Sand Land is one of the many different series created by the prolific Akira Toriyama. It was first a manga series- a short one- in 2000. It received an anime and film release in 2022, and now the world and story is presented into a video game.
It’s not as advertised as much, but the Sand Land game is developed by ILCA, the same dev team Bandai Namco worked with for last year’s anime RPG, One Piece Odyssey.
Sand Land, the game, has that lighthearted, goofy charm that is the trademark of the legendary mangaka, the one we recently mourn of his passing.
And that really is the game’s strongest point, as the open world RPG gameplay is a tad mediocre. But there’s definitely a certain audience that will resonate strongly with this game, and that’s fans of vehicular/robot combat and customisation.
Despite some shortcomings, Sand Land, the game is a fun romp.
Presentation
Sand Land preserves Toriyama’s iconic art style really well. Characters and vehicles have that 3D cel-shade style. And it’s not just that they have a bold outline surrounding the models. The texture even incorporates ink strokes as seen in the manga artwork which is pretty rad. Though you’ll start easily see enough NPCs in the game that share the same face (and voice).
The character expressions are all cartoony in a good way, though similar to the faces and voices, the animation variety is limited. Plenty of canned animations used over and over again shared across various NPCs. The animations themselves are intentionally goofy, like our hero Beelzebub’s run cycle which is charming. There are moments where the game embraces that cartoon wackiness where characters animate really, really fast out of the blue. And the occasional slapstick jokes land.
Performance-wise, it plays at a rock-solid 60 FPS (at least from my eyes can tell) but I noticed that that seems to not be the case by the late game. The game gets a bit frame-y when you are too close to a particle effect, either due to too many explosions happening on screen or the camera gets to close to an exhaust pipe of a buggy going full speed on nitro boost. There’s also performance hiccups if you tilt the camera upwards toward the sky sometimes- it happens more regularly in dense locations.
The world itself isn’t cel-shaded in any way, but it doesn’t feel off. And even if most of the things you see in Sand Land is just… well… sand, the environment designs are eye-catching and done with a strong intent. You can make out areas where there used to be deep rivers, the geography makes sense, the ruins and town placements lend a lot to its worldbuilding, giving the desolate land of Sand Land and the rich, dense jungles of Forest Land, to be a believable world that exists outside of the video game (well technically, it is given it’s a multimedia franchise now, but that’s besides the point).
The game also depicts how beautiful a desert can be. Shimmering effects, the variety of colour tones that hue Sand Land based on the time of day. The chill verdant hues in the morning, the amber glow the sand gives off at sunset. It’s all breathtaking. And draw distance is so far away that you can admire the vastness of the open world.
Strong worldbuilding could make what seems to be a boring landscape be interesting, and Sand Land is a good example of this.
That all sounds good, but the game’s sound, as in its audio elements, are not that good I’m afraid. The sound mixing seems off as some voice lines sound too loud while others too soft that I keep adjusting my audio levels back and forth throughout my playthrough. Sound effects from the various weaponry, which includes rockets and machines guns, feel muffled.
The music is too bland. On their own they are well-made compositions, but most of them leave no lasting impression and failed to accentuate the game’s many scenarios and events. Having percussion beats like how most media portrays the Sahara desert when traversing Sand Land isn’t a bad choice, but it just drones on and on to the point it becomes a lull. The battle music doesn’t inspire hype or get me excited. The music’s playing too safe and it’s for the worse. And the audio mixes the soundtrack so low that you can barely hear it if you want to.
There are a few gems in the soundtrack- the bass-slapping funk track heard in boss fights, the finale where music with lyrics start playing, to name a few. But these are way too few and far between. Having Darude- Sandstorm in the game and not just a trailer would have done wonders for the weak soundtrack.
At least the voice acting is fine. There is an English dub for Sand Land, and as you can expect, the lines are delivered in an anime way- in that the voice actors work around the script that sometimes don’t flow as well in English, but it all comes out all natural for the most part. If you’ve used to English dub animes, you’d find Sand Land’s dub to be okay as well. Nothing special, but bearable. Though you can tell some voices are recorded in a different booth setup, again, another problem with the game’s audio design.
Unless you’re in the open world, as the game is really trigger happy in triggering the same, repetitive in-vehicle conversations. There are too few so I’ve been hearing the same combat tips and the same question of whether we’ll explore the entirety of Sand Land over and over. And if a combat interrupts that conversation, it’s a coin flip whether it’ll continue at the last place it stop or you have to hear it from the beginning over and over again.
