Akira Toriyama is hardly a household name, though millions will know this legend’s work. The Japanese manga artist and character designer was the man behind the Dragon Ball series. Akira also worked on countless manga and games thoughout his illustrious career. Amazing media like the Dragon Quest series, Chrono Trigger, and Blue Dragon. Sadly, on 1st March 2024, Akira passed away from an acute subdural hematoma, at the age of just 68. Sand Land, developed by Japanese studio ILCA adapts one of his esteemed creations, a 14-chapter manga series of the same name.
Adaptation Perfection
Sand Land is an action role-playing title based on the 2000s Weekly Shōnen Jump magazine manga.
The game takes place in a post-apocalyptic world simply called ‘Sand Land’. The story following a rag-tag band, lead by demon Beelzebub. Who, with his friends Rao, Ann and Thief, embarks on a journey through the vast desert world to locate a Legendary Spring. However, along the way you’ll meet dangerous monsters, the army of a malevolent king and bandits.
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You take control of Beelzebub who, it turns out, is more interested in getting his hands on the last remaining game console in the world than finding the Legendary Spring. Each member of your party also brings something to the story.
Whether it’s Thief’s lines of wisdom between being the jokester, or Ann’s hopes for the future, these give tons more flavour and personality to proceedings.
Comic Book Tale
Sand Land is a simple tale, but it’s those around you, the demons and people you meet, that really breathe the life into the tale. The game does faithfully follow the original manga, but it also fleshes out some key beats, and adds some fitting original content here and there.
Gameplay in Sand Land falls into two main loops. Most of your time will be spent with vehicular roaming and fighting, but you will also explore on foot, where things take a beat em’ up flavour.
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On foot, Beelzebub has a number of powerful attacks that will make light work of most foes. Combinations of light, heavy and special attacks can be used stun enemies. As you progress in Sand Land, you can unlock more special attacks and combos to add to the firepower.
Hand-On Leadership
Oddly, despite the game having a squad RPG vibe to it, your mates don’t really get their hands dirty in the on-foot fights. Instead, it’s down to you to call them in to help out as part of your destructive dance.
During vehicular sections, you get to control a few different types of vehicle. Like the robust and devastating tank, the blazing fast but poorly armed motorbike, or the nimble jumb bot.
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As you play through the tale, you’ll unlock the ability to call in any vehicle in seconds, thanks to the capsule system. Once you get the unlocks (and the hang of them), switching between them introduces some mild puzzling.
For example, you might need to blow a hole in a cliff with a heavy boy, then wriggle your way through the gap with a jump bot. It’s simple stuff but rolls out a lot of fun mileage.
Occasional Grind
Vehicular combat is a ton of fun. You can tweak your loadouts, and add new gear built from the resources you find. Beware though, this is one aspect of the game that brings in a bit of a grind.
Beyond the core missions there are a good few sides quest to get stuck into, though these fall into the standard fetch quest – kill this monster, or battle to come out on top in an arena. There is also city building system too, where you can get more resources, as well as access to more unlocks.
Sand Land Builds on Solid Foundation
Sand Land embodies Akira’s original art style and is visually stunning – from the cast of characters, to the vehicles, to the vast desert world. The game’s art and graphics feature an outstanding use of lighting and colour, offering a rich and vibrant world that will fill you with wonder time and time again.
Sound is also outstanding with very good voice acting across the board, with only a few cases of being lost in translation and you’ll hear the same line one too many times. Whereas the soundtrack is grand and fittingly epic.
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Sand Land starts out an unassuming manga-themed title, but quickly it becomes a thrilling and engrossing epic. This wee purple demon and his gang of mates will get their hooks into you. And you will spend hours unlocking the secrets of this dusty, expansive world.
Fans of the mange series will have a great time seeing what they love come to life. However, more importantly, newcomers are gladly invited to discover one of Akira Toriyama’s often overlooked series.
A Giant of the Art
To say the world of manga and gaming will miss Akira Toriyama is a massive understatement, so its quite fitting that the first game released since his passing is based on one of his IP, that not many people will know but it’s full of his signature art and style. And Sand Land is one of the last projects to have his direct involvement.
The news of his passing has such an impact on the world that on Twitter, the trending topics of Akira Toriyama and Dragon Ball surpassed United States President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, which was held at the same time the news of Toriyama’s death was announced.
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The news saw an outpouring of tributes from fans and creators who were inspired by him; like One Piece creator Eiichiro Oda, Naruto creator Masashi Kishimoto, Bleach creator Tite Kubo, My Hero Academia creator Kōhei Horikoshi, Yu Yu Hakusho and Hunter × Hunter creator Yoshihiro Togashi, Video Girl AI creator Masakazu Katsura, and video game designer Yuji Horii – who worked with Akira on Dragon Quest and Chrono Trigger.