Sand Land - Review
There honestly isn’t a gamer or really anyone alive who has not heard of Dragon Ball and its plethora of games, shows, movies and of course manga. So hearing that Bandai Namco were diving back into the works of Akira Toriyama, to bring Sand Land to the gaming screen had my interest, mostly as I knew nothing about the series. Was the end result something that really quenched the thirst of an adventure gamer, or should you embrace your inner Anakin and admit you hate sand?
The story of the game mostly follows the main story of the manga, so fans of that will understand what is going to happen, but there is more to discover. The game starts out with Beelzebub, a demon who lives with others of his kind, chasing down a water supply truck, in order to liberate the liquid from the King’s army. While successful, it highlights to them just how hard life is, since the river that fed the land dried up almost 30 years ago. Enter Rao, a human who is after some aid from the demons, in order to locate the Legendary Spring and provide water to all, away from the King’s control. That is the setup, together and with Thief they begin their journey and along the way they encounter a young girl in Ann, repeatedly but heads against the Royal Army, being lead by General Are and get frustrated by a group of would-be thieves in the Swimmers. For obvious reasons, I will not say how the story plays out and while those who have read the manga or seen the recent anime, may know how some of it plays out, there is a whole lot more that is all new.
The story though feels weak, events happen almost so fast, that it feels like the game is coming to an end barely 5 hours in. That is not the case though, as there is much more to discover, but because of how weird the pacing is, the impact feels like the end of Return of the King. When you think the story is getting near its end, nope here is a new threat, oh you thought that was it, surprise there is even more. Even characters you think have a direction you can predict pivot without to much hassle as well, though Beelzebub is the exception to that. The character bounces between child like wonder and angst so often you would think he was a Yo-Yo. Because of a lack of growth for the character, except in some cutscenes towards the end, it often feels like you are not making progress, given you are playing as Beelzebub. The story does its job of connecting things, but I wouldn’t bank on it being the reason to stick around.
Thankfully that is where the gameplay shines, the game is part real-time rpg and part tank game, all set within a large open world, well worlds but more on that later. A lot of the time the game will have you drive to your destination, and your main method of getting around is a tank. You can use the tank to shoot at enemies that get in your way, be they beast or man and eventually additional vehicles will become available. There really isn’t a lot to do on your way to whatever destination you are travelling to, given the lack of water, the world is not teeming with life. There are a few major locations, like Spino, the Junkers bases and of course the Royal Capital, and visiting them will often be for a quest or an upgrade, though the capital is mostly a drive by location. There are other locations that are tied to story moments, like the old mega flying ships, but most of the time you are either in a set location or driving to it. Spino is the only location you will visit often, as it is your main base in Sand Land and is where you can upgrade your vehicles, be it the engine or guns, though you need materials for anything you want.
When you are not driving around the place, your exploration will vary based on where you are, places like Spino will be fairly simple, but military bases might require a lighter touch. Combat takes place in real time, be it in a tank or on foot, so when you gain the attention on an enemy, you can just run up to them and start attacking. Both Beelzebub and your vehicle have health bars, which take damage from attacks, and you need to ensure that you keep them both topped up. The vehicles especially require you to pay attention as the game does not provide any sort alert if you are down to the last 10% or such and it is easy to get blown up if you are not paying attention. Beelzebub himself has a few basic moves to begin with, but as you play through you can spend points when leveling up to unlock extra moves or even add more health. Both Rao and Thief also have options you can spend points on, with Ann getting there later on as well and depending on what you choose, you might experience things slightly differently. The game has a slight metroidvania touch to it, as you can explore the world and discover places you can’t visit without the right vehicle, requiring you to come back.
When you are not fighting the army or driving somewhere you can undertake a selection of missions for the various folks around the world. Sometimes these are just getting some materials and other times its helping out someone who might be stuck somewhere. The missions are not generally complicated and do act as a nice break from the main story, but they won’t set the world on fire. There are also radio towers to repair, yes an open world game with towers, who could have seen that coming, thankfully there is no climbing needed you just repair from the ground. They unveil a lot of the map around them, including locations of water supply caches and so on, so repairing them does help. You can also discover the world on your own or buy treasure maps to locate extra things, so the options are nice to have. There are also races around the place and of course, you will need to gather materials for vehicle creation and upgrades, so its not all punch punch.
