Summer Games Fest is a distant memory at this point, but due to its late embargo I wasn’t able to talk about Sand Land until now. It’s a shame, because it’s one of my favorite games I saw during the show. I know we’ve all moved on from SGF hype and now we’re 50 hours into Final Fantasy 16 and dreaming about Super Mario Bros. Wonder, but humor me for a moment while I tell you about driving tanks and kicking velociraptors in the face in my new most-anticipated game, Sand Land.
I was not at all familiar with Sand Land when I sat down to play it, and as I understand it now, even a lot of anime and manga fans aren’t aware of it either. Sand Land was a one-shot manga written by Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama and published in the summer of 2000, but unlike Dragon Ball, the story hasn’t had any kind of legacy. Last December it was announced that a CGI anime adaptation is on the way later this year, and during the Summer Games Fest showcase, a video game adaptation from Bandai Namco was revealed.
The simplest way to describe Sand Land is to call it anime Mad Max. The game takes place in a post-apocalyptic future and stars an adolescent demon named Beelzebub, who drives around in a tank with an old man, fighting raiders and monsters across the desert. I didn’t get much of a sense of the plot during my play session, which was alright by me, because I got a great sense of its playful tone and focus on explosive action.
Sand Land is an open-world game that can be explored both on foot and in Beelzebub’s customizable tank, and throughout the demo I frequently found myself exiting the tank to explore caves, interact with NPCs, and do little platforming challenges. Beelzebub is a unique player character that has a lot of personality and style in his movements. He’s just a little guy, but the way he winds up haymaker punches and launches himself in the air to slam his foot into a dinosaur’s face made me laugh out loud several times. There’s some playful anime charm here that you don’t often get to see in anime-style action games, which are typically all about swinging a big sword and looking cool. Beelzebub is a plucky little trouble maker that moves and fights like a cartoon character, which is refreshing for an open-world game.
I keep mentioning dinosaurs because I think it’s very funny. Having no experience with the manga, everything about the world of Sand Land surprised and delighted me. When the developer guiding me through the demo told me to hop in the tank and fire some shells at a pack of raptors, let’s just say he didn’t have to tell me twice. If you ever find yourself feeling burned out by same-old same-old, especially in the open-world genre, you can always check out the one about the demon kid in the tank that fights dinos in a post-apocalyptic desert.
The demo was just a taste of Sand Land’s expansive world and lengthy campaign, so there’s not much more I can say right now. There’s no release date yet, but with the movie coming out later this year, there’s still plenty of time to become a Sand Land fan. If nothing else, it’s a heck of a lot easier than trying to get into Dragon Ball.