SAND LAND

Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes is a good role-playing game that perhaps searches for its style a little more than it has already found it. Anyone who has the necessary patience and can powergame in third instead of sixth gear will spend many happy hours here.

A story-driven game, Sand Land is a masterfully crafted world created by Akira Toriyama that finds finds itself in a conflict between its powerful narrative and a lack of detail on elements such as hand-to-hand combat and world design. Overall, an enjoyable game.

Sand Land definitely has moments that are fun and worth the price of admission, but it will also leave you scratching your head wondering if this is the best it could do. It may be leagues away from being a Dragon Ball epic, but it does its best to introduce you to a series that you may want to watch or read first.

With Sand Land, the late Akira Toriyama lays the last stone of a prestigious building. Enriched with new storylines, this video game adaptation is the ideal extension of the manga and anime. On a playful level, the adventure is far from perfect, but the scenario and the events are faithful to the original work and the progression offers several notable moments. With its ultra-endearing characters and its universe, this production has enough assets to satisfy fans of (semi) open world games. If the idea of playing an action-RPG in a Mad Max-style universe interests you, this title may satisfy you.

The thing about Sand Land is that it’s very confident in itself. It knows what it wants to be, and it achieves its goals effectively, whether those goals are what we think it should be or not. That doesn’t change how the game plays, of course. Stealth is still tedious, and combat is a bit floaty and simple. It does make the presentation stronger, though. Nothing feels half-baked or thrown in just for the sake of chasing a trend, and that confidence gives Sand Land a strong sense of identity that makes it easy to overlook some of its less engaging features…That’s Sand Land in a nutshell, though. It’s a vibes game more than anything else, charming, sometimes surprisingly incisive, and daring enough to be its own thing. That thing isn't always as engaging as it could be, but it's certainly unforgettable.

The thing about Sand Land is that it’s very confident in itself. It knows what it wants to be, and it achieves its goals effectively, whether those goals are what we think it should be or not. That doesn’t change how the game plays, of course. Stealth is still tedious, and combat is a bit floaty and simple. It does make the presentation stronger, though. Nothing feels half-baked or thrown in just for the sake of chasing a trend, and that confidence gives Sand Land a strong sense of identity that makes it easy to overlook some of its less engaging features…That’s Sand Land in a nutshell, though. It’s a vibes game more than anything else, charming, sometimes surprisingly incisive, and daring enough to be its own thing. That thing isn't always as engaging as it could be, but it's certainly unforgettable.

Sand Land is just another forgettable tie-in to add to the existing anime game pile.

SAND LAND is a brightly colored game version of the original manga, which is sure to please fans of Akira Toriyama's work. However, modern players will encounter boring side quests, and a poorly developed combat system and stealth.

The story behind Sand Land's creation is funny but also sad in a way. Toriyama initially made Sand Land for his own personal enjoyment, devising a short story about an old man and his tank. However, the tank proved more challenging to draw than expected, and since Toriyama stubbornly insisted on drawing everything himself, he came to regret the idea. He persevered anyway, eventually releasing the manga for public consumption, and his pain was certainly our gain. Toriyama's love of vehicles shines through in Sand Land and is where its most enjoyable moments reside. It's disappointing that it flounders in other areas, particularly when it comes to stealth and melee combat, but ICLA has still managed to capture the heart and spirit of the original manga through its story, characters, and vehicular combat and traversal. Sand Land is bittersweet in many ways, but it'ss a testament to Toriyama's talents as both an artist and storyteller that, despite its numerous flaws, it's still worth playing.

Sand Land isn’t aiming to rewrite the rule book, but it has oodles of heart and character, a lovely world to explore, and plenty to keep you engaged. It’s just good old-fashioned fun.