SAND LAND is an action RPG based on the late Akira Toriyama’s older manga series in Shonen Jump. Read our review to see what it did well, what it didn't do well, and if it's worth buying.
SAND LAND Review Overview
What is SAND LAND?
SAND LAND is an action RPG based on the manga series created by the late, great Akira Toriyama back in the year 2000. It features most of the manga’s narrative and designs and adds an additional story that’s completely new to the title. From a gameplay perspective, the game has a simple action-RPG combat scheme with enjoyable vehicular fights. Not only that, but the latter is the main highlight of the game as it showcased by the game’s customization options and boss fights.
SAND LAND features:
⚫︎ Akira Toriyama’s art and narrative; with an added storyline after the manga’s plot
⚫︎ Simple action RPG combat with interesting vehicle fights
⚫︎ On-the-fly vehicle switching during combat to showcase multiple vehicle varieties
⚫︎ Simple yet meaningful progression for both man and machine
⚫︎ Numerous vehicle customizations and upgrades for all types
For more gameplay details, read everything we know about SAND LAND's gameplay and story.
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SAND LAND Pros & Cons
| Pros | Cons |
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 Akira Toriyama’s Art Brought to Life (Again) Compelling Story and Theme Fun Vehicular Combat |
Lackluster On-Foot Combat Repetitive Dialogue Basic Open World Structure |
SAND LAND Overall - 76/100
SAND LAND is a good video game adaptation to one of Akira Toriyama’s creative works. It has a great story and adds onto the original work made by Toriyama, a fun concept of vehicular combat, and amazing visuals to boot. However, it falls flat on the sand when it comes to certain mechanics, especially when it comes to its open world. More of a tribute to the creator’s signature style, SAND LAND is a great adaptation visually and narratively, but only a decent open world game overall.
SAND LAND Story - 9/10
Taking the original storyline of the manga, the game treaded harsh waters by adding more to its simple and short story. From what starts as a simple and straightforward search to find the Legendary Spring to find a source of water, shortly becomes a tale of redemption and hope for the inhabitants of the desolate desert world. Moreover, the game adds a completely new world in FOREST LAND and a full story revolving around Ann, the crew’s mechanic. It doesn’t undermine the original; one could even say that it enhances the story further with the added content.
SAND LAND Gameplay - 6/10
As an open-world action RPG, the game plays decently overall. The game highlights its great and seamless vehicular combat through the numerous encounters you will experience throughout your playthrough. However, this is contrasted by the uninspiring on-foot combat, which can feel clunkier than riding an actual tank. Additionally, as an open-world game, it is completely lackluster. With repetitive fetch quests, an empty open world, and clunky on-foot combat, the game becomes a good experience mainly because of the ability to ride and fight in your own tank, biped, motorcycle, and more.
SAND LAND Visuals - 9/10
It’s no secret that the great Akira Toriyama’s work has already translated well into other franchises like Dragon Quest, Chrono Trigger, Tobal, and more. With SAND LAND, Bandai Namco is able to do the late creator’s art justice with the beautiful application of cel-shaded graphics to highlight the distinct art style. There’s not much to say other than the game is objectively gorgeous and really makes it come to life through the designs.
SAND LAND Audio - 7/10
The sound effects and music are good enough to fit the mood. It’s not the best of the best, but the latter hits just right, especially when it comes to the game’s more contextual scenes. Although the series’ voice actors reprise their roles for the game, it could be said that it’s a hit-or-miss. Some may find the voice acting a bit too corny, and some may enjoy it, but at the end of the day, it fits the characters to a tee.
SAND LAND Value for Money - 7/10
Priced at $59.99, the game offers a 30-hour experience with some side content to pursue and do. While the side content isn’t exactly the most compelling type of thing to do, the game still has quite a number to pad the total hours for a 100% completion. If you were to buy the game, buy it for the variety of vehicles, vehicular combat, and Toriyama’s timeless art, not for the open world.
