Sandstorm is an adventure story about four friends who are on vacation in Egypt and then get involved in a mystical plot involving ancient Egyptian gods. Sandstorm has a rather unique setting, which is certainly refreshing. It's not your typical slice of life story or yet another game set in some generic (US) city.
So if you want to experience something truly different, Sandstorm may be worth checking out.
The game has a high replayability factor because you have to go for one of the four romance paths in this game relatively early. There's one throuple ending, but if you want to see the content with either Rion or Maddie you will need to play replay almost the entire game, since both paths are mutually exclusive and branch off very early. Nora's path branches off later in the game, you don't need to replay from scratch to see her solo content.
The various solo paths are relatively short, you can easily finish one path in 3-4 hours or so.
Since I was only interested in Rion I have not played the other routes, so I cannot say too much about the content for Maddie, thus my review is mostly for the Rion (and partially also the Nora) route, your experience on the other routes (including the evil option) may vary!
Anyway... there are several things that keep Sandstorm from being a truly great experience. At least on the Rion path.
One reason is that the renders are at best average. Not bad, but certainly not great either.
The animations are mostly bad, sometimes they have a certain stop motion quality to them, i.e. they are lacking fluidity. Also, the various sex scenes themselves are pretty average with very little or even most of the time no real foreplay, you jump straight into the action several times.
The sex is of the vanilla variety (at least with Rion), I appreciate that, but if you want more kinky stuff you will be out of luck, at least on her route.
And another shortcoming of Sandstorm is the writing. And here I don't necessarily mean the basic plot, which is pretty generic (you have seen that plot before), but it's more or less ok... but the writing for the characters (mostly Rion) is pretty bad at times. And the underlying issue is that Rion at least has quite a few paths available and the story does a really bad job of separating all the paths.
On top of that that there are occasional typos and grammatical mistakes. It's nothing too bad though, but you will notice it.
But a few more things about the renders... character design is ok in this game, all three main love interests Maddie, Rion and Nora are really pretty and should offer something for everyone. Maddie is the brunette curvy love interest and she's the one who invited the MC to come along on the trip, since her relationship with another man ended shortly before the vacation, but she didn't want to cancel it.
Then there's Rion who is the highschool crush of the MC. She's more of the petite variety, cute and sexy with smaller breasts. The MC was too shy to approach Rion in highschool and thus the two never got together. Rion is in a relationship at the beginning of the game with Julian and her boyfriend is also a part of the travel group. So you will have to steal her away from Julian if you want her.
The third potential love interest is Nora, a local the group meets a bit later in the game, she's the exotic love interest with dark hair and she's also a bit mysterious.
Otherwise you don't learn all that much about the characters, since the game is pretty short and has little time to delve deeper. Other than some basic background info you will not learn too much about their personalities.
The game uses a third person perspective, but here and there there are also POV scenes (also during sex).
The framing of the renders is a bit weird at times, especially early in the game, the composition of the renders could have been better here. There are too many wide shots of scenes where you see the characters from a distance only which feels weird.
One thing I didn't care for too much about the character design are the overly exaggerated irises of the female charactes, they are huge and thus the girls tend to have anime eyes. A weird choice in a game that otherwise has realistic character designs.
Also, at least in one sex scene Rion's belly button was in a very wrong position, much too close to her sternum, no idea what went wrong here. And in scenes where her legs are spread her genital area can look a bit distorted or just weird/wrong.
Also, for some reason the game has a few VERY long montages. The introduction for Nora is a 5 (!) minute cutscene in which she performs a belly dance. I have to admit I lost patience after a minute or so and pressed the space bar. Later in the game there's a sweet cutscene with Rion performing a song, no animations here, just a montage of various renders set to a pretty song with female vocals, there's a song scene for each major love interest, but not all the scenes will be available in one playthrough.
You may find these things a bit tedious perhaps, but the game does warn you when the long cutscenes are about to begin and you can simply end the scene at any point.
The game has music, which was ok, not annoying for the most part and Rion's song and one acoustic guitar piece played by the MC are really sweet even. But that is entirely down to personal preference.
But let's talk about the writing. As mentioned Rion's route is somewhat of a mess. While it is believable that the MC can steal away Rion from her boyfriend in just 1 or 2 days (there is some trouble between them in the beginning anyway) since the two have a long shared history and the MC had (still has) this massive crush on Rion in highschool (and it's later revealed that Rion would have chosen the MC had he made a move back then), several other things with Rion make little sense.
The dev wanted to include a threesome/throuple option in the game and chose Rion as the gateway to that content. Now you can easily stay on a solo path with Rion, however even on a strict solo path Rion will suddenly, out of the blue, declare her love for Nora in a scene with the MC (it is the scene where you can choose her solo route of all things)... and mind you, at this point in the story the group met Nora roughly 24 hours earlier.
