Sand Land Isn’t the Manga Adaptation You Expect

The following is a list of the most recent and relevant articles. Sand Land was announced at Summer Game Fest, and I heard the term “action-RPG”, I came out expecting a very different game. A half-hour hands-on with the game set me straight – your typical manga or anime adaptation this is not.

Based on the Dragon Ball manga (and illustrated with his signature style), Sand Land tells the story of the Fiend Prince Beelzebub, who’s more benevolent than that moniker suggests. Think of this as a fantastical Mad Max; a world of humans, demons, and more has seen its water supplies run dry, with most of the rest hoarded and sold off by a greedy king, leaving the rest of civilization to fight over what they can – often by means of enjoyably weaponized vehicles. Beelzebub – and your – role is to take down that king and return water to this parched world.

It’s a set-up that lends itself well to a game adaptation – my demo takes me past a ramshackle desert town, across wide-open explorable areas, and into hidden routes through sunbaked cliff faces, populated by roving bandits and packs of dinosaurs. That’s coupled with a sense of freedom to approach all of this as you’d like to – you You can also find out more about the following:Why would you want to rove across the desert by foot when you can speed around with a Jeep? You? You can also find out more about the following: take that Jeep all the way to your objective, but… doesn’t that raider have a tank you could steal instead?

It’s an immediate break from the more linear RPG you might expect, and that’s reflected in the  action too. While you may be earning skill and gear points, your interactions with other characters are organic and based on action. Beelzebub’s combat out of a vehicle is governed primarily by light and heavy attacks that can be chained together for multiple effects – juggles, area of effect attacks, and more – with additional magical attacks and dashes.

There’s a sense of speed to all this – fights more often than not see you surrounded, forcing you to take evasive action and manage space as much as taking down your opponents directly. Vehicle combat is incredibly fast, and it feels like a core part of the game. The tank is in the game. The following are some examples of how to use I stole the tank), I came across an alpha raptor far larger than the normal breed I’d been taking down on foot, and immediately felt the benefit of having high ordnance rounds at my disposal. While I didn’t see it in my time with the game, Sand Land Vehicle customization will be available, so that the switch from foot to vehicle combat appears to be a progression rather than just a fixed piece.

This combines into an experience which promises a real adaptation of the manga original, using the source material to generate its ideas rather than trying to fit them in a pre-determined template. Sand Land’s most exciting element is its unpredictability – I look forward to seeing more when it arrives.

S. Keep an eye out for further details.|S, stay tuned for more details on a release date.