Sand Land Review - Raising the Bar for Anime Games 

haha, yea, I don't think we'll be seeing too much of those in the future. Fingers crossed.

Amen.

Thanks

Maybe because they only review anime games? I'm not hating, though. Great review!

NoisyPixel rules. They actually know how to critique the game they're playing and cover such a good variety of games.

One Piece got Odyssey, which is surprisingly pretty good, but it is more so a traditional turn based RPG kind of game. But One Piece does already have existing open world esque action games if you're into that

Unlike another recently released work whose original creator died...

@@poopikins i loved Odyssey! The pacing is whatever in the middle of the game and the battle system is overly complex, but it's a really fun game.

Unlimited World Red exists

​​@@silly5905I hope you're not talking about Eiyuden Chronicle? That game is fantastic, and exactly what I expected. Did another creator pass?

I was laughing (and crying) a lot while playing

This is why I loved Made in Abyss Binary Star although it was jank. At least it tried to be a Made in Abyss game.

nothing wrong w musou or even AF as long as they at least try to do fun/interesting things w gameplay/mechanics

​@@brokenbond2012 You're right, I have no problem with both, the problem is that they don't bother with trying to do new stuff (saved a few exceptions like Xenoverse, and OP Musou), they all feel about the same, even for big ass franchises like Naruto, because they want a game even non-gamers can pick up and play, and musou/af games are amazing for that since the AI barely even does anything to begin with That's why we praise when we get games like FighterZ, Kakkarot, Sand Land, SAO (some of them :/), AoT... and even some older ones such as the Yugioh ones, the ps2 Berserk, Beyblade... they're different, made to make you feel like you're part of the anime, instead of trying to be a cheap ad/fan-service depending on whether you're new to the series or a fan already

Thats fair, i completely agree w you, i have a deep fondness of musou style games mostly bc the power fantasy and they can be really challenging on higher difficulties, but i understand the market burnout w those titles especially where anime is concerned, i was overjoyed for the FT RPG and do still like it despite the deep cutting flaws, tho i honestly blame gust for alot of it. Anything that isnt atelier seems to be out of their element idk

What’s worse is that they didn’t understand the purpose of the demo. It wasn’t to give away the story, it was to let you drive around and try the vehicles, while also toying with melee combat. It was just to give you a sense of some mechanics. How that wasn’t clear, is beyond me. The game is not an empty zone where you have no mission or objective, of course not, the demo is because the whole point is for you to run around in a tiny area and get a feel for the controls and mechanics.

The demo doesn't show a lot but the game is awesome

Glad to see that others enjoy the game. But I will say, the biggest issue I have with it is the travel conversations between Beelzebub and Rao popping up too frequently. Someone made a bad call on setting up how often you hear it. And there's no mods to remedy such a thing.

@@sowhat4418 they will update and improve it I'm sure

Well said.

A lot of people are assuming the demo, which felt more like a mechanical or tech demo, was indicative of the whole game. Foolish, short-sighted assumption, but that’s the modern world for you. For a lot of people, this game will be at minimum a 7/10. Which is not bad at all. If you like the story and the world, probably closer to 8 or 8.5/10.

Concept wise its about the same as Metal max Xeno, another post-Apocalypse based Vehicle customization game set in a desert (most of the time) that also have extensive RPG mechanics of controlling mutiple rides and sometimes fight on foot with things like Bazookas and what not. Which is definitely a nice change of pace from all the `Arena fighter spam` we get for the majority of anime based games. Which is why stuff like it and Grand Blue Fantasy: Relink were definitely nice breath of fresh airs to bank on. The Demo itself did not give a fantastic first impression because it lacking any background music, you were locked to just one skill per helper, very limited customization, effectively next to nil on any looting or useful expansions to tempt people into playing the demo. Plus the Demo did not really SHOW ANY STORY AT ALL, meaning it felt severely like a Tech demo more then an actual game. Which further felt extra grating where in the silence you had the trio spout lines that felt like a repetitive loop while clearly trying to take a approach like God of War (The Asgard arc one) or Persona 5 by having background banter while outside of combat. Ironically the only reason i never bought metal max Xeno was because it was gonna get a HD remake supposedly and then there was the giant spooky amount of micro transactions plus backlog that shyed me away from it. AT this point i would rather wait to see the game cook and see how much of a drastic improvement it has over the demo. Since lacking even showing say the first chapter of the game`s story, not showing any of the stealth supposed mechanics, not having any looting of new weapon/customization parts, no REAL and useful reward from taking down named enemies with what appear to be only one time acquistion chests with most being temporary items and not even a shop to `restock` ways to restore your vehicle and unless sitting at a campfire would restore your vehicle hp, you were kinda jack-shite-outta-luck in the demo for forcing yourself to enjoy it. First turn impressions are critical to a game`s sucdess and even if something like Dragon Quest Monsters: Dark Prince`s demo especially was horribly loaded with bugs, terrible UI, janky feel slow-ness that made it felt like a poor quality version of a PS2 game that despite something like a nintendo switch should FAR out-strip a PS2 in turns of processing and quality control, atleast it had `some` engagement factor to make me slog thru its demo to reach monster synthesis... Though in both comparisons they were giant open baren areas with next to nil todo, just to repeat for Sand land`s demo, if you had maybe the chests give much easier to identify resources and maybe the TOWERS shown off in the demo had a much more realistic use that DOESNT get invalided if you already explored all around the area surrounding the tower to look for the parts to fix it, there by making any detection the radar do absolutely worthless, which may of been nice if it revealed respawnable chest locations, boost your resource acquistion gain and maybe cause a Desert Merchant to maybe spawn to sell junk parts for money to stock up on restorables to make it not feel like a DARK SOULS run in a barren desert with plenty of enemies who can giff tap you with machine gun shots and what not....yeah.