I wish there was a Bubsy/Forspoken-style slider to reduce the dialog frequency. Or rather, maybe have more of these unique conversations and banters but also play them less frequently. That way it’ll be something to look forward to when the boys (and Ann) have a chat on the road.
Overall, Sand Lands looks great but sounds rather meh.
Gameplay
The titular nation of Sand Land is dried up thanks to humans waging war on each other and water is only available for purchase from the King, at a hefty price. So the demons/fiends of Sand Land have to survive by stealing what little of them available. One day, Sheriff Rao, a human, comes to the Demon Village to ask to help him discover a water source. And that’s where our hero, the Fiend Prince himself Beelzebub comes in. And together with the Prince’s trusted ally Thief, the trio ventures through Sand Land in search of water.
The premise of the story is simple enough, but you’ll be glad to know that this has a JRPG-style story to it, in that there’s plenty of McGuffins that will sidetrack your journey once in a while to deliver other interesting experiences the synopsis didn’t cover.
The first act, which adapts the events from the original manga, has the demon kid and his two father figures go on a road trip. The second act, covers the events seen in the recent anime, has a lot more breathing room but with an ever-ramping stakes. Ann the lady mechanic, introduced for the anime and game, is also part of the crew but expect to see her taking more of a spotlight in the second act.
While Sand Land advertises itself as an action RPG, what it did mention much is that it’s an open world action RPG, with the RPG elements being rather lite. Sand Land itself is a big open world split into multiple regions, though thankfully it’s not designed to imitate the typical Ubisoft open world (though it has radio towers, but you’re not climbing to the top of them to activate). Later on, the tinier but denser Forest Land is available to explore as well.
One of the first things you do in Sand Land is engage in on-foot battles. And it feels so, so weird. This isn’t an action game, and it shows. The way Beelzebub punches and kicks is presented in a satisfying manner, but the combat system feels stilted. It’s missing a lot of moves for it to be a good combat system in an action game. No blocks or parries, only dodges. Attacks mostly hit one target despite the combat usually involves fighting a group of enemies at the same time. And you can just mindlessly button mash your way as there’s really no reward or incentive for skillful play. Later on you can activate ally skills and also use special skills using your Power Of Darkness meter, but those all come off very unwieldy and inconsequential.
Also, you can heal up by drinking water. But it’s only usable when not in combat, and you still have traditional healing consumables you can use at any time. So what’s the point of the water meter other than it makes thematic sense?
You have skill points to spend on unlocking abilities after each level up, but these skills feel more like action game- in that they’re linear upgrades- rather than an RPG. Your allies also have their own separate skill trees, but these ally abilities are so undercooked and underwhelming. Some only triggers when on-foot, a lot of them only have a few niche uses and you only can have four mapped to a button at a time. Just grab Rao’s Vehicle Warfare at the start, the rest have terrible utility.
But apparently, on-foot combat isn’t what Sand Land is about. It’s technically a vehicle combat game. Think Twisted Metal, complete with controls that’s different to typical racing games.
Early on, the party will steal a tank, and after that point of the story the combat makes sense. Fighting enemies in a vehicle is much more fun. By default, tank controls are off (but you can enable it in the options should you wish), so manoeuvring around is a breeze. Blasting other tanks, other vehicles and on-foot enemies with a tank is, well, a blast. The way the tanks move and animated and the impact of a tank’s shot are really what makes it fun for me.
Yet vehicular combat can also be mindless. Just circle strafe and shoot and you’ll bound for victory. Unless you keep getting hit by other tank’s shots. In which you must change how you strafe around slightly and then you’ll be bound for victory. It’s not quite World Of Tanks or War Thunder tank gameplay, Sand Land’s tank gameplay is more towards arcadey fun. I wish there were encounters where you shoot while you drive, rather than just driving around circles, which is what you’ll mostly do during vehicular combat.
Interestingly enough, the game does not really enforce a hard seperation between on-foot combat and vehicle combat. It’s not like Mad Max, the game, where they make it very clear this part of the world is only for on-foot gameplay and you can’t cheese your way with using your car. Very occasionally has Sand Land stopped me from summoning the tank. And as such, ever so often I have brought a tank to a fistfight. Similarly, plenty of the locales you visit, even interior locations, have a surprisingly high ceiling and wide corridors, enough to drive a tank in. Or any vehicle, even.
