I think what worried me most about picking up Sand Land was when a trailer dropped that explained just how much of the game would be vehicular. I didn’t want to drive around in a car all game. This is an action RPG! I wanted to be punchin’ fools, slashin’ away with my sword, and rackin’ up the experience points! I didn’t want to be driving around in a lil’ jeep, beep beepin’ my way around a desert unlocking a new set of headlights. The fear was still there when I saw a tank. Slow and tedious or shootin’ pellets at flying enemies, this is going to feel like ass. And as I hopped into the car for the first time, after meeting Rao, and leaving the demon village, I knew I was in for a great time. Everything started falling into place, with the perfect blend of arcadey combat, customizable vehicles, and cartoonish Akira Toriyama glean. Sand Land had me hooked.
Sand Land
Developer: ILCA, Inc.
Price: $59.99
Platform: Playstation 4/5 (Reviewed), Xbox Series X|S, Steam
MonsterVine was supplied with PS5 code for review
Having never read the manga or watched the anime adaptation, I’m reviewing Sand Land from the perspective of someone unfamiliar with the source material. Keep that in mind. Sand Land has us take the role of the prince of demons himself, Beelzebub. Hanging out with his demon friends, wishing his dad would give him more time to play video games, and languishing in the hot sun. One of the demons spots a human truck cruising along the desert and alerts Beelzebub and suddenly, they’re on the run. After hijacking the car and stealing enough water for his demon buddies, they head home only to be stopped by a thirsty little boy. The prince of demons, a boy fixated on being a fearsome fiend, reluctantly gives some water to the boy. Beelzebub, our reluctant hero, is a wonderful character.
Rao, a local sheriff, approaches the demon town requesting assistance. You see he believes there’s a hidden oasis in this arid desert, and he needs the help of a couple of demons to find it. Sand Land opens up with a fairly large desert and an immediate goal, with a fairly disinterested protagonist. Rao is determined and, even though Beelzebub is very child-like in his logic and mannerisms, he appreciates and respects him nonetheless. The dynamic between the two is fun and as their desires begin to intersect, the plight of the people of Sand Land becomes more interesting. Although I prefer the interactions between Belz and his demon companion, Thief. While stealing a tank the three meet up with a woman who fancies herself a mechanic and off they go to the ghost town of Spino.
Spino is where Sand Land really opened up for me. It’s a fairly empty village when you reach it, sporting a single peddler, a town mayor, and a couple of kids. There’s a working garage and Ann, the mechanic, takes up residence there and offers her services to maintain your bots. Ah, bots, the cornerstone of Sand Land. There are quite a few different bots in the game and even though there’s some crossover in their navigational techniques, each bot is useful in its own right. And I felt like I was unlocking them fairly late into the game, with the battle armor being the last bot I unlocked at over 20 hours played. I’m a little tank boy though, and while I loved just about all of my bots, I found myself swapping between the battle armor and the tank during battles.
Vehicles are primarily made out of four things; a primary weapon, a secondary weapon, an engine, and suspension. You just need the parts to make those things or have found those things around and let me assure you, you will find parts around. Sand Land’s primary goal appears to be collecting treasure chests. You will find treasure chests all over the world, inside caves, littered around bandit camps, and within the walls of army facilities. I couldn’t figure out why the map said 0/1 next to the army base until I went in and looted every single chest and it was marked complete. Sand Land is about loot. Loot doesn’t always directly translate into craftable materials either, so there are crafters around who will take your raw materials and turn them into crafted materials. This initially turned me off but things just don’t require that many parts. I was upgrading parts on my motorcycle to make it go faster for racing and the upgrades only required three things. Sand Land keeps a lot of things simple so they’re easy to grok.
When not in a bot, Belz has your standard action RPG protagonist controls. Basic combos, some abilities that can be upgraded on level-up, and a separate set of consumables just for Belz. Rao, Thief, and eventually Ann get their own skill trees to help Belz in and out of vehicle combat. My favorite being Thief’s ability to vacuum up resource points and loose resources in the immediate vicinity that you can trigger while driving. This made resource farming significantly quicker and easier. Sand Land occasionally messes with the camera angle when Belz isn’t in a bot. When sneaking around army bases, occasionally there will be maze-like areas that will give you a bird’s eye view of Belz, or lots of crates stacked up and the camera will pan in to give you a real tight view in front of you, almost first-person. Likewise, in story missions, the camera will adapt a 2.5d angle similar to Nier Automata and Belz will navigate a platformer section from the side. Very cool.
Eventually, you’ll have a few bots and want to strike out and explore the world. Side quests are primarily focused on moving people into Spino. The way Spino changes as you complete side quests is very gradual and exciting to see as you complete quests. New people move into town, new people have quests for you and offer new services, and soon your primary hub has everything you could ever need. Making, customizing, and upgrading bots goes from being a pain to being a joy. Then it’s time to explore your surroundings, mark some things off on your map, and see all that this land of sand has to offer.
