When Sand Land was introduced at Summer season Recreation Fest, and I heard the time period “action-RPG”, I got here out anticipating a really completely different recreation. 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 model), 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 many of the relaxation hoarded and offered off by a grasping king, leaving the remainder of civilization to battle over what they’ll – usually by way of enjoyably weaponized automobiles. 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 recreation adaptation – my demo takes me previous a ramshackle desert city, throughout wide-open explorable areas, and into hidden routes by 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 wish to – you may go roving throughout the desert on foot, by why would you when you’ve got 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 would steal as an alternative?
It’s an instantaneous break from the extra linear RPG you may anticipate, and that’s mirrored within the motion too. You should still be accruing gear and ability factors, however your moment-to-moment interactions are action-based and natural. Beelzebub’s fight out of a car is ruled primarily by gentle and heavy assaults that may be chained collectively for a number of results – juggles, space of impact assaults, and extra – with further magical assaults and dashes.
There’s a way of velocity to all this – fights as a rule see you surrounded, forcing you to take evasive motion and handle house as a lot as taking down your opponents instantly. The velocity 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 traditional breed I’d been taking down on foot, and instantly felt the good thing about 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, slightly 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, slightly than makes an attempt to squeeze them right into a template you may assume could be utilized. Sand Land’s most fun aspect is its unpredictability – I stay up for seeing extra when it arrives.
Sand Land will probably be launched for Xbox Sequence X|S, keep tuned for extra particulars on a launch date.