Dragon Quest, Dragon Ball, Chrono Trigger, Blue Dragon and now Sand Land: Toriyama’s RPG hits just keep coming

I know there are a lot of people who would have liked to see a proper Xbox Series X/S sequel to Blue Dragon announced at Summer Games Fest. I know there are a lot of people who would also have liked some sort of re-release or remaster of Chrono Trigger or Chrono Cross. There’s a dedicated group of fans waiting for a new Dragon Quest game (no, the new Yakuza doesn’t count). There are even some people who would celebrate the announcement of a new Dragon Ball game, despite the continued proliferation of these in recent years.

But, at least for the moment, we are not going to receive any of them. Instead, what we’ll be getting is Sand Land, a new anime RPG from Bandai Namco in the vein of Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot or any of the many Naruto games on the market. However, instead of combining this new title with one of the more popular anime shows, Bandai Namco has chosen to revisit Toriyama’s relatively obscure manga of the same name.

Sand Land is among the lesser-known works of Toriyama’s production, less iconic than Dragon Ball and with less cult appeal than Dr. Slump. But the property is no less worthy, at least not in my eyes: Toriyama has become known for his exemplary work with lo-fi tech and grounded vehicles in his over-the-top fantasy worlds, and I think Sand Land is actually the better. example of this in the entire catalog of him.

So it’s fitting that this newly announced game is heavily focused on vehicular combat and the idea of ​​exploring the desert in authentic, clunky machines in a desperate search for water. In my hands-on preview, I got to see how it all starts, and it’s pretty much what you’d expect from this kind of light action RPG.

Playing as the little pink demon Beelzebub, you are thrown into the desert and tasked with sniffing out the precious water by wandering around in various vehicles or traveling on foot, facing the dangers of the desert and helping NPCs to survive in this unforgiving climate. In about 10 minutes, I jumped out of the starting kart into a tank, beat up a bunch of bandits trying to steal all my stuff, and used a couple of special attacks to fend off a band of roving thugs.

If you’ve ever picked up a Bandai Namco RPG like this, none of this will surprise you. It handles the same, it feels the same, it’s all combined with the same production values ​​and not-so-triple levels of pseudo-jack. It’s lovely, but I have a tolerance for these mid-raid RPGs that I suspect many of the readers here don’t.

But the game has something special that makes it stand out from the seemingly endless grind of One Piece, Dragon Ball, and Naruto titles that help Bandai Namco’s coffers look healthy: It’s got Toriyama’s hook. He may be poisoned by a very specific kind of ’90s nostalgia where the thick black shading lines, big white eyes, and mean-looking knitted brows just do it for me, but this game is magnificent. I think it captures the spirit of Toriyama’s illustrations better than even Dragon Ball FighterZ, and that’s probably my favorite Dragon Ball game.

It’s among Bandai Namco’s iterative updates to how it resolves cel shading and the flair it’s gone with that makes Sand Land stand out. The more action-oriented combat could help it appeal more to those who disagreed with the turn-based nature of Blue Dragon or are put off by the Chrono series’ retro pixel goodness. Those who remember sitting and watching Dragon Ball with their bowl of cereal and juice boxes as children will be drawn to Sand Land’s more demonic, apocalyptic vision of Earth, and seduced by its grim (and short-lived) history. .

The manga lasted less than a year in its initial run, so this game is a real opportunity for Bandai Namco to expand on one of Toriyama’s less-beloved properties. The combat and gameplay can be quite subdued, but if the development team can add depth and flavor to this dry, weird and wonderful world, then this will certainly be a game I’ll be watching closely as we get closer to release.

sand land is being developed by ILCA Inc. and is targeting a release for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC (via Steam) soon. No specific release date has been given.