There are other vehicles that you can acquire and build. And each vehicles is assembled from multiple parts which all can be switched and upgraded. That includes giant pilotable robots- the people in this world usually calls vehicles as bots due to this.
And this is where the RPG elements come in. You’re not making character builds in Sand Land, but vehicle builds. Or rather, you build vehicles. If you have the frame and the parts, you can build a new vehicle, including multiples of the same vehicles. Want to build an extra tank or two? No problem, and there’s a good reason you might want to do so. As vehicles can control and fight differently based on what parts you pick, with enough differentiation that you might want to consider having multiple vehicles of the same type.
You can find random loot in the form of vehicle parts, with a colour rarity system attached. You’ll need to gather materials to level up vehicles to equip higher level parts. Picking which type of parts to put on can sometimes be a choice of side-grades (faster shooting cannons that deal lower damage or cannons that hit harder yet slower?). And these parts affect the outward appearance of your vehicles too.
And then there are option parts, which are the real game-changers. Not only they dramatically change the look of your vehicle, but it also adds a unique ability as well. The tank can be padded with extra armour for more defence, or it can be fitted with an outrigger, which deploys what’s essentially a tripod to keep the tank stationary as it becomes a cannon that shoots twice as fast. The dirt buggy can hide a barrage of machine gun under a boat-shaped nose to deploy a 360-degree ultimate attack, or have it drape with spikes so it can do more damage when ramming them.
Pair the option parts with the right weapons, engine and suspension parts and you’ll get wild builds. I have my tank equipped a dual cannon (that has two visible barrels) with the outrigger and now it shoots as fast as machine gun fire when it uses its ability. The dirt buggy can ram and destroy a tank on hit when paired when it’s fully upgraded. I love it.
There’s at least 12 different vehicles/bots to build and customise. And yes, the mechas are fun too. The default weapon for a Battle Armour lets you do a rising uppercut, and you swap that for a pile bunker. The melee moveset is just as limited as on-foot, but you piloting a mech, you’re big, there’s a guard button and the ability to use ranged weapons so it actually ends up being fun.
It’s no Armored Core, but Sand Land somewhat scratches the same itch of building and customising instruments of destruction.
Gathering parts and materials is cumbersome, however. Parts drop from defeating enemies behave like a looter-shooter in that it can be rarer and have randomised stats. And the drops are really, really rare. I only found a Mythical rarity part one time through my playthrough.
If you regularly mow down the many monsters in the open world, you should be swimming with materials, but there’s no way to mark or track the materials you need. It’s made worse when some of the material names just blends together. Did you need a Deluxe Scorpion Oil or was it a Deluxe Scorpion Alloy? Or was it a Quality Scorpion Steel? All of them are there in the scrolling menu and will require some manual memorisation to keep track of them. And if you want to deliberately farm or find a specific monster, that’s not marked on the map, you just have to remember it. The quality of life features in big-budget AAA open world games like Horizon Forbidden West has forever ruined me.
During the main scenario, you’ll be exploring through several dungeons, whether that be underground ruins build by ancient civilisations, or remnants of humongous wrecked battleships. It can be fun, but it gets repetitive quick when you realise so many of these dungeons share the same assets and you can differentiate between the different ruins. The levels can be massive (which is good for exploration) but also very confusing to navigate thanks to the repetitive use of assets making it lack distinct landmarks (which is bad for exploration). During the main story, the quest markers nudge you to the correct direction. But when exploring in your leisure time, you have no ways to put waypoints, and no way to quickly fast travel out to the dungeon entrance/exit.
You can expect to do some platforming in Sand Land, on-foot as well as in a vehicle. The jumping is good but it usually registers the jump a tad bit late to my liking. So many times have I wanted to pull a double-jump but pressed the button too late and only get one jump out of it instead. This happens more regularly when you’re sprinting, I discovered. But when the game cheekily switches up to a 2D perspective, the jumping and platforming feels just right. There are also stealth segments, which I find to be just okay. Nothing too annoying, but nothing outstanding either.
Overall, the gameplay mechanics of Sand Land is a bit all over the place in quality. The on-foot combat is mediocre at best. The vehicle combat can be pretty hype at times but lacks just a bit of combat scenario variety. Exploring the open world isn’t as tedious or checklist-y (as long as you can put up with the repetitive dialogue that plays while you’re on the road). The skills available on foot are terrible while the many sidegrade parts on offer for vehicles allows for cool and wacky builds to create.
