Sand Land is an action RPG from developer ILCA, published by Bandai Namco Entertainment. It is based on Akira Toriyama’s 2000 manga of the same name, and it is one of the last projects to have any involvement by Toriyama before his death on March 1, 2024. That fact hangs over every frame. It is also a game that understands what it is: a desert adventure about a demon prince, a sheriff, and a search for water.
Sand Land released in April 2024 for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S. It is a single-player, third-person action RPG. You play as Beelzebub, the Fiend Prince, and you lead a company of heroic misfits across a world where demons and humans alike are dying of thirst. In a desert world suffering an extreme water shortage, Beelzebub and Rao, a small-town sheriff, form a tag-team and set off in search of the Legendary Spring somewhere in the desert.
That is the engine of the whole thing. Not revenge, not prophecy, not a chosen one. Water. The game follows Beelzebub, Rao, Ann, and Thief as they journey through the desert to locate the Legendary Spring while battling dangerous monsters and the army of a malevolent king. Beelzebub is the main playable character; the other three are companions who assist during combat. Four characters, one goal, a lot of sand. It is a lean premise, and Sand Land mostly respects it.
Trailer, via Bandai Namco Entertainment America.
Beelzebub, Rao, and the Road to the Legendary Spring
The narrative keeps its focus on the party. Beelzebub is the main playable character, and the game stays in third person throughout. The companions are not decoration. Players can unlock new skills for Beelzebub’s companions, and those companions assist during combat. A tag-team premise should mean something mechanically, and here it does. Rao, Ann, and Thief are part of the fight, not just the cutscenes.
The world they cross is Toriyama’s. Fidelity to the original author’s style was among the elements praised on release, and it shows in the character designs, the machines, the whole sun-bleached look of the thing. Sand Land looks like a Toriyama manga that learned to move. Adaptations often sand off the edges of a creator’s line. This one keeps them.
The combat is where the game splits its identity. There are two modes of melee attack. Light attacks are fast but weak. Heavy attacks are slow but strong. Players can dodge opponent attacks mid-air or sideways. As you progress, you unlock new skills and special abilities that enhance Beelzebub’s combat capabilities. Drinking water increases Beelzebub’s health. That last detail is a nice touch. The thing everyone in this world is killing for is also your health bar.
Vehicles Carry the Fight
The vehicles are the best idea in Sand Land. The game features a variety of vehicles that can be used for traversal. The hovercar, for instance, lets players float over water and move quickly through wetlands and rough terrain. Vehicles also work in combat, especially against larger enemies. Beelzebub can carry up to five vehicle capsules at a given time. They can be customized extensively with new engine parts and weapons, and upgraded to boost durability in combat.
This is where the game earns its keep. Vehicle gameplay was among the elements singled out for praise on release, and it is easy to see why. A desert is a flat, boring space unless you give the player something to drive. Sand Land gives you a garage. The customization is not cosmetic. Engine parts and weapons change how the machines perform, and durability upgrades change how long they last against the big monsters. You are not just collecting cars. You are maintaining a small fleet.
Beelzebub can carry up to five vehicle capsules at a given time.
That limit is the tension. Five capsules means five choices, and the wrong loadout in rough terrain or against a larger enemy costs you. It is a small constraint that gives the open world a shape. Not every game needs a weight system. This one needs a capsule count.
Spino Is the Basecamp That Holds It Together
Beelzebub and his crew establish their basecamp in the city of Spino. Players can customize their characters’ personal living quarters extensively with furniture and various decorative items. As you progress and complete side objectives, you meet other non-playable characters, some of whom may stay in Spino, granting opportunities to buy rare components or services.
This is the quiet part of Sand Land, and in this paper’s view it is the part that will decide whether you stay past the credits. Spino is not a menu. It is a place that fills up as you play. The characters who move in are a reward for side work, and the rare components and services they offer feed back into the vehicle and combat systems. The loop is closed. You explore, you fight, you bring people back, and the basecamp gets better.
There are other side activities, including racing and bounty hunting. Racing fits the vehicles. Bounty hunting fits the combat. Neither is a revelation, but both give the desert a reason to exist beyond the main road to the Legendary Spring. An open world lives or dies on whether its empty spaces are worth crossing. Sand Land’s are, mostly because you are crossing them in something you built.
Where Sand Land Stumbles
The game is not without problems. It received mixed reviews from critics on release, and the 7.6/10 aggregate from six outlets on IGDB tells the story plainly. This is a good game with real rough edges, not a great one. In this paper’s read, the combat, for all its light-and-heavy structure and its mid-air dodges, can settle into repetition. The open world is a desert, and deserts repeat. The side activities are functional rather than inspired.
The bigger issue is ambition. Sand Land wants to be a sprawling action RPG and a faithful Toriyama adaptation at the same time, and those two goals pull against each other. The fidelity to Toriyama’s style is the game’s strongest asset. The RPG systems layered on top of it are competent but rarely surprising. The skill tree and the vehicle customization will feel familiar to anyone who has played this kind of game before.
None of that is fatal. It is just the difference between a game you finish and a game you live in. Sand Land is the former, with enough of the latter to keep you in Spino longer than you planned.
The Toriyama Question
It is impossible to separate Sand Land from its author, and the game does not try. Toriyama created the manga in 2000, and this is one of the last projects to have any involvement by him before his death on March 1, 2024. That context turns every design choice into a small act of preservation. The hovercar, the demons, the sheriff, the water: all of it is his.
The game leans on that context. Vehicle gameplay and visual fidelity to Toriyama’s style were among the elements critics praised, and they are the two that most clearly come from the source. When Sand Land works, it works because it trusts the material. When it drags, it drags because it tried to bolt on systems the material never needed. That, at least, is how this paper reads it.
This is a game that reads as made by people who loved the manga, for people who love the manga, with a combat and progression layer that is solid but not special. If you came for Toriyama, you will likely leave satisfied. If you came for a genre-defining RPG, you will likely leave wanting.
The Verdict on Sand Land
Sand Land is worth your time, with conditions. The conditions are these: you should like Toriyama’s art, you should enjoy driving and upgrading vehicles, and you should be patient with combat that repeats itself. Meet those three and the game delivers a desert worth crossing. The hunt for the Legendary Spring has stakes, because the water shortage is not a plot device. It is the health system, the motivation, and the reason four misfits are traveling together at all.
The basecamp in Spino is the game’s best argument for itself. It grows as you play. It rewards the side work. It makes the world feel inhabited rather than populated. In this paper’s view, that is a rare thing in open-world games.
The flaws are real. In this paper’s read, mixed reviews were the right call. The 7.6/10 aggregate is not a score born of hype or backlash, as this paper sees it. It reads as the score of a good game that could have been a great one, held back by systems that never quite justify their own weight. In this paper’s assessment, the vehicles carry it, the art carries it, and the combat and the side content mostly hold on.
Sand Land is one of the last notes from one of the greats, even if the note is not perfect. It is a game about finding water in a dead world, made by people who clearly cared about the world they were drawing. That care is visible in the machines and characters. It is enough. It is not everything, but it is enough.
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