Less known in our region than Dragon Ball, Sand Land is a manga by Akira Toriyama published in 2000 in Japan and in 2002 in France by Glénat, which takes place in the same universe as most of his other works: Dragon Ball, Dr Slump or even Neko Majin. After an animated film in August 2023, here is finally the video game adaptation of the universe, entrusted to the care of Bandai Namco.
I want sun
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By overexploiting resources, humans have transformed the planet into an immense desert. After that, instead of coming together to try to make things right, they killed each other in insipid wars. Now, water has become the most precious resource there is, both for the survivors and for the demons with whom they share the world. Beelzebub, the prince of demons, regularly organizes pillaging of water convoys intended for humans.
One day, Rao, a sheriff, shows up at the demon village. Ignoring the prejudices concerning the latter, he comes to seek their help in order to find a legendary water source, which would provide water for all the peoples of Sand Land. Beelzebub agrees in exchange for fair access to water for his fellow demons and the only video game console to survive the wars! Rao, Beelzebub and Thief (a thief demon considered an old sage among his peers) therefore set off across the desert in search of clues about the mysterious source.
Along the way, they will meet many people, often friendly ones. If most humans are afraid of demons, convinced that they are bloodthirsty killers, the three companions will have many opportunities to prove that, even if he is a joker, Beelzebub has a rather good heart. After stealing a tank from the army of the King of Sand Land, the three friends end up discovering that the legendary source they are looking for could actually be monopolized by the famous king. The latter even ordered the massacre of the Picchi people only because they had found a way to create water. The king, in addition to brutalizing the people, deprives them of the majority of the resources that would allow them to survive. The quest for water will therefore turn into a quest for justice.
Borderlands without the name calling
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Sand Land presents itself as an open-world action-RPG, which places an important emphasis on the use of vehicles. The game is divided between exploration, combat and platforms. If it uses classic mechanics, whether in terms of gameplay or quests, we cannot say that Sand Land does things by halves! The game is varied, vast and never monotonous.
In combat, the gameplay is rather basic, quite close to that of 3D beat'em all. Beelzebub can chain together rapid strikes and powerful strikes and, when an enemy is stunned, it is possible to inflict a special attack whose animation is quite satisfying! As water is the most important resource in the Sand Land universe, it is also what allows us to recover life. Beelzebub has a bottle of water that can be consumed during combat, to have a chance of resuming the battle in the event of death. It can be filled at the different water points scattered around the map.
Rao and Thief don't just observe. If neither of them comes to stick mandals on the young demon's opponents (at least at the beginning) it is possible to assign them actions via a radial menu which is displayed by pressing LB. Rao instead offers attacking or dodging skills, while Thief focuses on loot and support. Thanks to the skill points accumulated during clashes, it is possible to improve these skills or unlock new ones. Same thing for Beelzebub who can draw on his “dark energy” to use special abilities, accessible from another radial menu via the RB key.
Melee combat turns out to be rather simple, even in normal mode, as long as the player observes his opponent in order to dodge his attacks (represented by a red aura) at the right time. Vehicle combat, on the other hand, offers a certain flexibility, particularly when you have several. If there are no notions of “equipment” as in a classic RPG for the three main characters, it is the customization of the vehicles which will modify their combat capabilities: main cannon, secondary machine gun, choice of engine (for boost), suspensions (speed and maneuverability), armor or even the addition of chips, which offer passive advantages, such as flaming shots or an additional shield.
Mad Max atmosphere
As the desert that constitutes Sand Land is far too vast to travel on foot, the player spends most of his time aboard one of his vehicles. And they are many ! If you first unlock a first tank, very practical in combat, you quickly add a jumper, a sort of less powerful but very mobile bipedal robot, a motorcycle, the fastest for crossing quicksand, as well as as well as other models that we will let you discover. Each has a durability gauge, boost (which allows very practical accelerations) and its own advantages and disadvantages depending on the situation to be faced. It is possible to store up to 5 in a capsule and select them using the right arrow on the controller pad. To swap one of these with another unlocked vehicle, you will have to go to the garage run by Ann, your head mechanic!