Content
Sand Land, the game, can last you more than 30 hours should you aim to finish the story and do all its side quests. It’s a meaty RPG, though the pacing would suggest otherwise at first. The first act can feel a bit rushed, and its climax is so high I thought I would have seen the credits roll in just 10 hours. But the game takes it much steadier pace for the second act.
The story of Sand Land, while innocuous, is actually gripping. The theme is portraying how humans can be more evil than demons, who are supposed to be evil to their core. And here we see Beelzebub being a tsundere of a hero despite claiming how evil he is (he didn’t brush his teeth before bed! The fiend!). And he stops playing around when confronted by how humans can be more evil than his kind. War crimes are involved, and the way the characters react and confront the issues really touched me in a way I didn’t expect.
This shonen story isn’t afraid to tell kids that war, totalitarianism and racism is bad and what those can wrought, without dumbing anything down. There are some goofy side quests, but there are some emotional ones where characters have to deal with death and deal with grief, from the perspective of adults and kids.
Akira Toriyama was a real one.
On the topic of side quests, those are worth checking out. There are a few boring fetch quests. But a lot of them involved building up the main hub town of Spino. As you continue to do these optional content, the city grows and thrives, which also allows you to access more features and unlock parts and vehicles.
You can completely miss the paint shop, which adds the ability to recolour your vehicles and slap stickers on them. Some of these quests has some decisions that’ll change who is available in Spino, which are interesting.
And there’s also an Animal Crossing-style room decorator where you can create and buy furniture and place them in your own customisable room. For no reason. There’s no gameplay incentive to do this other than it’s intrinsically fun to place objects in an empty room to decorate a living space. And it’s completely missable! Wild!
Other than that, you can do races and complete bounty hunts. These actually do offer rewards in the forms of parts and vehicles. There are a few bots that you have to stray from the story to sought them out, so if you love the vehicle customisation aspects you can sure hope to find plenty of parts to tinker with.
Sand Land’s story length is decent for an RPG. Its story is exceptionally well told. And the side content, despite some repetitive gameplay, are worth seeking out just to see the many other features the game has far away from the critical path.
Personal Enjoyment
Before you read this, just scroll down and check the score if you haven’t. Go on, spoil yourself. I insist.
The score is 7.8. We have decimal points in our review score here, but it’s essentially a 7/10.
Now, hear me out. This is the best 7/10 game I’ve played in a long while.
Don’t get me wrong, this is not a diss, or a backhanded compliment. I genuinely had a great time with Sand Land. The game has so many rough edges, with a lot of badly executed game mechanics and bad audio design. That’s how I see 7/10 games are. They’re good, some folks would totally be obsessed with this game. It’s just that those people will be very few and it’s hard to recommend this to anyone else.
And I am in the very few who wholeheartedly enjoy Sand Land. I didn’t read the manga and watch the anime before playing the game, and unlike One Piece Odyssey, I came out of playing this game as a casual fan of Sand Land. The setting rules. It’s goofy, but it’s not afraid to deal with serious issues. It also helps that I like car games, and the open world traversal of Sand Land is fun for me mostly from being able to drive and ride around in cool rides I customised.
If you’re willing to put up with its many shortcomings, I believe Sand Land can be a fun time. It’s no game of the year. It’s not the next Dragon Ball. I came in with no such expectations and for me it was a fun ride.
Verdict
Sand Land can be a mixed bag. The gameplay quality is uneven, it lacks the many quality of life features and tricks that the best open world games have to offer. Yet the story, the setting, and the overall charm it has is hard to resist.
But there are speckles of gaming goodness to be found here. The vehicle customisation is fantastic and the vehicle combat is where the fun is at. Seeing the hub town grow over time as you complete side quests is also rewarding.
Sand Land, the game, offers you a goofy adventure of tanks and war crimes, set in an open world, with strong CaRPG elements. If you can stomach it’s many, many, shortcomings, it’s a road trip worth going.
Played on PS5. Review code provided by the publisher.
Sand Land (Game)
Sand Land, the game, offers you a goofy adventure of tanks and war crimes, set in an open world, with strong CaRPG elements. If you can stomach it's many, many, shortcomings, it's a road trip worth going.
- Presentation 7
- Gameplay 7
- Content 8
- Personal Enjoyment 9