@@Kerunou Stupid worn keyboard deleted my planned previous post. So guess i`ll keep this one as short as possible. The problem is initial impressions are king to any game and if the difference between the demo and what actual gameplay is ends up being too wide of a gap its gonna be a problem. Not to mention if the game does not have a DEFINITING GAP where you are doing alot more then just doing beeger numbers and flashier attacker when comparing the start of the game vs the end of the game, it can especially be a death sentence to actionie based games. IF i have to give an example of a simple non hugely IP related game, look up Solato de robo, a simple Nintendo DS looking game where your a dog-man riding a mech that mostly picks up stuff and throws enemies or objects at enemies for the majority of its combat or puzzle solving mechanics. Combat in that game evolves as you progress where you get better mechs that can do other actions, including firing actual attacks, directly attack enemies with strikes, extra mobility and so on. Sand Land also clearly has a case of rather simple UI and some of it being on the bleh problem, especially with the map itself as said in this video by not doing stuff like a more cleaned up map that maybe could ensure you dont mix up nodes with items vs nodes that already been ransacked. And if they dont have extensive as fk resources and a shop system in place compared to the demo, which they should with the full game, its gonna be a rather boring loot-a-thon if your killing enemies for effectively NOTHING besides getting them to stop reducing your Vehicles precious HP if you have no effective means to restore it and have to constantly waste precious consumables and have no consistent means to keep it up without something like respawning all the enemies that would tap that HP bar down and force you to repeat the loop if your main way to restore your vehicle hp is the Dark souls-like bond fire mechanic.

It has its own skill try with extended combos, partner moves, and specials.

Stellar Blade. And make this like a June summer game :) before anime expo announcements in July

@NoisyPixelNews cheers my buddy! Will do! Thanks for all your work!

thank YOU!

I was surprised I was having so much fun with it.

@@NoisyPixelNews I really enjoyed the demo, but like the video title, the bar for anime games has been lower than I'd like. I would have been satisfied with a 7.

Thanks :)

It’s cause reviewers are all burnt out and we’re just getting started

lol! Maaaaaybe

IGN is rubbish top to bottom.

You’re going to have a great time :)

I'll be fine with those huds if its all on the side of the screen and the large ones be a little bit smaller

You can!

@@NoisyPixelNews ok! Thank you! If you don’t mind, can you share what all HUD elements can be hidden? I saw in the demo, minimap, vehicle button guide and NPC names can be hidden. But what about say damage numbers, ammo counter, speedometer for the vehicles? Also the quest log and item pick up notifications for more immersion? Thank you again!

No. Sometimes you might hear repeated skits later on but that’s like after 10 hours into the game.

@@NoisyPixelNews Once the story is finished, can you free roam and continue to play , explore the dungeons again ?

No that makes total sense. It’s a game that will wait for you, but I think it will always be a fun experience.

@@NoisyPixelNews Great review as always! Love the channel, keep up the great work.

Appreciate you!

Less Ubisoft, more Mad Max (2015). I don’t see/feel any Ubisoft in it, thankfully.

​@@Kerunou Mad Max 2015 is a ubisoft formula game. It's a good one, better than this funnily enough, but it's very much a Ubisoft formula game

TANKS!

