This year Sand Land, another of Akira Toriyama's creations, receives the honor of moving into the world of video games. This April 26, an open world title inspired by his world and his characters arrives on PC, PS4, PS5 and Xbox Series X / S. Specifically in the anime, as it adds more story than seen in the manga.
Throughout its progress it promised us a pretty fun adventure full of exploration, a lot of vehicular combat and a touch of town management. Thanks to Bandai Namco we were able to play it before and here we share with you if it is worth it
The key points from our Sand Land review
What is Sand Land about?
Sand Land puts us in control of Prince Beelzebub, one of the inhabitants of the eponymous region. His days are spent playing video games with his friends or stealing shipments of water from the human army. But that changes with the arrival of the mysterious Sheriff Rao.
Rao, Beelzebub and their friend Thief embark together on an adventure to find a mythical spring of water to give this scarce resource to humans and demons alike. Their path leads them to confront directly the king of the region and his army who jealously keep the secrets of water and how to get it.
The story of Sand Land It is one of its strongest points. It has the same feeling of discovery and adventure that Akira Toriyama gave us with the first issues of Dragon Ball. Although the premise sounds like the resolution and the journey will be very simple and predictable, this is not the case, it has very good plot twists that keep you interested in following until the end.
The story's pull is even stronger thanks to its collection of main characters. Especially the initial quartet shares a very good chemistry that makes the entire trip enjoyable. Even in the end you come to love them and feel satisfaction from everything you experienced in their company.
How to play?
Sand Land is an action RPG in an open world. Most of the time we control Beelzebub or one of his many vehicles. While we control the prince we have a fairly simple hand-to-hand combat system. But it honestly isn't used much throughout the story.
Beelzebub has a strong attack and a weak attack, he can jump, he can do a special throw with stunned opponents and of course he also has special attacks. As you attack and they attack you, a bar fills up. Once full, you can do one of several that you unlock as you progress through the story. This ranges from a series of rapid attacks to a state of great strength and near invincibility.
Like every RPG, Sand Land It has main and secondary missions. Doing them gives you experience to level up or parts and tools to upgrade your vehicles. Every time you level up you get skill points to spend on a skill tree. Here you can get longer combos, get more hit points, and things like that.
Leveling up also gives skill points for our companions, Rao and Thief. However, they share them so you will have to be somewhat careful when deciding which skills you improve for each of them. They even have unlockable attacks that can be useful in some battles.
Vehicles are a very important part of Sand Land
Since I explained the 'on foot' portion of Sand Land The vehicles part remains, which is more important because you will spend most of your time in them. You can drive from the tank that appears in all the promotional material, to cars, jumping robots and even motorcycles.
Each one of them fulfills a function and is necessary to explore these arid lands. The tank is a behemoth that will make you come out of the confrontations well, the jumping robot allows you to climb vertically and the motorcycle is quite fast but has very little health. The car only serves as a middle point between the tank and the motorcycle, since it is faster than the tank and with more defense capabilities than the motorcycle.
Don't worry about missing any, because outside of the car, you get them all as you advance the main story. While you explore Sand Land You will find parts and objects to improve them. Always try to change your weapons and parts so that they are more useful to you on your travels.
Vehicular combat is pretty simple. You just have to shoot at your rivals and keep moving so that their bullets don't hit you.. Furthermore, in the middle of a fight you can easily switch between vehicles as they are all stored in a practical capsule. It's just a matter of seeing which one suits you best. Although the tank always seemed like the best option for everything.
The missions and secondary activities feel ambitious but become very flat
As I mention, Sand Land offers some typical RPG activities and side quests. However, I consider this to be the weakest point of the game. Unfortunately these are not very interesting and could easily turn you away.
Perhaps their worst sin is that they do not feel necessary at all. That is, you can easily reach the end of the game without doing anything and it will not affect you in the slightest.. You do see changes in the number of characters in the village that serves as your base of operations, but nothing more. Since in the end most of these missions only have the objective of bringing new villagers to your base so that it feels alive.
The secondary missions of Sand Land They always boil down to going to a certain place to collect something, sometimes you have to beat someone on the way, but there isn't much variety. Furthermore, the rewards are nothing to write home about and you can get the same or even better things simply by advancing in the story.
There are also races and hunts for different villains. Although they sound interesting, they aren't very fun either. Both racing and hunting are too simple. Being a bounty hunter will only make you face slightly more difficult villains.
Sand Land has several systems that feel wasted
It is clear that Sand Land started out as a very ambitious game, but at some point along the way it fell halfway. For example, there are a large number of caves to explore, but your exploration is limited to entering a few meters underground to open a couple of chests and that's it. The same with supposed ruins, you simply have to get out of your vehicle, look for the treasure that is there and you can leave. No confrontation, no challenge, no satisfaction other than gaining some experience points.
At first we are introduced to a system of keeping you hydrated. You even have a small water bottle on your life bar that shows how much you have. If you fall in battle you finish all your water and you can also take sips to replenish your life. However, as you explore your water level does not drop at all and shortly after they introduce healing potions that you can buy at any store. So what's the point of adding this water system?
About side quests that bring new inhabitants to your village. Supposedly they are to help it grow, but the reality is that it is very simple. After their secondary mission you receive a small cutscene of their arrival, some even put up new stores, but that's all. These stores do not offer anything absolutely necessary for you to continue your trip and become redundant.
There is also a small system to decorate Beelzebub's room in Sand Land. But it serves no real purpose and doesn't invite you to try it further. I get the impression that they wanted to do many things, but they left everything in its simplest aspects. Maybe it would have been better to focus on the main story and that's it.
The settings can be beautiful but many times it feels like a game stuck two generations ago
Graphically, Sand Land looks very good. It really captures the visual style of the anime and manga. Especially in several scenarios that, even though we are in a land full of sand, leave you impressed. Especially in the final parts of the game.
Although I haven't encountered any programming errors in my time playing, the title feels quite archaic. This is especially noticeable in cutscenes where the characters have very static animations. They don't take the opportunity to give fluid movements and they feel like characters from the PS3 era.
Should you play Sand Land?
While you stay with the main story of Sand Land it can be fun. Its narrative is very good and becomes more interesting with its main characters. But outside of the main objective, there's really nothing that's very worthwhile or that will keep you coming back for more.
Also, the more time you spend with him, the more you will realize his imperfections. The hand-to-hand combat is extremely basic, it's practically a button masher. As for vehicular combat, I think it is even simpler, since it is limited to turning around to avoid enemy fire while you shoot them back. Although in the main story they manage to give it a little variety with some bosses, but they are very few.
Having said this, the main story of Sand Land It's about 12 hours long, so you'd still get plenty of entertainment for your money. Still, we don't consider it a must-see game that you should play right now. It is simply a good and entertaining adventure for a few hours that shows that it wanted to be much more, but failed in the attempt. If you get to play it, don't forget to share your opinion with us on our Discord.
We played Sand Land on PlayStation 5 with a code provided by a Bandai Namco representative in the region.
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