SAND LAND Review: A Tribute to Toriyama's Legacy
When I learned about SAND LAND being adapted both as an anime and video game, I was elated as I actually read the manga just before it was announced. Many people were equally blind-sided and devastated to hear about Akira Toriyama’s untimely passing back in March, including myself. I wouldn't call myself a diehard fan, but I can definitely say that his art and creative works have influenced me and several others like me in probably more ways than I realize.
The game, luckily, stays true to the original story in telling the tale of the titular SAND LAND, a desolate and unforgiving wasteland that is a direct result of humanity’s foolishness.
The main draw of the game is its visuals. Toriyama’s art comes to life yet again in the gaming medium, and I applaud Bandai Namco for doing so. The cel-shaded graphics they used highlight the character designs and the backgrounds drawn in his signature style. It captures his art perfectly and it shows that his work is, and always will be, timeless.
Narratively, the game is great at telling the story of the characters involved: the innocence of our protagonist Beelzebub, the redemption of Sheriff Rao from his secret past, and the stupidity of humans who just want to make sure they stay above each other, regardless of how far they've fallen. The Toriyama effect comes through in-game, able to take the very serious topic of war and morality and instill it with a child-like charm to make it digestible to people of all ages. Even the added story still feels like it’s actually part of the original story, since they were able to connect Ann into the mix. If you were to play SAND LAND first and then read the manga, you’d probably think that the latter was lacking, as it’s quite a short story.
For context, the original story is told more from Sheriff Rao’s perspective and how the past can be redeemed by what you do moving forward. While that main theme is still there, the game focuses more on Beelzebub. The demon prince has the interesting juxtaposition of the expectations of being a demon, believed by both humans and Beelzebub to be the evil scurge of the world, but in actuality is kind-hearted, selfless, and wholesome.
It's clear that he’s only a kid (though several thousands of years old) and doesn’t know much about the world yet. One interesting dialogue came when Rao asked Beelzebub about the worst thing he’s done, and he answered that he has gone to bed without brushing his teeth once. This in comparison to a grizzled veteran like Rao, who actually was part of the war that made SAND LAND into what it is, is just a very innocent and naive response.
Gameplay-wise, it’s pretty shallow with a few exceptions. To give more context, the on-foot combat is broken down to simple light and strong attack chains, with the addition of being able to jump and dodge. There’s the existence of special abilities for both Belz and his crew, but they don’t really add much other than giving you more loot or doing more damage.
While SAND LAND’s world is intentionally supposed to be bleak and barren, that’s simply not how you’d want to play or design a good open-world game. Most of the time, you’re exploring the world to do the game’s multiple fetch quests or trying to hunt bounties. There’s not much merit to exploration other than getting more materials for upgrades, but at least there’s a reason to do so.
Where the game shines is through its vehicle combat. I actually wish that I played the game on a harder difficulty so that I could play around with the encounters a bit more. It’s simple mechanically, but with the variety of vehicles that you have, it becomes an enjoyable juggling session when you start changing from tank to biped to car in quick succession.
Also, the game’s vehicle customization allows you to add a personal touch to your battle machines. Hell, the game even lets you have multiple versions of the same type of vehicle so that you can create and customize to your heart’s content.
All in all, the game is definitely a good tribute to Toriyama’s work and legacy. While it may not be a great open-world game in itself, the visuals and story are good enough to make it a good enough experience for me. I would still advise against buying it on release as its weak open-world aspects don’t justify the high price. However, if you’re buying it to show appreciation for Toriyama’s work, then do so by all means; just embrace that it’s more of a visual and narrative experience.
Pros of SAND LAND
| Things SAND LAND Got Right |
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Akira Toriyama’s Art Brought to Life (Again) Compelling Story and Theme Fun Vehicular Combat |
Akira Toriyama’s Art Brought to Life (Again)
Let me get this out of the way again. I’m a Toriyama fan, but I don’t consider myself the biggest fan. However, I will say that his art is tied to what I consider some of the greatest in the creative space simply because of how recognizable it is. Bandai Namco highlights the distinct designs through the cel-shaded graphics and vibrant colors, even if the game’s setting is on a desolate wasteland for the first part. By the time you get to FOREST LAND, the game’s visuals really pop because of how the game contrasts it from SAND LAND. This may be one of Toriyama’s last games that he worked on, but he will forever be immortalized through his legacy.
