GamesRadar+ VerdictSand Land offers great vehicle combat and a strong array of customization options, but sluggish brawler combat and a vehicle imbalance with the tank let it down. It’s a crying shame that character development gives way to boring corridor missions in the latter stages of the RPG.Pros+Neat little character moments+Great vehicle combat+Expansive customization optionsCons-Tired combat on foot-Boring late-game mission design-Vehicle imbalance with the superior tank
GamesRadar+ Verdict
GamesRadar+ Verdict
Sand Land offers great vehicle combat and a strong array of customization options, but sluggish brawler combat and a vehicle imbalance with the tank let it down. It’s a crying shame that character development gives way to boring corridor missions in the latter stages of the RPG.
Sand Land offers great vehicle combat and a strong array of customization options, but sluggish brawler combat and a vehicle imbalance with the tank let it down. It’s a crying shame that character development gives way to boring corridor missions in the latter stages of the RPG.
Pros+Neat little character moments+Great vehicle combat+Expansive customization options
Neat little character moments
Great vehicle combat
Expansive customization options
Cons-Tired combat on foot-Boring late-game mission design-Vehicle imbalance with the superior tank
Tired combat on foot
Boring late-game mission design
Vehicle imbalance with the superior tank
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Why you can trust GamesRadar+Our experts review games, movies and tech over countless hours, so you can choose the best for you.Find out more about our reviews policy.
I’m genuinely surprised there aren’t more car-based combat games out there. 2015’s very underrated Mad Max game filled that niche for a time, and 2023’s 2D indie gem Laika: Aged Through Blood spoke to that desire, but now Sand Land, the Akira Toriyama manga adaptation, is here to fill the void in spades.
Fast FactsRelease date: April 25, 2024Platform(s): PC, PS5, Xbox Series X, PS4, Xbox OneDeveloper: In-housePublisher: Bandai Namco
Fast Facts
Release date: April 25, 2024Platform(s): PC, PS5, Xbox Series X, PS4, Xbox OneDeveloper: In-housePublisher: Bandai Namco
Release date: April 25, 2024Platform(s): PC, PS5, Xbox Series X, PS4, Xbox OneDeveloper: In-housePublisher: Bandai Namco
Sand Land has a serviceable plot, but its best character moments happen off the beaten path. Beelzebub isn’t all that evil – his dad Lucifer enforces a strict ‘gaming time limit’ of one hour a day when he’s back home, and Sand Land goes to great efforts to prove it’s the humans that are the evil, genocidal maniacs via Rao’s redemption for inadvertently slaughtering unarmed civilians decades before the game takes place.
With friends like these
(Image credit: Bandai Namco)
It’s about 12 hours in when developer Bandai Namco hits the brakes on any semblance of character development. Beelzebub and company progress to the Forest Land region, Sand Land’s second biome, where they’re imprisoned in endless combat-heavy missions with very little to break up the monotony. I don’t think it’s an accident that the Forest Land is a bespoke creation, having never appeared in Toriyama’s limited manga series, and it feels far inferior to what the late, great storyteller constructed years ago.
And it’s when Beelzebub’s on his two feet that Sand Land’s combat really suffers. There’s all the usual tricks of the trade you’d expect to find in a real-time action game: a light attack, a heavy attack, a dodge ability, and special gauge-based skills like a hail of flying fists. The problem here is that it all feels really unresponsive – dodging barely ever works for actually evading damage in close quarters, so you soon get locked into a cycle of running away, closing back in for a quick attack, and repeating the entire process.
Beelzebub’s character and gameplay feel at odds with one another as a result. The Demon Prince batters people senseless in cutscenes with finesse, only for the entire thing to feel like trying to move a stick in mud once I’m able to take direct control of the action. Beelzebub’s supposed to be some sort of hardened fighter, but his literal gameplay never manages to match the narrative Sand Land builds up for him.
Tools of the trade
(Image credit: Bandai Namco)
You’ll find yourself weaving between tank missiles in the hover car, firing back with your own dual missile pods, or mowing down villainous foot soldiers with a shotgun from the back of the motorbike. It’s deliciously fast-paced, the perfect antidote to Sand Land’s sluggish brawler combat, and because the vast majority of enemy vehicles use missiles, it feels like a game of dodging and weaving around incoming fire, rather than just plowing headlong through enemy fire with a beasty vehicle like the tank.
(Image credit: Bandai Namco)
“There’s a really fun variety of vehicles on offer in Sand Land”
“There’s a really fun variety of vehicles on offer in Sand Land”
Thankfully, the way side-missions mesh with Sand Land’s RPG systems is a treat. Progression isn’t tied to just Beelzebub’s level – it’s more in sync with the level of your vehicles and their individual parts. Side missions routinely reward you with better parts, so you can very much feel the difference in your vehicles. One part might enable a target-locking missile system on the car, for example, or flame grenades for the bipedal bot, brilliantly expanding Sand Land’s vehicle customization options.
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More about sand land
Before he passed away, Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama was full of praise for action RPG Sand Land: “It greatly expands the worldview of the original manga”
Before he passed away, Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama was full of praise for action RPG Sand Land: “It greatly expands the worldview of the original manga”
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