Highlights

  • Sand Land excels in vehicular combat, but its stealth systems feel underutilized.
  • Initially, players experience well-executed stealth missions, but they become scarce throughout the game.
  • Sand Land's interior spaces are perfect for stealth gameplay, but vehicular combat takes precedence.

With the focus of Sand Land undeniably being on the game's faithful adaptation of the work of Akira Toriyama and its fast-paced and fun vehicular combat, its melee combat and on-foot sections tend to stick out as a case of mistaken identity. Not only is melee combat not nearly as fleshed out as Sand Land's vehicular combat (and its extensive upgrade and customization systems), but it's simply not utilized enough to have any meaningful bearing on the overall experience. Surprisingly, Sand Land also includes a fairly well-executed stealth system that players get to experience in a handful of early story missions, only for the mechanic to practically never rear its head again.

Before players obtain their first vehicle in Sand Land, the game places players in control of both Thief and Prince Beelzebub in two separate low-stakes stealth missions. The mechanics are simple but well-implemented, with players holding down a trigger to crouch, using cover to break enemy line-of-sight, and watching icons above characters' heads to indicate whether they're turned away, facing the player, or actively looking in the player's direction. After these early missions, though, stealth essentially becomes an afterthought, making it feel like it was planned for more implementation but then scrapped because of development constraints.

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Sand Land's 'Metal Gear Solid-Lite' Approach Could Carry its Own Game

One of the main drawbacks to Sand Land's limited incorporation of a competent stealth system is that it could have carried all the game's on-foot sections as a direct contrast to the guns-blazing approach of the game's vehicular combat. Melee combat in Sand Land is hit-or-miss, with players able to fall back on the more powerful and effective vehicles in almost every scenario save for a handful of scripted moments and boss encounters. With Sand Land's lighthearted and low-stakes take on the classic Metal Gear Solid formula, the game could have differentiated its on-foot sections using the stealth system to give them a distinct character.

Especially with Sand Land having a full day/night cycle and the ability to rest until a specific time, a more concentrated incorporation of the title's stealth gameplay may have resulted in players needing to consider the strategic benefits of completing missions during a certain window. At the very least, Sand Land's main and side missions arguably needed more variety than they currently have, which is something more stealth missions could have addressed in a meaningful way.

Sand Land's Interior Spaces are Built for Stealth

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Though the titular Sand Land is a vast, wide-open desert wasteland where vehicle travel is both ideal and necessary, Sand Land's interior spaces are practically tailor-made for the game's stealth mechanics despite never using them. Aside from the expansive outdoor locales that comprise the bulk of both Sand Land and Forest Land's maps, players will find Sand Land's main quest taking them to some of the following location types:

  • Grottoes/Caves
  • Ruins
  • Military Facilities/Bases/Battleships

Interestingly, Sand Land makes vehicle travel not just possible but recommended in each of these spaces. This only serves to further underscore the sentiment that Sand Land misses a golden opportunity to differentiate its on-foot sections from the rest of the game.

The design of each of these interior spaces amounts to plenty of corridors with objects players could use as cover while sneaking. Despite their design being conducive to stealth, though, Sand Land places a priority on vehicular combat at all costs, negating what could otherwise be a perfect playground for the game's competent stealth mechanics in favor of allowing players to use vehicles indoors. While Sand Land's vehicles are one of the game's signature components, the fact that stealth is introduced and then practically removed from the game makes its interior spaces seem underutilized.