Unfortunately, this is where I had a few issues with Sand Land. There are radio towers scattered throughout Sand Land and the accompanying Forest Land that you’ll eventually find yourself visiting. The radio towers do exactly what they do in every Ubisoft title ever made, they reveal the area surrounding the radio tower. In Sand Land, you can accomplish this just by driving around but it’ll reveal caves and various hidden curios on the map as well. However, once you’ve accomplished something, say, like fixing the radio tower to get it working again, it just remains on the map. You’re given a key in the bottom left that tells you how many towers you’ve fixed, but there’s no checkmark or anything on the icon. This can get a little confusing when you’re doing a story mission and driving by things that show up on the map but don’t have the time or means to complete them.
It’s a little frustrating because I think the bots make navigating the world of Sand Land a real treat. The jump bot allows you to scale large walls that would otherwise prevent the other bots from navigating areas quickly. Sadly, there are a ton of invisible walls, so even if you can clear a mountainous area with your jump bot, there’s no guarantee that the world will allow you through. In a game about exploration and navigation, it’s a little annoying to be blocked off from certain areas just because. There are a few things that happen in Sand Land to remind you it’s a little more of a budget title than you’d expect. A lot of the voice lines while driving around are repeated ad nauseam. Rao loves to yammer on about how important it is to take the high ground when fighting on uneven terrain. Likewise, if Belz happens to spot another traveler he’ll comment about it only to have Rao point out that we should hit up a communal campsite that’s readily available for us. “How convenient!” Belz replies. I mute my television and enjoy silence for a few hours. Also, there’s a profanity filter on naming your bots, it’s a single-player game, what’s up with that?
Still, despite these little nigglings, my experience in Sand Land was extremely enjoyable. Race tracks litter the world and even though the racing mechanics aren’t great and are boiled down to time trials, it’s pretty fun to race against the clock in a jump bot or dune buggy. The Battle Arena allows you to actually get into fights without the bots once in a while, which is a bit of a rarity in the story. Ruins are scattered throughout the land to primarily give the player ancient coins which can be exchanged for treasure maps and bot parts from a cat named Lassi. Bounty hunts are offered that can net you extra parts and zeni and are a fun distraction from the main story, especially while traveling around.
Even after doing a lot of the extra stuff and completing the story in full, I still had large areas of both maps unexplored. I enjoyed the story quite a bit, even if it felt a little ham-fisted and unsure of itself at times. There’s a strong anti-capitalist/anti-imperialist message that wavers a bit towards the end but roughly stays on point throughout. I have a few issues with how some of the characters are treated, with the king of Sand Land being a giant bone head and the only important fat character. Likewise, the important women in the story fall victim to the male gaze in a considerable amount of camera shots. Especially Rosetta, who has a very large chest and has several scenes where she falls over and we’re afforded a scene of her rather curvaceous butt.
I hate to bang a drum but, still, I really had a great time with Sand Land, both in-game and story. While not reaching for the stars, the story is engaging with lots of interesting and fun characters. It is most assuredly an Akira Toriyama work and I mean that in the most respectful way possible. The gameplay is arcadey, quick, and a real joy. Navigating the environment on bots is fun and battle is a real treat as well. I loved being a mobile turret as the tank, being able to swap between my primary tank cannon and my machine gun secondary weapon on the fly, usually while reloading the other weapon. There are modifications you can make to the vehicles like releasing a flock of guided missiles or, one of my favorites, a flaming boost on the motorcycle that caused damage and set fire to those I came in contact with.
Of course, Sand Land is absolutely gorgeous, being one of Akira Toryiama’s last noteworthy works. Despite being a large world of a single biome and maybe one of the more boring biomes visually, Sand Land looks cartoonishly brilliant. And as the game progresses and changes are made to the map they only make the colors and contrasts that much more striking. I also really loved the soundtrack. There’s some range to the soundtrack and I really appreciated the dancing between a strumming acoustic western sound contrasted against an angelic soundscape that greeted the night as shadows rolled across the desert.
Another aural delight is the fact that Sand Land is fully voiced, and not just main story scenes either. Side quests are fully voiced and there’s even a dose of dialogue happening between party members and enemies during battles. Barks can be heard during boss fights as to give you a little tip in case you’re confused mechanically. As I mentioned earlier, a lot of the voice lines do get repeated while exploring and that’s not the only issue. I managed to find a set of ruins in the center of a lake and while I was down there, the party began talking about the lake and how it looked like there was a set of ruins in the center. While exploring the ruins the case was discussing about discovering, Beelzebub shouted, “Let’s go explore it!” Resulting in a mere eye roll, Sand Land once again reminded me of how difficult game development can be.
It’s amazing that we’re still getting incredible new games as this year rolls on, though no doubt leading up to a hefty drought of good games as the layoffs of today come to roost. Still, we should enjoy them while we have them and Sand Land is one of the best this year.
The Final Word
Offering an incredibly fun story, lovely characters that will stick with you, a timeless art style, and a vast open world that will suck in hours of your time. Sand Land made its mark on my year and you should make room for it to make a mark on yours.
– MonsterVine Rating: 4.5 out of 5 – Great
