Sand Land puts you in the shoes of Beelzebub, Fiend Prince of Hell. Beelzebub spends his days in the desert wasteland of the titular Sand Land, bothering the Royal Army and stealing water and provisions for he and his friends to get by. Thirty years prior, a huge accident dried out the world and created Sand Land as it is today – a cruel wasteland, devoid of water and filled with demons.
Bored of the tedium stealing water, Belz longs to explore the greater desert and learn what else there is in the world. He soon gets his chance when a human man named Rao arrives at the gates, seeking help to find the Legendary Spring and share water for all, circumventing the Army’s stranglehold on the water supply. Before long, Beelzebub and Rao set out alongside Belz’s friend Thief to find the Spring, quickly “acquiring” a battle tank from the Army to aid in their journey.
For the most part, Sand Land sees you roaming across the desert, fighting demons and collecting resources to upgrade and build new vehicles. It’s a very satisfying loop; there’s always some random enemies, a cave or some other random point of interest nearby, encouraging you to wander the desert rather than making a beeline from A to B. Everything you find feeds back into your vehicles, giving you parts and materials to expand your selection.
Each vehicle type has its own unique use, from the slow and battle-ready tank, to the high-flying Jump-bot or high-velocity bike. It’s fun to put an all-new vehicle together, but even beyond that you can customise your engine, weapons and look in each vehicle in your rotation. It feels good to lean into the benefits of a particular vehicle – like making the bike even faster – or compensate for its weaknesses, like giving your flimsy car more protection.
It definitely felt rewarding to go out into the world, knock out a few quests and then return home ready to beef up my fleet before pushing even further. While the game doesn’t have the mechanics of a roguelike, it does have that same feeling of incrementally improving your skillset that makes it all to easy to lose hours.
The game’s combat is simple but flexible, with players generally able to fight on foot or in any of their vehicles. Fights play out in the game’s open world, with no limitations on where you can go; you can just as easily play out a fight, or trundle straight past it. Vehicle combat is all about positioning and resource management, juggling between your primary and secondary weapons.
Balancing your weapon’s reload times by switching back and forth is essential to achieving a smooth flow in a fight, or risk leaving yourself vulnerable for a few dangerous seconds. On foot, Beelzebub is a lot more agile, though even as a Fiend Prince he doesn’t hit quite as hard as an actual tank shell. As an added bonus in my opinion, your spoils after a fight are not affected by whether you used the tank or your own fists – you’ll receive the same EXP either way, meaning you’re not “punished” for utilising your vehicles’ more powerful weaponry to win a fight.
Regardless of how you approach a fight, every option available boasts its own special moves, as well as the ability to call in your other team members to pull off their own special attack. While it’s not an incredibly complex setup for combat, Sand Land does give you the freedom to pick and choose what version of fighting is most fun to you, without limiting your rewards for making the “wrong” choice.
After setting up camp in the dilapidated Spino Village, a lot of quests you encounter around the world will involve recruiting new citizens for the village. As you do you’ll also expand your home base, adding new shops and services you can check in with on each visit. It’s also fun to see the town visually change, shifting from the dusty bowl you first encounter into an up-and-coming neighbourhood where prices are about to skyrocket.
It’s always a relief to find very few faults with a game, and Sand Land is one of those cases. My issues are small, and your mileage may vary: it’s a bit annoying to get a game over when your vehicle’s destroyed versus getting ejected, party chatter can get a bit repetitive and happens just a bit too often to my taste. Otherwise it’s a great choice for a zen moment driving long-distance across the desert, or catching up on your favourite podcast while you play.
The one standout achievement of this game however, is just how gorgeous it looks. Bittersweet as it is, this is the best 3D recreation of the late Akira Toriyama’s art style I’ve ever seen. While Dragon Quest XI certainly brought the classic Toriyama look to life, Sand Land delivers a fluidity of animation and detailing that DQXI doesn’t come close to. Small details, like the character models having hatching and cross-hatching across them to create their natural shadows, really nods to classic manga art in a way I’ve not seen done before.
Beyond being a fun game to play, Sand Land is a great and timely example of the work of Akira Toriyama, and a reminder just how much more he was than just the Dragonball Z guy. Sand Land is its own thing – it was actually exciting to have a demon called a slime appear, and have it NOT be the dollop-shaped slime of the Dragon Quest series. While the vehicle combat system isn’t breaking any new ground, it still goes about things in its own, slightly odd way. It’s a breath of fresh, desert air – and I think there’s a few miles left in the tank yet.
Sand Land was reviewed using a promotional code on PS5, as provided by the publisher. Click here to learn more about Stevivor’s scoring scale.
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Sand Land26 April 2024PC PS5 Xbox Series S & X
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