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Written by the late great legendary manga artist Akira Toriyama Sand Land comes blasting onto our screens in more ways than one, be it the new Anime series or the recent resurgence of older titles created by Akira Toriyama can Team ICLA do this albeit shorter story justice? Read on below to see how Sand Land stacks up when compared to Toriyama’s other works.

The Wonders of Sand Land

Sand Land, a world left in ruin due to climate disaster and constant war stands at the precipice, the lack of water causing tension between all residents be they human or demon, we follow our unlikely hero Beelzebub (the prince of all demons) as well as his guide Thief and Human companion Sheriff Rao as they set out on a quest to find the mythical legendary Spring in the hopes of returning water back to the desert all while uncovering what really happened to turn Sand Land into to this desolate wasteland.

While not as famous as Akira Toriyama’s other work (Dragonball) or (Dr Slump) Sand Land occupies one of several shorter stories created by the legendary artist that recently saw a surge in viewership due to Toriyama’s unfortunate passing last March.

Before going over the main driving point of Vehicle combat and general travel let’s go into a little detail about how Beelzebub and his ragtag group handles the wastes of Sand Land in there own unique way

Beelz and Friends

So while you’ll be spending a lot of time travelling Sand Land of numerous vehicles you’ll also experience encounters where you’ll be unable to use these vehicles to your advantage and in those cases it comes down to Beelz’s melee combat and abilities. As the Fiend Prince Beelzebub is not one to underestimate with a variety of light attack combos as well as charge heavy strikes and even high damaging finishing moves Beelz shows’ that despite his size he packs a punch. However, Beelz as a fiend also has access to the power of darkness allowing him to unleash several super charge moves that are sure to knock any creature or bandit flying.

While childish in nature Beelz really does have a heart of gold that makes him a very endearing character, just don’t make this pint sized hero mad otherwise you’ll soon see that he is not someone to be messed with.

Thief – Acts as Beelzebub’s caretaker and general guardian, full of knowledge but also incredibly fearful and cowardly Thief as the name suggests excels and pilfering items from the battlefields as well as offering great insight into any encounter that the group comes into. While he may be cowardly and grumpy (most likely due to his advanced age) Thief is always quick to defend the Fiend Prince as well and do anything commanded of him even if in his mind it may not be the best option.

Thief is the perfect guiding character to Beelz’s childish antics, stearing him on the correct path and supporting the young prince as they travel about Sand Land much like Beelz Thief also comes complete with a series of skills to assist however, these are generally built towards supporting and collecting materials which fits the character perfectly.

Sheriff Rao – Much like Thief, Rao acts as a supporting member of Beelzebub’s crew, however unlike Thief, Rao generally pushes to plot forward, his knowledge of the royal army structure as well as his drive to find the legendary spring and return water back to Sand Land is the main focus on the opening half of Sand Land as a whole. However Rao has a much darker backstory that conflicts with his selfless nature, could it be that Sheriff Rao is hiding more than he’s letting on?

Sheriff Rao is very much combat driven and his skills reflect this, being able to join Beelz briefly in combat as well as increase the damage that Vehicles can do while intercepting enemy attacks in melee combat, with his advanced knowledge of combat tactics Rao is not afraid to be firm with Beelz when it comes to decisions frequently preventing the Prince from making foolish decisions much to Thief’s protests.

Team ICLA did an extremely good job bringing these characters to life, each character is reflected very well from its original Manga version and even works very well with the newly released Anime, while I instantly fell in love with each of the characters I did find that while travelling throughout Sand Land there were several issues that really started to turn me off the game in general, after my first 20 hours these things began to really grate of my nerves and became more of a annoyance than enjoyment.

First and foremost is the forced stealth sections, I’ll make mention of this in more detail in my conclusion as these points don’t happen to often, my next point is while I enjoy the voice acting, there is little choice while travelling the overworld, characters frequently discuss tactics as well as have conversations with each other and while these are enjoyable at first, hearing Rao explain how to handle encounters in large group for the 500th time (I’m not joking) was extremely tedious, so there is a lack of voice lines relating to what is actually happening overall.

My next point is that while Sand Lands is vast and dense in its population the variety is lacking, the amount of times I would run into the same encounters back to back was incredibly frequent for example, I could be fighting a cluster of raptors along with its Alpha variant, instantly turn the corner behind a rock and come face to face with the Queen variant of a Scorpion that would immediately dive on the party without much warning.

Fighting the same enemies to grind materials constantly also became incredibly boring, the more I played Sand Land the more it felt more like a job than a game, which while I enjoyed the story a lot as well as the character caused me to really switch off during points where I had to go from A to B and back.

These points aside let’s now cover the main draw of Sand Land and where you’ll be spending a large portion of the game.

