want to know what surrounds you. While it’s not as huge as the likes of Skyrim or any other Bethesda monster game out there, it is impressive and none of it feels purposeless. The scope of the game really does reinforce the story while at the same time giving you the push to explore every inch of it.
It certainly isn’t shy of depth and space.
Vehicles on the go, crafting to keep them going
To explore that world, the game features a bevy of vehicles. You start the story by stealing a tank from the Royal Army. This tank will take you pretty much anywhere you want to go, except up and in small spaces. Through this first vehicle, you’re introduced to some key gameplay elements. The first pair of elements are gathering material and crafting.
The material gathering is done by killing enemies, destroying nature, and finding loot lying around in various spots. The killing enemy’s part of that equation is mostly repetitive, and a big downer when it comes to variety. You will find many enemies in the desert that will constantly repeat, such as raptors, scorpions, the occasional group of thugs, and the Royal Army. While the enemies are visually creative as hell, the repetitiveness of their appearance will dull the gameplay just slightly. For example, there were ‘alpha’ versions of desert monsters scattered throughout the game. Those alphas were tough and would take time to down. At first glance, these alphas felt like unique fights, as they presented a boss bar of health (big one) and the risk of dying was high. Killing one reaps wonderful rewards, but then seeing the same alpha again in a different area with the same moves diminished the uniqueness of finding and fighting them. You will run into a lot of scenarios in the game like this, and they mainly feel thrown in rather than properly planned out.
The alpha’s perceived omnipresence became the same level as the smaller enemies who were constantly repeated in the game. And that is the first big issue with the game, if not the biggest – the repetitive nature of the enemies and their lack of variety, even when the story and scenery shift. The enemies who weren’t integral parts of the story seemed like they were throwaways. The need to gather material from them will felt a bit dull at times. This part of the gameplay stuck out like a sore thumb.
Now, having said that, the boss fights were fun and feisty. Dialogue and personality were driving factors in the creation and execution of the story characters. For example, there were characters in the game called Swimmers, who were just desert wandering thugs with speedos. They were hilarious, dangerous, and solid pieces to the narrative puzzles. They stood out from the other enemies and offered some creative challenges when fighting them. These types of enemies helped to make the repetitive nature of the lower ones tolerable. And the need to find them to keep the game interesting created the necessary motivation to keep going and exploring. The balance between these enemy types and the repetitive ones was a one-sided affair, as there were more of the latter than the former. But the former did their best to keep my attention.
Moving on, when you dispose of the above enemies, you get material. Add that to finding material from treasure chests and nature, and you’re led to the crafting process of the gameplay. This might be the biggest part of the gameplay that will keep you squarely on track to keep going.
The crafting in Sand Land mainly involves improving vehicles. As I have stated multiple times across multiple reviews, I’m not a huge fan of crafting as a driving point of gameplay. This game pushed my attitude towards crafting into a positive light, though. Much like with Dragon Quest Builders where there are so many elements and choices to build, all combined to make it fun, Sand Land does a great job with its crafting details. By gathering certain pieces and parts during the adventure, you can upgrade your vehicles which shifts the gameplay approach, especially during fights, towards a more entertaining light. For example, you have a bevy of choices you can make on primary and secondary weaponry for the tank you get at the beginning of the game. As you gather material or find new guns, or get new guns through boss fights, you can add, subtract, or supe up your vehicle in any fashion you desire. There are a lot of different configurations for vehicles during crafting, so it constantly feels new and interesting. You can even put decals on your vehicles to create your own unique style. There are a lot of combinations to choose from during the vehicle crafting stage, and there are a lot of vehicles you can choose from as the gameplay continues.
As you progress in the game, you get blueprints for new vehicles and weapons. You can carry these vehicles you create with you everywhere and simply hit the right button on the d-pad to pull up a vehicle instantly for whatever obstacle might be standing in your way. Having big builds and easy access to vehicles is a great reason to enjoy this game, and it’s one of a few that had me anticipating playing it. Developer ILCA did a great job with making this a huge focus of the gameplay that drove the story and made the large explorable land tolerable. It also gave me a good reason to keep gathering material and to craft. It’s so unusual for me to want to craft in the game, but the way this worked, and the results of the crafting were obvious and entertaining. It worked as a centerpiece for all the gameplay that Sand Land was trying to offer.
Beyond crafting vehicles, there is a skills tree for each character, who can hold their own without their vehicles. Each character brings their own power and skills, such as fighting and defense, to the table through these trees. Gathering XP through accomplishing missions, and main and side quests helps to open more skills and gives the player some moderate push towards continuing the adventure and keeping locked-in. At times, I found myself forgetting about the skills trees, as most of the time I spent during gameplay was done through a vehicle, but those trees become important as you push through the game. You will find yourself vehicle-less at times and need to break out your fists to take care of business. The better leveled up you are, the better the gameplay will be when fisticuffs are called upon.
Now, staying with gameplay quests, there are a lot of side quests, and most are very meaningful. As you travel through Sand Land, you will find towns with people needing help or find people wandering the desert who need a hero. Some of the quests proposed by these folks could be simply gathering quests or points back to pockets of powerful and smaller stories. For example, there is a side quest where you need to find a mysterious character delivering flowers to a little blind girl in the desert. You must find out where the flowers are coming from and then convince the character delivering them to accept a ‘thank you’ from the blind girl. Even though these are small pockets of contained stories, it’s nice to see efforts not wasted with simple gather/deliver requests. They may ultimately have no barring on the overall main quest, but the side quests in Sand Land didn’t seem like throwaways for the most part. Rather, most side quests added context to the world that Toriyama and ILCA created and there were a lot of these quests and what you gain from them is impressive. The side quests add more to the ethos of the Sand Land world giving it more context and shape.
Overall, I mostly enjoyed the gameplay but felt like the repetitiveness of the common enemy in the game left the world a bit empty. You had more chance of running into rocks than you did new enemies, and when you ran into the latter, they were most likely repeats. The main and side quests certainly help to tame that issue, as does the inclusion of a fun gathering/crafting component, but the lack of enemy variety just hurt the gameplay. It is forgivable but not forgotten.
Outstanding presentation
I know that I have mentioned this before in earlier parts of this review, but it should be mentioned again – this is a gorgeous game. Akira Toriyama’s spirit lives within the visuals of this game and every visual aspect of it screams his name. From characters to enemies, and even in the environment, his style and art exist and create Sand Land. This is a gorgeous game and developer ILCA, and publisher Bandai Namco Entertainment honored Toriyama appropriately with how it visually turned out. It has been a long time since I’ve been thoroughly impressed with the visuals and style, and this is one of those moments where I enjoyed playing the game because of it. It’s truly a beautiful reminder of how much we will miss Akira Toriyama’s art and personal style.
On that note, let’s wrap this review up.
Conclusion
Sand Land from Akira Toriyama, developer ILCA, and publisher Bandai Namco Entertainment is a good game. It is driven by a large world to explore, some crazy characters with meaningful plights, and a fun crafting system that keeps you motivated in the overall journey. Its faults lie with repetitive enemies, empty areas to explore, and spotty character development. Overall, it’s a fun game.
