‘Sand Land’ Review: A Bold New Blueprint for Anime Games

This review was made possible by an advance copy of Sand Land. Sand Land releases on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, and PC on April 26, 2024.

The legendary and late Akira Toriyama created Sand Land in 2000, which was released in Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump magazine. It then recently got an anime film and an anime series that adapted the manga and continued with the story. On top of all of that, there is now this video game, which is an adaptation of the current anime that airs on Hulu and Disney+. There are countless anime video games, even ones that have Toriyama’s name attached to them, but this is the first time an anime and video game that adapts it has been released in unison, and this could be the first of many to come.

Sand Land is set in a world where war has ravaged them and taken their source of water, a source that now only the greedy king has a hold of, which he sells for outrageous prices, leading the people of Sand Land to steal water from each other for a chance at survival. This story follows Beezlebub, Prince of the Demons, who resides in Sand Land and joins up with Rao, who approaches the demons for their help in search of a new water source. On their journey, they discover a lot of secrets that will change Sand Land for the better or for the worse.

The Way Forward For Anime Games?

As someone very familiar with Akira Toriyama’s work, I was unaware of Sand Land until the announcement of this game. I never planned on checking out the anime, but after putting 20+ hours into the game, I have to check out its source material to see how it differs. Sand Land adapts the storyline from the anime, and it does it so effortlessly by adding more depth to these characters and growing their relationships as there’s much more time spent with them and countless additions such as side missions and more. A lot of anime games suffer from being identical, and that’s usually because they all tend to be fighting games. Sand Land sets itself apart from the rest as it takes the form of an action RPG.

The game took me roughly 23 hours to beat, with the two-story arcs taking roughly 11–12 hours each to beat. It’s known for most RPG games that there’s a lot of dialogue, and that doesn’t change in this game, but it can become a slight annoyance and hindrance when there’s no auto option for the dialogue, which becomes very noticeable as 80% of the cutscenes require you to press X to move on to the next dialogue, and if you decide to wait for them to move on themselves, it takes almost a whole minute before they say their next line. It’s not the complete end of the world, but the game would’ve felt more streamlined with this as an option and, hopefully, it could be added with a future update.

As expected from an RPG, there are many side missions and activities to choose from. This is incredibly important for an adaptation of an anime, as we get to see how these characters interact with the rest of the world. Many army bases around the map allow the player to perform stealth, sneak around, and get possible upgrades for your vehicles, which will help out later in the battle. Trust me, keeping up with upgrades is essential, as you’ll struggle in the fights that come towards the end of the game.

The unfortunate case, with this being an adaptation of the anime, is that Shonen anime is widely known for their characters encountering the main antagonist and enemies several times, but when you translate that into a video game, it starts to become repetitive, especially when there are not many new attacks to differentiate the repeated fights. Thankfully, it’s towards the end of the game where you begin to repeat certain boss fights, and they all almost happen back to back, making it a quick experience, but this segment of the game did feel boring and tedious as the mission objectives also became repetitive, an issue that wasn’t present in the game until the end.

It goes without saying that Akira Toriyama’s character designs are unmatched and translate so well into the game with its style. There were so many screenshots I took of just the characters because of how good they looked or how shocked I was from a certain design of theirs. Some designs feel reminiscent of Dragon Ball, but each one still holds its own identity, which makes it unique to the world of Sand Land. Given everything that each individual has been through, the stories that are also connected to these characters are poignant and skillfully handled. It is a world torn by war, and literally every character, good or bad, has suffered from it in some way. Even when you believe the game might end, it throws you into another adventure with a whole new set of characters and enemies that have a real purpose within the overall story of Sand Land, one that has me wanting to check out the anime to experience it in another format.

Is This A ‘Mad Max’ Game?

It goes without saying that, when playing this game, I couldn’t easily stop thinking about Mad Max and how similar the two worlds felt with their setting and the strong use of vehicles. The map for Sand Land is vast, and there are just miles of dunes to explore, which is where the vehicles come into play. There are a lot of different ones you can build, from a motorcycle to a tank. Each vehicle is built with its own weapons, and it is possible to provide upgrades to the weapons and the vehicles themselves so they can stand the test of time.

The main character, Beelzebub, is a hand-to-hand fighter, and at first, the attacks can seem quite barebone, but the further you get into the game, the more upgrades you can make to him, making him feel more engaging in later fights, but it still isn’t the ideal or best way to fight in this game. A lot of the boss fights in the game require you to use one of the many vehicles to fight, and because of the many options, there are so many different ways you can go about dealing with a fight, but sometimes there is a correct vehicle to use for certain fights, and sometimes the characters will remind you constantly with voice lines that can get quite annoying after a while.

On the topic of voice lines, Sand Land is a game that very much holds your hand the entire way through. Yes, the map is quite a frustrating one to navigate at times, and the game doesn’t provide any help on that matter as their autopilot feature doesn’t drive you to your destination but instead only drives you forward with you still having to turn, so the reason why autopilot was even utilised in such a way is a weird one when you’re still made to use the analog stick anyway. When it comes to you making these long journeys from one mission to another, Beelzebub and Co. tend to repeat a lot of the same voice lines, which at this point have been ingrained in my head, but they do have a good use. If you haven’t upgraded your gear in a while, the characters will also remind you to check your gear, but unfortunately, even when you do upgrade your gear, they still tend to repeat the same voice lines. At times, I wished there was a setting where I could turn voice lines off, have an in-game radio where I could play the wonderful Sand Land soundtrack, and just drive and admire the scenery.

‘Sand Land’ – Final Thoughts

Sand Land is a well-made game that is another pleasant addition to Bandai Namco’s library. It recreates Akira Toriyama’s well-crafted world into a video game. Throwing you into a space that has been through so much suffering and taking you on adventures that take you above and beyond with well-written characters, fun vehicular combat, and an extensive map that has so much to it. Unfortunately, being based on an anime means that some things don’t adapt well which can end up making certain moments feel repetitive, but overall, Sand Land proves that with some improvement, this is the future of anime games.

Check out the trailer for Sand Land below.