Sand Land Review - A Desolate and Bland Open World Saved by Excellent Characters
Reviewed On: Xbox Series X
Also On: Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5
Genre: Action role-playing
Publisher: Bandai Namco Entertainment
Developer: ILCA
Release: April 26th, 2024
Rating: Teen
SAND LAND is an action RPG where you become the main character as Beelzebub, a Fiend Prince. Lead your company of heroic misfits and explore the legendary world of SAND LAND created by Akira Toriyama.
While major spoilers will not be revealed during this review, some photos may contain plot elements that are best avoided if you want a clean slate heading in!
Sand Land is a game that piqued my interest based almost exclusively on the fact that the source material was created by the late Akira Toriyama.
As the creator of Dragon Ball and, more importantly, Dragon Ball Z, Akira Toriyama's work served as an introduction to manga and anime for myself and thousands of other Americans in the late ’90s and early 2000s.
While I often struggle to connect with art in the medium, Toriyama's work has always hooked me without fail in a way that is difficult to explain.
The Sand Land video game was one of the last projects he had involvement with before passing on March 1st, 2024. For this reason alone, I knew I had to play it.
The premise of the game is simple.
You play as the prince of demons, Beelzebub. You and your family of fiends live in the Demon Village, which is located in the northern part of Sand Land—a desolate region that is, unsurprisingly, a massive desert.
Also inhabiting the gritty, Anakin-Skywalker-hated landscape of Sand Land are various human settlements, including the Royal Capital where the King of Sand Land and the Royal Army reside.
While Beelzebub and the other fiends try to live in relative harmony with the humans by avoiding them as much as possible, they do routinely steal water from them in order to survive.
So when a sheriff named Rao suddenly shows up to the Demon Village asking to speak with Beelzebub, it comes as a surprise that he's there to enlist the help of the demon prince rather than arrest him for his thefts.
Sheriff Rao is on the hunt for a legendary spring to bring water back to the people of Sand Land, and Beelzebub is bored enough to tag along—thus begins our grand journey!
The gameplay of Sand Land is a strange hybrid of an open-world action RPG with vehicular combat being the primary staple.
While it's possible to use melee combat and level up Beelzebub's fighting skills through a skill tree, it's not exactly fun. When you're able to just pull out a tank at any time and start blasting enemies, it makes you wonder why you would ever want to get out on foot in the first place.
There are a variety of vehicles that you unlock throughout the game, including a car, motorcycle, hovercraft, jump-bot, and more—and you're free to upgrade each of them as you progress. I found myself primarily sticking with the tank (which I designed to look like a Rhyperior from Pokémon) for combat, and the motorcycle for open-world travel.
When you're in the open world, you will come across various enemy types, including beasts that roam the desert like giant scorpions and dinosaurs, as well as members of the Royal Army with foot soldiers and vehicles similar to those mentioned above.
You can also find resources throughout the world through ore veins, chests, and by killing enemies—all of which can be used to upgrade your vehicles. But if I'm being honest, I never really knew exactly what I was picking up from each encounter, despite the pop-ups in the corner. They were so abundant and frequent that I never really felt the need to monitor my inventory.
There's also your usual checklist of things to do in the desert: finding and reactivating towers that display more icons on the map, revealing secrets and objectives hidden by the usual fog of war. Each region of the map has its own progress counter that shows you how much of the area you've completed.
There are enemy camps and outposts, caves filled with goodies, side quests, and big monsters to hunt... but unfortunately, apart from the story in the side quests, most of these objectives just aren't fun.
A lot of my time in Sand Land was spent desperately trying to get to the next area and constantly checking the map to see if I could fast travel yet, because the open world and its contents were just so bland and boring to me.
On top of that, your companions have dialogue that serves as “tips” for your gameplay, such as: “Hey, there's good stuff in those caves if you ever want to go off the beaten path!” Unfortunately, there is no limit to how often they’ll repeat these lines. Hearing the same tip for the fourth time in five minutes left me gritting my teeth.
The side objectives, such as infiltrating enemy outposts (which act as stealth segments), are incredibly frustrating and absolutely not worth the effort or time it takes to stumble through them. Getting caught by enemy soldiers and being forced to restart at a checkpoint over and over again is tedious at best.
But thankfully, the story and characters of the game tend to make up for the open-world shortcomings.
During your quest, you meet a great cast of characters who are equal parts charming and funny, with many storylines—including side missions—having real heart and emotion behind them.
The villains in particular tend to have very funny dialogue that sets them apart from the rest of the game. My favorites were General Epi and The Swimmers.
In between missions, you also have the opportunity to help rebuild the town of Spino, which opens up more shops and vehicle options and introduces new characters through side missions.
While the majority of the Spino content is optional, I do recommend giving the first bit of it a shot in order to unlock several key customization features that really help make the game more enjoyable.
One feature that doesn’t quite fit, however, is the ability to own and customize your own bedroom in the garage. It serves absolutely no functional purpose besides being a strange Animal Crossing-style building mechanic that briefly distracts you.
As you progress through the main story, you go through various dungeon-style levels filled with more capable and interesting enemies, including both mini-bosses and full-blown bosses. Most of them have very interesting designs that are distinctly Toriyama, such as the robotic warrior below. Unfortunately, all of them tend to fall into the exact same routine: pull out your tank, shoot a few shells, speed in a circle while reloading, then shoot some more.
The story beats and characters managed to keep me engaged with Sand Land long enough to beat it. The art of Akira Toriyama is presented extremely well in a 3D environment, and when the game clicks, it's good fun.
In spite of that enjoyment, I can't say that I was eager to jump back into the game each time I booted it up. I found myself unable to stomach more than an hour or two at a time before I got bored and wanted to play something else.
I believe the studio could've created a much better game by dropping the open-world aspect and committing entirely to the vehicular combat and action roles of the title, allowing for a more linear experience.
Sand Land is a very beautiful game. The art of Akira Toriyama translates to fully realized 3D environments very well.
Unfortunately, the repetitive and stale nature of the open world leaves a lot to be desired as you try to force yourself to stay engaged long enough to hit the next story beat—which is often satisfying enough to make you want just a bit more.
The title could've benefited from cutting the fat and focusing on a more linear experience that allowed the characters and world to really shine.