When Sand Land was introduced at Summer time Recreation Fest, and I heard the time period “action-RPG”, I got here out anticipating a really completely different sport. A half-hour hands-on with the sport set me straight – your typical manga or anime adaptation this isn’t.
Based mostly on the manga by Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama (and illustrated in his signature type), Sand Land tells the story of the Fiend Prince Beelzebub, who’s extra benevolent than that moniker suggests. Consider this as a fantastical Mad Max; a world of people, demons, and extra has seen its water provides run dry, with a lot of the relaxation hoarded and offered off by a grasping king, leaving the remainder of civilization to struggle over what they’ll – usually by the use of enjoyably weaponized autos. Beelzebub – and your – function is to take down that king and return water to this parched world.
It’s a set-up that lends itself properly to a sport adaptation – my demo takes me previous a ramshackle desert city, throughout wide-open explorable areas, and into hidden routes by way of sunbaked cliff faces, populated by roving bandits and packs of dinosaurs. That’s coupled with a way of freedom to method all of this as you’d prefer to – you may go roving throughout the desert on foot, by why would you when you’ve a dinky Jeep to hurry round in? And also you may take that Jeep all the best way to your goal, however… doesn’t that raider have a tank you may steal as an alternative?
It’s a right away break from the extra linear RPG you may count on, and that’s mirrored within the motion too. You should still be accruing gear and talent factors, however your moment-to-moment interactions are action-based and natural. Beelzebub’s fight out of a car is ruled primarily by mild and heavy assaults that may be chained collectively for a number of results – juggles, space of impact assaults, and extra – with extra magical assaults and dashes.
There’s a way of pace to all this – fights most of the time see you surrounded, forcing you to take evasive motion and handle house as a lot as taking down your opponents immediately. The pace solely will increase in car fight, which feels integral to the sport. In my tank (sure of course I stole the tank), I got here throughout an alpha raptor far bigger than the conventional breed I’d been taking down on foot, and instantly felt the advantage of having excessive ordnance rounds at my disposal. Whereas I didn’t see it in my time with the sport, Sand Land will supply car customization, which means that swap between on-foot to car fight will seemingly be key to development, reasonably than a set piece.
It combines to make for an expertise that guarantees a real adaptation of the unique manga, one thing that makes use of the supply materials because the wellspring of its concepts, reasonably than makes an attempt to squeeze them right into a template you may assume can be utilized. Sand Land’s most fun factor is its unpredictability – I look ahead to seeing extra when it arrives.
Sand Land will likely be launched for Xbox Collection X|S, keep tuned for extra particulars on a launch date.