There's zero setup, no rhyme or reason, the bi-curious sharing / threesome option just makes zero sense here, it comes out of nowhere because the dev probably just wanted to have a throuple option no matter what, even if it makes no sense.
So depending on your own preference that may make Rion a character you may want to avoid. I mean which normal person would still pick a woman who tells him she also loves someone else and a woman of all things??? You have to suspend disbelief here quite a bit or just choose to ignore it, Which is very unfortunate, because Rion is otherwise cute and fun.
And it doesn't stop there... later in the game there are still hints of love between Rion and Nora, even if you tell Rion that she's your only one (right after she tells the MC she also loves Nora) and that you love her (which is the option for the solo route).
Nora herself also talks about her love for Rion close to the end of the game... and quite frankly, on a true solo path this is just plain annoying and unnecessary.
It's not a major dealbreaker maybe, depending on your tolerance level for stupid things.
I just rolled my eyes and ignored it, but the entire thing just makes no sense, since at that point Nora has known the others for maybe 48 hours or so.
The problem here is that the entire game feels incredibly rushed, the entire story is told over the span of just four days, which is much too short for any meaningful romantic build-up between complete strangers like Rion / the MC and Nora. Thus, in my opinion, the choice to make Nora, the complete stranger, the throuple/threesome character with Rion and the MC feels entirely wrong and just plain silly. Maddie was the only logical choice for a throuple ending if you absolutely have to have something like that in your game.
Also, if you pick a solo path for Rion any hints about love betwen Nora and Rion should have been entirely cut from the story, this makes the entire Rion route feel a bit silly, fake, stupid or even unnatural.
It really would have been better to make Maddie the threesome option, since Maddie and Rion are friends to begin with and the MC has known Maddie for a couple of years as well (since college).
Why the complete stranger with zero backstory with anyone was chosen as the throuple option is a complete mystery to me, this is just bad writing in my opinion.
I wouldn't have made Nora a love interest at all to begin with since it makes no sense. Not when your entire game just covers 96 hours. Make her a fling if you have to, but full blown romance with solo path and throuple ending? That's just too much.
Another issue in the game is that there are several instances of dream sex. Sometimes skippable, sometimes not... and the MC will dream about Nora and Rion for example, even if you have zero intention of ever choosing the threesome route. You can also choose who to dream about here and there.
Dream sex is something I don't like to begin with, it's often just a cheap gimmick to show scenes that (at that point in the story) make no sense.
The basic plot also has a somewhat awkward beginning with a neverending scene in an old Egyptian temple where the group gets some kind of tour, things only pick up the pace when the characters become witness of some weird sex ritual in the temple, which is the actual starting point of the plot.
The real underlying issue with the game is its short length, as I said, it does not really allow for much build up or character development, so everything feels kind of rushed, especially when Nora is introduced, a local gypsy girl. Her potential bi-curious romance with Rion and the MC sticks out like a sore thumb in the game and it is something that really made Rion's route somewhat of a letdown since on a solo route you are still confronted with all of that. Whether you like it or not.
Another major misstep is forced sex. On the Rion route the MC can give her a first kiss, a dream come true you may think, since she's been the MC's crush for ages. Only 5 minutes later you are railroaded into a sex scene with some Egyptian woman. Later on it's kind of explained away by magic and how the woman more or less forced herself on the MC (she's some kind of villain), doesn't change the fact though that forced sex scenes are just plain bad.
The scene exists for plot reasons, since the major McGuffin in the story is powered by sex (what else...) but there should have been other options to introduce that concept. Forcing the MC to have sex and to basically cheat on Rion (and she's less than happy when she eventually finds out) left a somewhat sour taste. This scene happens on any route, so you will also get it when you romance Maddie. You will also cheat on her whether you like it or not.
There are also several options for NTR scenes with Rion, i.e. where the MC is either cucked on the Rion & Nora throuple route (they will have lesbian sex without the MC who can merely watch them from afar) or where the MC can basically let some random evil dudes have their way with Rion in exchange for some fuel for an ATV. However, you really have to go out of your way to ever see those scenes.
Maddie also has NTR scenes, but here too you need to be really stupid or very deliberate to ever see those scenes.
To provide an example... at one point in the story the MC can choose whom he'd like to spend the night with. If you are on the Rion path - which means that Maddies's romance/love/affinity points are very low (unavoidable) - but you decide for some weird reason to go to Maddie instead of Rion... you will find out that Maddie is having fun with someone else. Your affinity with her is simply not high enough and thus Maddie is not interested in you.