Where the gameplay suffers, at least for me, is that nothing felt to dangerous. Yes there are enemies with rockets that can deliver serious damage to you and your vehicles, but dodging them is laughably easy. The boss fights that you encounter in missions or even the alpha monsters in the world, can be deadly, if you stand perfectly still, but that is it. While I wouldn’t have expected it, given the location is barren and water is scarce, adding in a thirst mechanic would have elevated the immersion, for those who wanted it. When you venture away from Sand Land and find yourself in Forest Land, not a lot changes, yes the world is full of trees and water, but it’s mostly filled with same critters, the same enemy vehicles and for some reason water supply caches everywhere.
Perhaps the one area where you can honestly find little fault, is with the games presentation, as it looks incredible. Each of the characters, both major and minor, all look great no matter the viewing angle, so seeing Beelzebub from the front, back, side or off in the distance, he looks like you would expect. The world is mostly fine, again the lack of things in Sand Land helps sell its barrenness, but when you venture into areas with people, they feel desolate and perhaps a little despondent. There are some locations that really shine and you can tell them the moment you see them, the Legendary Spring being one of them, but there are also a few locations that look generic, the mega ships in ruin stand out in that group.
I did notice that in some cutscenes, the lighting got weird and character faces were often bathed in light that gave them odd shadow effects on faces, like seeing someone with a 5 o’clock shadow out of now where, no matter the gender or species, it didn’t happen often, but when it did, I spotted it. If I had to pick on something visually, it would be the similarity to Dragon Ball at times and yes I know they are the same creator. What I mean by this is that some characters legit could have been taken from Dragon Ball, General Zeu’s means of transport looks like Frieza’s one and some enemies look a lot like Cell. This is clearly not something that Bandai could have done a lot with, but given that Toriyama-san also created characters and monsters for Dragon Quest, Blue Dragon and countless more games over the years, which don’t have this problem, some slight changes to lose that Dragon Ball-ness would have been welcomed.
The games audial presentation is just as wonderful as the visual, the score is epic but not overwhelming and even when some big story beats happen, it sits below the action rather than on top of things. The cast from the anime is the same as the game, so if you have already watched that then the voices will be familiar to you. Most of them are fine, they do a solid job no matter the situation the characters find themselves in, but I will have to ruin Rao for you. After about the third time I heard him speak, I found myself wondering where I had heard the voice before, turns out nowhere. The actor voicing Rao is not someone I know, but the voice is so Bruce Campbell, and once I twigged that it was Bruce Campbell that I was hearing, I couldn’t not hear it going forward. Sadly there is a bad part to the audio work, the repeating dialogue. This is not a once or twice repeat, but all the damn time, the number of times I heard Thief’s joke or Rao explaining how taking the high ground is important was too much. It was not a few times; I made a record of one dialogue moment and it hit double digits and it happens in both Sand Land and Forest Land.
My time in Sand Land was filled with fun and yes, there are a few issues, but the sum of its parts far exceeds any negatives that I had. Both locations are massive and take a while to fully explore and while the story does feel rushed at times, the characters and the world more than make up for it. Vehicle upgrades do mean you can have say over how things go, but the system isn’t super in-depth, which means anyone can enjoy it and given the number of options, there will be no shortage of designs. While the original Sand Land manga was short lived, I can see many adventures taking place going forward in the game world, though some extra attention to some aspects would not go astray.
The Score
8.5
Review code provided by Bandai Namco
The Pros
Game world is massive, with two maps and so much to see
Vehicle combat and exploration is very well done
The Cons
Story feels rushed at times, which does give a false sense of the end arriving too soon
There are too many repeating audio lines that were not interesting the first time, even less so the tenth time
