It is useless to deny it. When I first saw the trailer of Sand Land, my mind immediately flew to 2006 and to the never forgotten Blue Dragon released exclusively on Xbox 360. Although with some flaws, the JRPG developed by Mistwalker and Artoon captured the magic of the manga born from Toriyama’s mind and “condensed” it all ‘inside a title capable of satisfying all lovers of the genre. It was with these premises in mind that I sat down at the workstation set up by Bandai Namco at gamescom in Cologne, where I was able to play a short demo of Sand Land set, presumably, in the early stages of the story. I say presumably because no particular details regarding the plot have been revealed at the moment, except to confirm that the game will put the player in the role of the protagonist of the manga, or the prince of demons Beelzebubù, and that the script will follow the events narrated in the work original, which sees the latter and other allies face a perilous journey in search of a legendary source of water in a world entirely covered in sand due to a progressive drying up.
The demo made available by Bandai Namco began with a short sequence aboard a vehicle with a trailer, on which we find Beelzebubù and his two traveling companions, the thief Shif and sheriff Rao. The vehicle is crossing a very narrow canyon at very high speed to escape a huge dragon called Geji. The action quickly falls into my hands and it’s my job to avoid the dragon’s attacks by moving the vehicle from one side of the screen to the other while the pursuer launches attacks by moving underground. In this phase, the control system is reduced to a minimum and the only intervention required is to move the vehicle from right to left. At one point Rao decides to go all out and unhooks the trailer, so as to definitively stop the advance of the dragon Geji. All solved, or almost. In fact, the supplies and water resources of the group were kept in the trailer, which now finds itself in the middle of the desert with nothing.
According to Rao, the city of Talbo should arise a short distance from where we are, where we will certainly be able to find new supplies and perhaps even useful clues to locate the legendary source we are looking for. The control returns to my hands and immediately on the screen I am shown the direction to follow to reach the goal. I decide to take a few seconds to familiarize myself with the controls and explore the area where I am. Unlike Blue Dragon, Sand Land is a third-person action-RPG and this is clearly reflected in the scheme and controls, which closely follows the current standard of the genre. The protagonist can move freely, jump and interact with the various elements on the screen, including some NPCs and vendors present. Given the nature of the demo, my chances are practically nil, so I decide to get back on board the vehicle and start moving following the instructions on the screen.
As far as we know, Sand Land it will focus a lot on the phases on board the vehicles and in fact, even in the test version, I find myself crossing a desert area on board what we could define as a hybrid between a jeep and a van. As soon as I enter the sandy valley, however, I come across a group of shady figures who are arguing with each other near a small tank. I decide to take advantage of the opportunity to put the combat system to the test, which immediately abandons all ambitions of an old-school turn-based JRPG in favor of a real-time approach based on classic combos that alternate between light and heavy attacks, special activate with back balances and dodges with which to slow down the action for a short time. During the demo, only Beelzebubù was directly controlled, while our two companions were managed by an AI which, from what we have seen, seemed appropriate to the context. And in fact, also thanks to the support of my companions, it only takes a few seconds to get the better of the unfortunate group and take possession of the small half-tracked vehicle, which I immediately discover is equipped with a powerful cannon and a machine gun with a very high rate of fire.
The move will prove to be extremely useful shortly thereafter. The path that separates me from the objective is in fact littered with small dragons and other reptiles, which don’t hesitate for a moment to attack me and my group. I spend the next 8/10 minutes trying to survive the attacks of my opponents. Initially the challenge is within my reach and I manage them without particular difficulties by alternating the use of the two weapons, which have infinite ammunition but with a cool-down time every time a cannon is fired or a clip runs out. At one point I come across a couple of larger, higher-level dragons, which I quickly realize are beyond my reach. So I decide to step away from the area and try to explore a bit, but other than a couple of empty caves (which I assume is due to the pre-alpha nature of the demo) I can’t find anything else. I therefore decide to continue towards my final destination, but just when I am about to cross the last ridge of sand, a group of criminals appears in front of the convoy. From the encounter a new hand-to-hand combat ensues, with a slightly higher level of difficulty compared to the previous. The gang is in fact led by a boss, on which I concentrated after knocking out all of his henchmen. The fight requires more attention than the others, especially in dodging, but in the end I still manage to bring home the skin. As a reward I get…the final screen of the demo.
The small portion of the game prepared by the developers for gamescom unfortunately ended here, leaving us with the classic mouth watering. Although it is impossible to express an extended judgment based on such limited evidence, the general impression is that of being faced with an accessible and engaging action RPG, in which the story and the focus on the vehicles could represent a very distinctive element. important. To this is then added the graphic component of Sand Land, which as expected offers an extremely faithful digital version of Akira Toriyama’s manga. And I’m not just talking about the design of the characters, now a trademark of the author, but also about the color palette of the world, which still appears very multifaceted despite a massive presence of sand color. From a technical point of view, the demo of Sand Land obviously offers very few points of discussion. Given the particularly immature nature of the build, it is not possible to judge too much the performance or the use of Epic’s Unreal Engine. What is certainly noticeable is that, already in its current state, the game world is detailed, the animations of characters appear very refined and the visual distance has proved to live up to expectations, which bodes well for the future.
Net of all the right premises related to having played an extremely limited demo, moreover in the pre-alpha version, I admit that I left the test station with good feelings about Sand Land. Toriyama’s style seems to be able to adapt without particular difficulties to the action-RPG genre and the same can be said of the script, which in these cases always represents a fundamental element. The unknowns at the moment concern the balance between the various aspects, primarily the phases on foot and those on board the vehicles, as well as the general depth both in terms of the development of the characters and for the variety of means and customizations of the same that we will encounter in the course of the adventure. These are no small elements and on which, almost certainly, the gameplay of the final version and the response of the public will depend. If you are one of those eagerly awaiting the title, be prepared to have to wait a little longer. In fact, at the moment no date for the release of the game has yet been announced, not even a generic period, and from what we have seen it is credible that the ILCA team still needs a fair amount of time to complete the development and pack in the best possible way modifies the gaming experience.