If the different modes of transport are quite easy to learn, it should be noted the uselessness of the “autopilot” function (unless you like getting stuck in walls), especially when you compare it to that of games like Yakuza Infinite Wealth for example. For the rest, you change weapons using the B key, you shoot with RT and you reload with RB. The different vehicle customizations can be made using materials collected from enemies or found in special blue chests.
Fifty shades of sand
Although its environment is mostly desert, Sand Land is far from monotonous. The mix of cell shading for the characters and 3D for the settings looks particularly good. The places are magnificent, varied and the light is sublime. Whether in the verticality of the rocky canyons or in the distant horizon of the sandy plains where only a few dunes are visible, the game is beautiful. Quite simply. Thanks to the care taken in the decorations, it is pleasant to wander through Sand Land to explore it or go in search of side quests.
These are numerous and come in multiple ways to avoid monotony. Of course, it's not a question of claiming that Sand Land reinvents the RPG, but it is varied and inventive enough to prevent the boredom that repeating a mechanic can cause. Some will offer multiple choices which will influence (a little) certain aspects of the game. After discovering the city of Spino, new quests allowing it to be reconstructed will appear. Most of the time, it will involve helping a character and then offering them the opportunity to settle in town. The residents thus recruited will make it possible to open new stores and offer exclusive services to Beelzebub. The city itself will transform as the scenario progresses, going from a slum to a real city.
The different dungeons scattered across the map, forgotten temples made of carved stones and dark corridors, are, however, very similar. They are designed with the same map sections, but assembled differently, which often gives the impression that we are exploring a place we have already visited. Especially since most of them are accessible very quickly, but many will require having unlocked very specific vehicles to be able to be searched from top to bottom. The most unpleasant point of these areas, however, lies in the lines of dialogue of the characters, which are too little varied and which they repeat at such a regular interval that they become annoying.
As for the enemies, you will have to face wild animals (raptors, scorpions, cobras, etc.), the king's soldiers (with their vehicles) and bands of plunderers (some of which offer tough bosses). The game deploys a hostile and colorful fauna entirely faithful to the original work. Certain bosses will be the subjects of hunting quests and their elimination will earn Zenis for the player.
An adaptation that is both faithful and ambitious
If Sand Land generally respects the original work, it has some differences. They are sometimes minor, like for example Rao who was called Lao in the manga (but the differences in translations are understandable 20 years apart), or more important, like the addition of the character of Ann, which helps justify improving vehicles and offering a new narrative arc. Some of these adaptations are particularly intelligent and well integrated, such as the choice to relate the current state of Sand Land with our own environmental problems (there was only talk of war in the manga), which helps give credibility to the universe.
The game may be particularly funny, as Toriyama knew how to be so well, but it does not lack serious moments. For example, during a side quest, one of the player's choices can result in the fairly violent death of a character. Also worth noting is the social and political subtext behind Sand Land, which depicts a dictatorial world where the blame is placed on demons. However, the latter are only pranksters, not assassins, although they are accused of the many evils that strike humanity.
That's all until the end of the first half of the game, which corresponds to the last chapter of the manga. After that, to allow the title to have a comfortable lifespan, the developers added a sequel. It offers as many good ideas as other very average ones, despite a correct use of manga codes. Everyone will have their own opinion on the matter, but it is a shame that certain story choices weaken a first part that is nevertheless accomplished story-wise by making it lose coherence.
The lifespan of the title, side quests included, is around 30 hours, but it is likely that most players who want to explore every nook and cranny will spend much more time there. No major bugs were reported during our test, however it should be noted a particularly painful lack of scrolling of dialogues: concretely, during a cutscene, you have to advance the scene by pressing A after reading each line of text . If this allows the slowest readers not to miss anything, it is a shame that scrolling is not configurable in the options in order to allow those who wish to put down the controller.
Tested on Xbox Series