Compelling Story and Theme
The game’s narrative is slightly different from the original manga created by Toriyama back in 2000. They decided to add more to the already-existing narrative without butchering the original, which is a feat of its own. Personally, I’m a fan of RPGs that contain war as the main theme, especially with the exploration of redemption, morality, and other related topics. It’s a hopeful tale told through the lens of its characters, and it even highlights the innocence of Beelzebub as to how the world really is, despite being a demon living in a human’s world.
Fun Vehicular Combat
The highlight of the gameplay is the amazing vehicular combat and seamless switching between the various battle machines that you’ll eventually have. It’s simply the most enjoyable aspect of the game; add the fact that you can customize these with different weapons, paint, engines, parts, and more to have your own personal touch. The boss fights are also a great part of the game’s combat as some of them require you to switch vehicles mid-fight to take advantage of that particular boss’ weakness.
Cons of SAND LAND
| Things That SAND LAND Can Improve |
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Lackluster On-Foot Combat Repetitive Dialogue Basic Open World |
Lackluster On-Foot Combat
SAND LAND’s on-foot combat is unsatisfying. It’s plain and lackluster, especially when its competing against the multitude of action-RPGs that came out or are coming out this year. It feels like a barebones version of a Musou game (Dynasty Warriors) in how it plays. I enjoy my fair share of Musou games, but they're known to have repetitive combat loops. It’s good that you don’t spend the majority of your time in combat on foot, or else it would’ve made for a worse experience.
Repetitive Dialogue
When I say repetitive dialogue, I mean to say the flavorful conversations that the gang has when exploring the world. They would often quip advice when you’re lost, what to do against stronger enemies, and more. It’s fine for the first few hours of gameplay, but it did become annoying, especially since I’ve already done enough to know better. One comparison for this is Dragon’s Dogma 2’s pawns yapping about certain things, but it has enough variety of conversations to not feel as repetitive as SAND LAND’s.
Basic Open World
The biggest offense, in my opinion, of open-world games is having a really big world with nothing in it. Don’t get it twisted; it doesn’t exactly mean that exploration is pointless in the game, but it does feel tiring to explore a desolate wasteland similar to Mad Max. To add to this, the game’s side quests are often fetch quests that don’t really offer much substance and are just there to add fluff and pad the length.
Is SAND LAND Worth It?
Do It For Toriyama, Not the Open World.
SAND LAND is a visual and narrative treat that does Toriyama’s work justice, plain and simple. However, when judging it as an open-world game, it falls short of being a great game. There are some other enjoyable aspects, like vehicular combat and customization. However, I don’t think it’s worth a day-one purchase for casual fans, and I would only advise buying it if you’re a diehard Toriyama fan and would like to honor his last work.
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SAND LAND FAQ
Is SAND LAND based on the manga and anime?
Yes, but not completely. The game adds a completely new storyline and embellishes the original story to connect the additions. However, it doesn’t completely abandon the original narrative as it only adds to it rather than removing it.
In SAND LAND, is the Demon King Lucifer and Dabura from Dragonball Z one and the same?
There’s no official answer for Dabura and Lucifer being the same character, but the resemblance is definitely there. Toriyama has famously integrated his other characters into his other works, so it may not be far-fetched to think that these two are one and the same.
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SAND LAND Product Information
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| Title | SAND LAND |
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| Release Date | April 26, 2024 |
| Developer | ILCA, Inc. |
| Publisher | Bandai Namco Entertainment, Inc. |
| Supported Platforms | PC (Steam), PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One |
| Genre | Action, RPG |
| Number of Players | 1 |
| ESRB Rating | T |
| Official Website | SAND LAND Website |
