Sandland is experiencing a resurgence of strange times. Its creator, Akira Toriyama (Dragon Ball), recently passed away unexpectedly, effectively putting the spotlight on his 24-year-old creation as it continues to be adapted into film, anime, and video games. It was my entry point into this world with video game characters, vehicles and architecture, all beyond the Dragon Ball-like art style, and I enjoyed the opportunity to inhabit the brand new Toriyama world and story. Other aspects of the game, its animation and performances, fluctuate between high and low quality, but ultimately, Sandland is the kind of experience I want from an adaptation – the opportunity to spend time in a large, realized world with a story that pulls you all the way.
The Sandland video game serves as a remake and sequel to the 2000 manga. For a franchise newbie like myself, it’s a fantastic entry point, but there’s a jarring line in the narrative between old and completely new. Beyond the boundaries of the Sand Land region, on a basic level, doesn’t make sense considering the world built up to that point. But, overall, I like the plot and even though the characters are shallow, I’m locked in to see where it’s going. Outside of the overt bad guys, no one learns much in Sandland, and its characters are basically defined entirely by their first lines of dialogue. Rao, however, stands out as a wise and committed person who is quick to accept everyone despite their differences – a rare trait given his imprecise, uncreative nickname “The Old Man”.
As Beelzebub, son of the demon king Lucifer, you decide to help humanity bring water back to a dehydrated world. It involves exploring large, open worlds with a collection of vehicles that you can call upon at any time. Swapping between a tank for skirmishes and a motorcycle for speeding across dunes is a quick process, but you’ll be doing it so often that I’ll admit I was disappointed by the somewhat clunky swapping system. I didn’t like that swapping between vehicles essentially required a full stop. This may sound like nitpicking, but every encounter in the game requires frequent vehicle swaps.
Fighting enemies using your collection of vehicles is an important and, understandably, focus of the game. Despite the focus on vehicular combat, the action is close to a third-person shooter, and the control style does a good job of drawing between different vehicles. I favored the tank with its powerful guns and strong armor, but the jumping tank used to jump mountains and the mech used to hit other robots are fun in their own right. Upgrading and customizing them was a slow process, and I rarely felt like I was making big, impactful improvements by leveling or changing vehicle parts, but I was always excited to check out the garage and see what I could do to boost my stats.
The process of upgrading the town of Spino brings new people to the growing town as they complete sidequests (many of which involve genuinely interesting short stories and characters). Saving a painter in the middle of the desert, for example, opens a shop where you can paint and decal your vehicles. You can decorate the town with furniture, but I admit to having little interest in that aspect since all my resources went into improving my vehicles.
Sometimes, Beelzebub continues without a vehicle, and these sections are usually annoying without being too difficult, thankfully. Beelzebub is a powerful demon with a literal garage of armored weapons in his back pocket but insists on sneaking in occasionally for intermediate secret sections. These parts of the game feel like they belong to a different video game era that we left behind. The hand-to-hand combat scenarios weren’t bad, but I was always excited to get back into the tank.
Sandland has its flaws and is a bit long despite watching the credits around the reasonable 20-hour mark, but it charms throughout. Toriyama’s fun sense of humor is front and center with Beelzebub primarily taking on adventure, so his father gives him an extra hour of video game time every day. I may not have had a strong connection with most of the cast and was annoyed with several specific sections, but I loved spending time in Sandland (and beyond) and watching my garage upgrade and grow.