However, there's no reason to panic, as pointed out the NTR scenes are super easy to avoid, actually you have to actively sabotage your own playthrough or maybe you specifically want the NTR content, because you need to make extremely obvious stupid choices to see the NTR content. And one NTR option later in the game (where you throw Rion to the wolves) even mandates that you choose the evil path before that, otherwise the option will be greyed out and not be available at all.
In any normal playthrough in which you apply common sense (or just don't care for NTR) you will never ever see any of those scenes.
And that's certainly a postive aspect of the game: there are quite a number of iterations and paths, with 11 endings in total. And on the various paths you can choose to be more romantic, about true love, or more about lust... you can also turn evil and become a real asshole if you like that.
On the Rion route for example you can decide between the following:
- true love and romance route
- a romance route with lust instead of love
- a threesome route with Rion and Nora
- become evil and "lend" Rion to lecherous assholes who want to have their way with her (there will be no Rion ending on the evil path), you can then watch them having sex with her if that is what you really want to see
Another thing that is certainly commendable is that each main love interest has two different endings. An ending that is probably more canonical and a "special" ending with an alternate outcome.
Rion's normal (canonical) and special endings are extremely different.
If you want a happily ever after ending you should opt for the special ending. It will become pretty evident in the game what option to choose to see either the canonical or the special ending. Hint: don't go with Nora at one point and instead ask her to let you go. And you get the special ending.
Be warned: the canonical ending is extremely unsatisfying and maybe something that will get resolved in the sequel. This is at least what the game is teasing.
But the choice between normal and special endings means that you are not stuck with some unsatisfying cliffhanger and that you can also opt for the very happy ending and if you then decide to not check out the other option you will probably be quite happy with what you get. I really appreciate that approach.
So Sandstorm, despite some messy writing for the characters, lackluster animations and a very rushed plot certainly has its appeal. It can be fun, the setting is very unique and you get basically three or four games in one, since the branching paths mean you have to replay the game for each route.
You can try to romance everyone... but you will not succeed, you need relatively high points for each character to succeed on their route, thus you must pick one character early in the game and then stick with her. And gaining points with one character often means that the other one will get points taken away. So you really have to dedicate to one option early on and then stick to that route.
So... who will enjoy Sanstorm? If you can accept that the game has extremely easily avoidable NTR content (meaning you have to go out of your way to see it), if you can accept that everything is pretty rushed, if you can accept that at least Rion's path is quite messy here and there, if you can also accept the subpar animations and renders that are average at best... then you can certainly have a good time with the game. The unique setting certainly has its appeal.
If you think NTR is worse than the plague and if the mere presence of extremely optional NTR turns you off, if you cannot tolerate that a major love interest even on a solo route will still tell you she also loves someone else, and on top of that, a character she has known for merely 24 hours (really, what was the dev thinking here???????), if subpar animations do nothing for you and if a proper build-up, some teasing, generally speaking some more or less realistic romantic progression matter to you... then you will probably not enjoy Sandstorm all that much, maybe not at all.
Final words: I really wish Rion's path had been better written.
The silly and highly unrealistic throuple option with Nora should have been realized differently, Rion should never ever have told the MC she loves Nora... instead the option to open the throuple route should have been solely with the player / the MC who suggests it to Rion AFTER telling her he loves her.
Here the MC can merely deny the throuple route or give his ok, but you, the player, have no real agency, you don't bring up the idea, Rion does. This was a very bad idea if you ask me. In my opinion even a throuple option initiated by the player still makes no sense though, at least as far as Nora, a complete stranger (!) is concerned. The only viable throuple option would have been Maddie & Rion here.
And if you don't choose the throuple route... set a flag through a variable and then make sure that later in the game on a solo route neither Rion nor Nora still talk about love .... it's just annoying when you have to hear that. It kind of ruins Rion's route and it's so easily avoidable with some better/different writing and maybe one extra variable that hides certain dialogues when no throuple option is selected.
But if you can live with all that Sandstorm is certainly a rather unique experience, it's very different from most other VNs I have played so far. I hope the sequel will have better writing though. And never ever again should a major love interest tell the MC she also loves someone else on a solo path - or seconds before you are about to select the solo path. Never. Ever. Cardinal sin in this game. These things should always depend on player choice only and only after you commit to a love interest.
All of these minor or somewhat more major missteps make Sandstorm an average game, it can be enjoyable if you tolerate the shortcomings, it can be a disaster if your tolerance threshold for certain things is close to zero though. So make sure you are ok with the things mentioned in this review before you play Sandstorm. If you are you will probably have a (mostly) good time though.
