First announced at Summer Game Fest 2023, Bandai Namco’s Sand Land raised a lot of eyebrows for manga and anime fans alike with the timing of its announcements. Now that the game is finally here, it might be the definitive way to experience the story. Read on for our Sand Land review!
Minor spoilers ahead.
Sand Land’s confusing marketing timeline
Sand Land was a manga written and illustrated by the late, Akira Toriyama, famously known mostly for his work with Dragon Ball. The Sand Land manga was published in Weekly Shonen Jump in 2000, which was also around the time Dragon Ball Z started to make way in the mainstream as one of the most popular programs on Cartoon Network’s “Toonami” block.
With the manga over 23 years old and no anime to go with it, having a Sand Land video game was as puzzling as it was exciting. As it turned out, a Sand Land anime feature film was released last summer, and an episodic series started airing this past March. After the release of the game last week, the timing finally makes sense after the confusing marketing push of other Sand Land-related media.
One of Toriyama-sama’s more grounded projects, yet still full of charm.
So let’s talk about what Sand Land actually is. Aside from being the title, Sand Land is the setting where the movie, anime, and game take place. It’s a war-torn desert wasteland where water is a dangerously scarce resource, and the plot revolves around the middle-aged Sheriff Rao working with the Demon Prince Beelzebub and his sneaky bearded friend, Thief, to find water instead of purchasing it from the desert’s king who sells it at an awfully high premium.
As one might imagine, humans and demons don’t get along, so how does Sheriff Rao convince Beelzebub and Thief to join him in his cause? He gives him a video game console and some games to play, and after Beelzebub gets the okay from his Demon King father, Beelzebub becomes more than delighted to help out.
Demons and monsters aside, what separates Sand Land from Toriyama’s other popular work is how realistically grounded this world is. Dragon Ball had characters reach unimaginable levels of power, murder, get murdered, and get brought back to life with wishes. Sand Land doesn’t feel cut from that same cloth — death is taken more seriously. The disdain between humans and demons isn’t a far cry from the racism we see in the world today. The crooked politics we see with water isn’t unlike what we see with the real world’s natural resources, either.
Sand Land: The Movie vs. The Series vs. The Game
As simple as it is, Sand Land‘s plot is more than solid. It’s still a run-of-the-mill save the world narrative, but it doesn’t start out as a good vs. evil story either. So with the movie, animated series, and game out, what’s the best way to take the story in?
The animated series would be the easiest way to do it. It’s just 14 episodes to watch. The movie isn’t necessary because the events in the film are covered in the anime’s first few episodes. The game itself covers everything that happens in the anime and then some.
Bandai Namco is gaming’s one-stop shop when it comes to adapting anime into an interactive experience. We’ve seen them do it multiple times with the likes of Dragon Ball and Naruto. What makes Sand Land different is the fact that it’s a one-season anime. This means that if you’ve never experienced Sand Land, both the anime and game are more than serviceable.
This game is nothing more than your typical Bandai Namco anime RPG
At its core, the game is an open world action-RPG. The player primarily takes control of Beelzebub, while Sheriff Rao and Thief play as support characters in battle.
Combat in Sand Land is simple, albeit varied. Traditional melee combat has you play as Beelzebub running into enemies and unleashing different combos with various button combinations. You also have the ability to have Rao or Thief perform attacks using a shortcut wheel when you bring up that menu. Despite Beelzebub, Rao, and Thief each having their own skill tree when leveling them up, I really only found it necessary to level Beelzebub. This is because the combat is so easy that I never found myself having to use the support attacks.
In addition to melee combat, Sand Land also has vehicular battles. Early on in the game, you’ll have access to a tank to wreak havoc on your enemies. The tank isn’t the only vehicle you’ll have at your disposal either. You’ll eventually get access to “bots” like the hopper, the motorbike, hover, and a slew of other mechs. Each bot has different abilities. The hopper, for example, can leap to high and otherwise inaccessible areas while the motorbike allows you travel at faster speeds. Each bot also has a main cannon in addition to a secondary weapon that you can use to your strategic content.
You actually have the option of traditional melee combat or bot combat in most scenarios. I enjoyed having this freedom, but it also came with different annoyances. If you aren’t already riding in a bot, when you summon one, you have to manually get in the bot. I eventually got to a point in the game where I just used the motorbike whenever I was traveling and just switched to the tank whenever I wanted to kill something. Being on foot and then selecting a vehicle was just too cumbersome to deal with.
Sidequests and world building
Speaking of traveling, like any other open world game, there’s a linear path to take to advance the story. You can also go off the beaten path for the purpose of exploration or to complete sidequests.
The sidequests are a mixed bag. Unlike the more recent Final Fantasy games, sidequests don’t net you any experience. They mostly earn you loot that you can use to upgrade your bots, which becomes more essential as you progress. The problem is the fights are easy enough to get through without upgrading your bots too much. It’s even easier if you stock up on healing items, with how plentiful money becomes.
So if you can’t get experience from sidequests and there isn’t much of a need to upgrade your machinery, what’s the point of going through the sidequests? It’s tough to answer this question because it depends on what you think about fluff. Anime is known for filler, and the good thing about filler is it does a lot for world building. Unfortunately, Sand Land‘s sidequests don’t really do much world building either, aside from its hubtown. This isn’t to say they’re bad, though. A lot of the sidequests go really deep. There’s one where you look for this woman’s sister, and when you find her, the woman you help dies. I can’t call this a spoiler because it doesn’t affect the actual plot of the story, but there are some real creative stakes here, and that deserves praise.
Do it for Spino!
Filler and fluff aside, the reason to be doing sidequests is to build the town of Spino into a prosperous place. Spino serves as the central hub of Sand Land, but it’s barren when you first arrive. It has about seven residents when you first start the game. For those wondering, Spino isn’t mentioned a whole lot in neither the movie nor the anime, so it’s purely a game mechanic.
As you progress and work on sidequests, you start to see Spino evolve. Shops, trading posts, farming, and even your own decoratable room à la Animal Crossing all become mainstays at Spino if you put the effort in.
You get what you put in it.
Effort in Sand Land is the name of the game. If you want to put in the effort because you’re that much of a Toriyama fan or you’re an Achievement or Trophy hunter, Sand Land has the depth and content to satisfy. Finding the desire to put in that effort is a different beast.
Open world games are pretty hit-or-miss for me. I absolutely loved everything about the latest Zelda games and Ghost of Tsushima. When you get by Sand Land‘s cel-shaded anime look, which pretty much all of Bandai Namco’s anime games emulate, you’ve it already. While I found some sidequests fun, I had absolutely no desire to explore all of Sand Land. It’s mostly just sand (this is also sort of my impression of Dune and why I didn’t care about that movie). The dungeon segments in the main story all felt the same.
All those rough edges aside, I had fun in my 20 hours with Sand Land. The story is actually a lot of fun and the second half of the game really takes a fairly unexpected turn. I wouldn’t recommend it at full price though.
Reviewed on PS5, code provided by the publisher. Be sure to check out our other video game reviews!
