Then I grew older, and naturally I became more cynical.
My apathy transformed into dread.
The odds seemed stacked against developers ILCA.
I don’t think I’ve ever been happier to have been proven wrong.
Sand Land is a bit of an odd game to categorise.
It’s an action RPG, on the surface.
Speaking of tanks, my scepticism took the driver’s seat for the first few hours of my playthrough.
After another five hours, Sand Land finally started to pique my interest.
Upgrades to Beelzebub’s skill tree and newly unlocked abilities made combat feel a little weightier.
It isn’t all positive, however.
The stealth gameplay is barebones, and it’s neither challenging nor fun.
Thankfully these segments are easy and quick to complete, but they ultimately just felt unnecessary.
Secondly, a few of the main missions ended up feeling very similar to one another.
Performance-wise, Sand Land ran perfectly on PC.
30 hours into Sand Land, I had a strange realisation.
Rao is at odds with himself, an elderly man with a guilty conscience.
As a teenager, I naturally identified with the overtly mischievous Beelzebub.
Sand Land doesn’t get everything right, but it’s more than I ever hoped for or expected.
Most importantly however, I think ILCA should be extremely proud of doing Akira Toriyama’s legacy justice.
A copy of Sand Land was provided for review by Bandai Namco.