It’s a lot of fun. I was surprised by how good it is.

I highly recommend the anime

I think people just see us IGN or GameSpot, but I assure you we aren't. However, I think because we approach every game review with a quality, they often second guess our judgement and reserve their opinions until their favorite youtuber posts an unscripted video just talking about their experience. Which is a fine way to get your point across, there are a ton of more things that I'd like to talk about Sand Land that extend past the scope of this review, but we just roll with the punches.

Ehhhh they gave spiderman 2 a 7.5 for not getting a review copy. Stay woke

Yea, too many review outlets don't know how to properly critique or engage with the game they're playing. Most seem to go in with pre-conceived notions of what they expect the game to be and either compare it to other games that may not even be the same genre or try to brute force it into something the game isn't. NoisyPixel is one of the few outlets I'm genuinely interested in.

i think that's why i liked it so much.

The story follows closely to the anime, but it also explores more of the supporting cast.

demo was shit i am glad that the game is not

Sandland is better than stellar blade

@@MunoKalesus And? That’s your opinion. Have you even played Stellar Blade? I’m throughly enjoying Stellar Blade. The combat is blast. I’m sure I’ll enjoy Sand Land based off the demo but Stellar Blade combat is more my style. I like Souls-likes, hack-n-slash, & character action games more than shooters. Of coarse I’d play the game I’m more interested in first. What is the point of your comment?

@@dikardvondoom3574 nah stellar blade gameplay is done 1000 times better in sekiro with the parrying stuff , so for a guy like me who beat sekiro thers no reason to play a worse version of it hell no , sandland is more original but ill admit is a good game technically speaking but not my type i guess

@@MunoKalesus Not liking Stellar Blade because you beat Sekiro is just plain dumb. The parry system is mildly similar but the overall gameplay isn’t even close to the same. It’s ok to like more than one game in a genre. You’re not cheating on Sekiro by enjoying Stellar Blade. It’s not a competition. Your reasoning for not liking Stellar Blade sophomoric. That is to say, immature. You say Sand Land is original but it’s just Twisted Metal plus monsters. Either way, I’ll be enjoying both games, because I can appreciate multiple games in multiple genres.

@@dikardvondoom3574 ur right, but i knew there was some sekiro inspiration

There’s no trophy for collecting everything I don’t think. It’s all for materials and weapons.

I hope they will fix this pretty soon or adress it.

This is a game where I think a guide isn’t necessary, exploration is key!

@@danzoEX oh for sure :) agree 100%

No one listens to IGN these days

​@@MrSkullMerchant liberals do

Make your own opinions

@@MrSkullMerchant I've been noticing this, but the casual parent/adult still use it over anything else

Never believe IGN.

20-ish hours if you just play the story from start to finish, no side quests or getting side-tracked/exploring/doing dungeons. You could easily get 35 to 40 out of it.

@@Kerunou I see, thanks! I'll highly consider it then.

I mean, it’s not meant to look like anything other than Toriyama’s usual robot designs. It’s not meant to be a Gundam. You can dislike the design but it’s not really meant to be anything other than exactly what it is.

but I already killed words like clucky.

@@NoisyPixelNews Well...if we're being honest, it was dead long before this review hit.

I don’t know what the demo had in it.

@@NoisyPixelNews Watching your review does make the demo feel barebones (which, in my opinion, they are). A bad demo can ruin a game, I guess. This is coming from someone who immediately bought Unicorn Overlord after finishing the 7-hour limit demo. Cool video...

nothing wrong with that! get those buy 2 get 1s!

Haha we didn’t mean to :( there’s one more coming. These are all by different writers btw!

eiyuden was trashed tho! (just joking 7 isn't that low)

On god that dragon ball z kakarot game was trash and overrated , the Gameplay is horrible just spam circle and x thats all the gameplay is sand land is way better than kakarot , they really need to make better dbz games fr not just spamming two button and win , why cant they do a dbz game where u have to aim the Kamehameha or something something that requires skill

I know. I didn’t expect to have this much fun. But I’ll be honest, Sand Land took me away from FFVII Rebirth, which I’m still playing through - Azario

IGN can’t even spell IGN.

@@NoisyPixelNews lmao

@@NoisyPixelNews😂😂

So then its at least 2 points better

Way better than KAKAROT. For one, this game is actually what it says it is. An open world action game. KAKAROT is a walking simulator that jumps into a bad arena fighting game phase for combat. KAKAROT is unbelievably clunky in comparison to this game.