Traversal and Vehicular Combat

So we’ve covered the wonders of Sand Land as well as how Beelz and his ragtag group function in the overworld, now we’ll cover Sand Lands most important aspect and that is of vehicular combat and creations, Sand Land gives Beelz access to several modes of transportation each with there own unique aspects. While you’re only able to make use of five vehicles at a time you’re free to swap these out when required to suit whatever you need. To not spoil things too much I’ll cover the first three vehicles that you’ll have access to very early into your adventures while traversing the Sand Lands.

Cars: You’ll have access to a version of this vehicle right from the start and then gain a much more suitable version after completing the first few chapters, while your first rendition of the car is simply used to get from place to place, the next version comes complete with turrets as well as several different versions of missile launchers that while powerful with the ability to track enemies takes a good amount of time to deal minimal damage, likewise the mounted machine guns can only aim right in front of them which really makes this more of a pure transportation vehicle than something that’s viable for combat. Given that later down the line there are much more suitable vehicles that do the cars job better this will easily be switched out very quickly.

Battle Tank: Gained very early into Sand Lands the Battle Tank will be the most used vehicle for the vast majority of the game, with high firepower, armour as well as a large health pool, the Battle Tank has access to several varieties of missile launchers, autocannons or anti material rifles, there is nothing the Battle Tank can’t take down, while slow overall it’s handling and ability to have 360 degree range of combat make this one of the staples for the combat as a whole.

Jump Bot: During your ventures in Sand Land you’ll notice several areas that you’ll be unable to reach, the Jump Bot as the name suggests fixes these issues, with the ability to jump great heights no location is unavailable to you, be sure to check as many mounds and hills and possible to find a large portion of materials as well as chests that have been left behind by both bandits as well as the royal army.

The Jump Bot is also great for handling regular non-vehicle based enemies as with a Jump Bot while in mid jump you’ll be able to come crashing down with a massive stomp attack, the Jump Bot also excels are short range Area of Effect damage, complete with grenades, a mounted machine gun as well a good balance of stats, while not incredibly strong the Jump Bot is another staple in Beelz’s arsenal for multiple reasons.

Sand Land has a plethora of vehicles overall, each with their own different uses, vehicle creation as well as levelling does take a bit of time to get used to, I wasn’t entirely a fan of not being able to gain certain materials until much later in the game, despite being able to go to higher level areas much earlier likely intended. However given that collecting materials is extremely easy, grinding certain locations and monsters wasn’t to much of an issue overall, though at times it did feel incredibly tedious and repetitive.

Overall as the main drawing point of Sand Land, you’ll be spending a good portion of the game on these vehicles or as Beelz likes to call them “Bots” it is very well done, while some vehicles are far superior to others and I wasn’t really enjoying how quite a few of these bots handled it is still a lot better and more fluid than several other triple A games that have been related lately. The key point that really made me enjoy this style of combat was that unlike Dragon’s Dogma 2 for example (see my other review) you only lose your Nitro, or for lack of a better term your stamina bar when you’re involved in combat, which makes traversal so much easier overall, it felt great to maintain high speeds when just moving around the map as well as managing it as a resource in encounters, the variety of weapons on offer as well as there special effects added another depth to an already robust combat system, you really have the option to switch on the fly and evolve strategies to take down any encounter was a wonder to behold.

Conclusion

So comes to the conclusion, and while I did have a few issues that I will cover below, it’s clear that team ICLA clearly loved Sand Land as a manga, the maps are extremely expansive and densely populated, all the characters are well presented and the changes made to the story are noticeable improvements when compared to the original medium, this is one of the few examples where a game based off an anime/manga is presented well and doesn’t feel like a tired rehash or redoing of the base story one to one (looking at you Naruto..).

While I wasn’t a fan of how some of the vehicles handled overall as mentioned above, I would have taken these issues a hundred fold over the forced stealth sections, while they didn’t occur too often during my time with Sand Land these sections alone really turned me off every time they appeared. Generally I’m quite a fan of stealth games such as Metal Gear Solid, even enjoying the excruciating European Extreme version of Metal Gear Solid 2 so I had high hopes when these sections came along. However stealth is clearly not something our fiend prince is good at, either that or the royal army has telescopes for eyes as the amount of times I was caught by an enemy I had no awareness of from around a corner simply for no reason was frustrating. I did however find that for some reason even though they are triggered by sounds that the dodge, most noticeably Beelz’s loudest motion did nothing at all to trigger guards in these encounters which turned the stealth sections into nothing more than me frog hopping around these sections breaking most of the stealth encounters as there is generally only one way to handle these encounters with a very specific pathway to not get caught instantly.

That being said, outside of these forced stealth sections I enjoyed every minute of Sand Land’s story and while I do feel the amount of encounters and the small enemy variety could do with a bit of a tune-up team ILCA has created a game that they should be extremely proud of, they have done the legacy of Akira Toryiama justice and it really shows just how much of an impact one person can have not only on the gaming industry but the world as a whole.

R.I.P Akira Toriyama, know that your legacy lives on through Sand Land and all the fans whose lives you touched with your work.

Written by: Steve Gilman