''Sands of Destruction'' is a role-playing video game developed by

Imageepoch was a video game developer based out of Tokyo, Japan. The company filed for bankruptcy in 2015, due to its declining sales and debt. History The company was founded in June 2005 by Ryoei Mikage. Their first release was the tactical role-playin ...

and published by Sega for the Nintendo DS. It was released in Japan in 2008, and in North America in 2010. The story revolves around a young man, Kyrie, who possesses the power to destroy the world, though he does not know why. The female lead is Morte, a member of a group that is trying to destroy the world.

Gameplay

''Sands of Destruction'' plays as a traditional

Japanese role-playing video game While the early history and distinctive traits of role-playing video games (RPGs) in East Asia come Video games in Japan, from Japan, many have also been Video games in South Korea, developed in South Korea and Video games in China, in China. ...

. The game is made with 2D sprite characters in a 3D environment with a rotatable camera. The battle system is turn based, but has timing and fighting game influences, and utilizes both of the DS's screens.

Plot

Setting

The game takes place in a fictional world ruled by anthropomorphic beings known as Ferals. Humans live as slaves, and a group dubbed the "World Annihilation Front" intends to destroy the world in rebellion. They are opposed by the Feral's "World Salvation Committee".

Development

The development team of the game comprised over fifty people and includes key designers who previously worked on ''

Xenogears ''Xenogears'' is a 1998 role-playing video game developed and published by Square (video game company), Square for the PlayStation (console), PlayStation video game console. It is the debut entry in the larger ''Xeno (series), Xeno'' franchise. ...

'', as well as former staff from ''

Grandia is a series of role-playing video games developed by Game Arts and published over the years by Entertainment Software Publishing, Sony Computer Entertainment, Ubisoft, Hudson Soft, Enix, Square Enix and GungHo Online Entertainment. Games in th ...

'', ''

Drakengard ''Drakengard'', known in Japan as is a series of action role-playing video games created by Yoko Taro. The Drakengard (video game), eponymous first game in the series was released in 2003 on the PlayStation 2, and has since been followed by a s ...

'' and ''

Etrian Odyssey ''Etrian Odyssey'' is a dungeon crawler role-playing video game series. It is primarily developed and published by Atlus and currently owned by Sega. By 2016, the series had sold a combined total of 1.5 million copies worldwide. Titles Main se ...

''. The game was directed by Kyoki Mikage of

and produced by Yoichi Shimosato of Sega. The score of the game was composed by

Yasunori Mitsuda is a Japanese composer, musician, and sound producer. He is best known for his work in video games, primarily for the ''Chrono'', '' Xeno'', ''Shadow Hearts'', and ''Inazuma Eleven'' franchises, among various others. Mitsuda began composing musi ...

, Shunsuke Tsuchiya, and Kazumi Mitome. The opening theme was performed by the Czech Philharmonic. A promotional album titled ''World Destruction Premium Soundtrack'' was offered with pre-orders of the game in Japan. The original story draft for the game written by

Masato Kato is a Japanese video game artist, scenario writer and director. In the early days of his career, he was credited under the pseudonyms of "Runmaru" and "Runmal". He then joined Square, and was most famous for penning the script of ''Chrono Trigge ...

was allegedly much darker in tone and more violent than the final product. In it, humans were food for the Ferals, rather than merely subservient, and there were several scenes of human characters being killed and eaten. Fearing a restrictive rating from Japan's CERO and wanting to market the game to younger audiences, the game's producers had the story altered to appeal to a mainstream Japanese audience. Yoichi Shimosato, the game's producer at Sega, later expressed in an interview that while he felt the developers had made the right decision in regards to marketing the game in Japan, the original concept would have been "more fun and compelling".

North American version

At the Tokyo Gameshow, Ryoei Mikage, the president of imageepoch confirmed that his team is working to localize ''World Destruction'', to be published by Sega USA. A new/rewritten musical score will be created by

, and the difficulty may be tweaked for the North American release. In December 2008, Sega officially announced its plans to release the title in North America, where it was released on January 12, 2010.

Reception

In Japan, the game sold 56,000 copies in Japan in its debut week. The game received "mixed" reviews according to the

review aggregation A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

. ''

Nintendo Power ''Nintendo Power'' was a video game news and strategy magazine from Nintendo of America, first published in July/August 1988 as Nintendo's official print magazine for North America. The magazine's publication was initially done monthly by Ninten ...

'' praised the game's battle system and dungeon design but criticized the story and characters as being generic. RPGLand praised the character development while being critical of town exploration and low replay value, ultimately concluding, "Sands of Destruction ends up being good, but not great." RPGamer said that its quality story and presentation were held back by enemies "abusing" the battle system. The review concludes, "Unfortunately, its many irritations in combat cause the game to fall short of the lofty status it wanted to achieve."

Legacy

An anime adaptation, also titled ''

Sands of Destruction ''Sands of Destruction'' is a role-playing video game developed by Imageepoch and published by Sega for the Nintendo DS. It was released in Japan in 2008, and in North America in 2010. The story revolves around a young man, Kyrie, who possesses t ...

'' was produced by

Production I.G is a Japanese animation studio and production enterprise, founded on December 15, 1987, by Mitsuhisa Ishikawa and headquartered in Musashino, Tokyo, Japan. The letters I and G derive from the names of the company founders: producer Mitsuhisa Ish ...

and directed by Shunsuke Tada. It began broadcasting on

TV Tokyo JOTX-DTV (channel 7), branded as and known colloquially as , is a television station headquartered in the Sumitomo Fudosan Roppongi Grand Tower in Roppongi, Minato, Tokyo, Japan, owned and operated by the subsidiary of listed certifie ...

on July 7, 2008 and ended on September 30, 2008, spawning 13 episodes. A manga adaptation, began serialization in July 2008 in the Japanese magazine ''

Dengeki Maoh is a Japanese seinen magazine published by ASCII Media Works (formerly MediaWorks). It first went on sale on October 27, 2005, and is sold every month on the twenty-seventh. The magazine features information on video games, manga, and light nove ...

''.「ワールド・デストラクション～ふたりの天使～」第1話立ち読み

Notes

References

External links

Official ''World Destruction'' website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sands Of Destruction 2008 video games Fantasy anime and manga Fantasy video games Funimation Image Epoch games Manga based on video games Nintendo DS games Nintendo DS-only games Production I.G Role-playing video games Sega video games Sega Games franchises Seinen manga TV Tokyo original programming Video games scored by Yasunori Mitsuda Video games developed in Japan Single-player video games