This isn't really a game I feel like I should have enjoyed as much as I ended up enjoying it, but even though so much of the gameplay is just okay/mediocre I couldn't help but enjoy my time here.

Gameplay out of the way immediately, it's very passable! I was never particularly frustrated or annoyed but in general the world is very barren (it is a giant desert after all) and the quests and especially side content never really go beyond average. I do think most of the vehicles are pretty fun to control, especially the tank, the motorbike, and the melee robot! It can feel a bit repetitive though, because there aren't really interesting puzzles or level designs usually it's just a lot of open areas or samey factory or ruins locations with the same gunplay throughout the entire experience. It's pretty fun gunplay, and you can change weapons around to slightly mix it up but ultimately you're shooting rockets and machine guns endlessly. Not even the bosses really add much of an interesting element here, they're visually pretty cool and have a lot more health and some wacky attacks but it doesn't really ultimately mix up what you're doing enough to feel all that different. You can also play as Beelzebub on foot, and he has his own set of attacks and powers that to be fair are a bit more fun than I expected it to be with the big focus on vehicles. You get some cool looking super attacks and there's a pretty simple but satisfying combo system with him but you only ever really fight with fists when forced to and boss patterns aren't interesting enough to feel like it's much more than mashing buttons until the health goes down. Beelzebub likes to repeat "Eh, at least that was kind of fun." whenever you finish a fight and that kind of (unfortunately) perfectly encapsulates the gameplay as a whole.

Graphically the game looks pretty solid! It's obviously very samey, even interiors which could have been where the creative juices flowed kind of just fit into the factory or ruin molds I mentioned earlier. The vast ocean of sand is pretty though and it does make moments in the story where you find Not Sand pretty striking and genuinely pretty cool. The sound effects and voice acting was all around solid as well, the music was okay but nothing to write home about IMO and nothing really stuck with me. Production values aren't amazing, cutscenes are a little awkwardly paced, especially with no "auto" option to progress the dialogue itself, you have to press A to move onto the next line for most of it (or wait like 10 real life seconds for it to go on its own which no one will do obviously lol) aside from the big pre-rendered cutscenes. To the game's credit, those pre-rendered cutscenes are a joy! They look great and have a ton of spectacle and actually progress dialogue normally.

Where this game (and, I'm assuming the manga and series if this is anything to go by) truly shines is in its characters! I really liked Beelzebub, Akira Toriyama is great at making a silly dude full of whimsy and adventure in his heart and Beelzebub is a great example. I really liked his bit where he'd brag about how evil and dangerous he was and then describe an innocent little prank a kid would pull it was always charming and funny. The whole main crew was a ton of fun and played off each other really well. There are a few repeated conversations when driving around that got a bit annoying but generally I just liked seeing Beelzebub, Thief, Rao, and Ann interact. Even the side characters were pretty compelling and had pretty satisfying arcs, General Are especially stands out in that regard. I wasn't too big on the villain for the most part but they do make him annoying and whiny enough to get me invested in kicking his ass. The story as a whole is pretty solid, some of the ways it tries to force conflict with demons and humans is a bit awkward and stupid, namely the big reveal with Ann and how people react to it. A lot of that is just how the game presents the story IMO, but for the most part it's a fun journey with a ton of really cool and likable characters! I will say the way they go about telling story can be a bit exhausting, they stop you from actively playing/moving around a LOT just for little pointless conversations which I get the gameplay isn't all that special but it's not even like great character moments or anything a lot of the time and it's a bit annoying walking 10 feet away and being stopped to hear a third pointless conversation. Thankfully you can skip through some of the more nothing conversations pretty quick but I wish sometimes they'd just keep a continuous cutscene or cut some bits out entirely for a better flow.

I think part of my enjoyment despite a lot of my gripes and perceived flaws is a general love of Dragon Ball and seeing so many Toriyama-isms like using capsules for the vehicles or straight up using Dragon Ball character designs like Lucifer, and the Pirate Robots being here as enemies always puts a smile on my face. Sand Land has shown me that my love of Dragon Ball isn't as nostalgic as I may believe it is sometimes, and I think I just like a lot of what Toriyama does with characters and their designs and telling a pretty simple but fun story. I do think there's probably a bigger emotional connection and feeling here after Toriyama's passing being as recent as it is and that is affecting me but ultimately I came out of this with a love for a new little series and that's always a nice feeling. Thank you for another banger Akira Toriyama, you will be very missed. :)