Border Town Review

Border Town is an open-world sandbox fantasy RPG developed by GoHoGames and published by 2P Games. Released in Early Access back on the 23rd of January 2025, it reached its 1.0 release on the 12th of September 2025. It reminded me of Dragon Quest Builders, and I saw it had good reviews (until recently), so I decided to give it a shot. Will it be worth the effort of rebuilding an entire village by myself, or should I have just got Borderlands 4 instead?

Many years ago, humans and monsters used to co-exist, but one day the monsters attacked, turning the once-peaceful and prosperous village Border Town into a pile of rubble. Many of its residents either fled or died, with the only survivor being an old man who hid in his cellar. Although heartbroken, he holds onto hope to see his home restored one day. Luckily, he’s stumbled upon you: a random amnesiac unconscious in the woods. Now, it’s your job to rebuild Border Town and regain your lost memories.

That entire paragraph was from the intro that plays when you start a new name, but I had to re-write it because it’s very apparent that Google Translate was used to convert it from its native Chinese to English… badly. Some text is entirely untranslated, and the text that clearly wasn’t proofread. Spelling mistakes, grammar errors, formatting issues, misnamed items, it’s all there and more.

I mean, you can understand it, but good luck figuring out that “wooden rods” means “wooden planks”... which are different from some of the other items called “wooden rods” when they’re really “wooden walls” or “wooden sticks”. Seriously, I checked, and several items are called “wooden rods” for whatever reason! As someone who loves flavour text, I just started skipping dialogue because reading it was painful. This isn’t something a 1.0 release should have. At least the art style is cute and pleasant; it reminds me of MapleStory’s promotional art, the chibi characters and monsters are nicely done.

Anyways, let’s get into the gameplay. You’ll start off with Uncle Mi (or Old Man, as he usually calls himself) giving you some tasks and tools to get you started. Chop down trees, collect rocks, start up a farm, do some mining; it’s the usual survival game affair. You have to keep yourself fed and energised throughout the day if you want to survive long enough to see Border Town flourish. There are other towns around the map that provide unique shops, but they’re seriously pricey, especially in the early game, and keeping a full belly isn’t easy. Food and money will probably be your top priority from the start.

Along the way, you can befriend any NPC you come across and recruit them to your town. From blacksmiths and guards to farmers and… bunny girls, they all have their own professions and skills that will benefit you in the long run. If that’s not enough friendship, you can obtain a monster’s core, bring it to the goddess statue, and turn it into a peaceful pet who provides items as long as you keep it fed. With enough time and effort, Border Town can essentially take care of itself while you go on adventures, fighting monsters and finding treasure across the decently large world.

I found the overall gameplay to be quite simple and relaxing, but it is missing something I can’t quite put my finger on. Befriending NPCs is a chore that only amounts to giving them enough gifts to make them a follower, the world can feel empty outside of the various towns, and the townspeople rarely have anything of note to say (if you can parse what they say). At least travelling isn’t a bother, as there is fast travel via transmutation circles (that is not what transmutation means, by the way).

Combat itself isn’t all too great either, with the only mechanics being the ability to attack and dodge roll. Melee weapons can be frustrating to use, your equipment breaks a little too soon, and enemies are just a chore to fight. It basically becomes a routine dance of attack, dodge roll, and attack until you win. Just bring extra weapons to make sure you don’t run out in the middle of a dungeon, and you should be fine for the most part.

The biggest issue I had was with the UI and all its design flaws. It can be a bit of a pain to navigate on a controller, and it’s not even that great with keyboard and mouse. There are so many items you’ll need, but there’s nothing you can use to help sort through them. Also, it can be hidden behind trees, walls, or other parts of the interface, which makes it difficult to navigate.

Although I personally didn’t encounter too many myself, there are a bunch of bugs that didn’t get squashed on the full release version. However, they are getting patched out at a fairly quick pace. Plus, the game ran very well at a consistent 60 FPS all throughout, and the load times were pretty quick for the most part.

Border Town is a fine, if simple, experience that you shouldn't expect the world of. It's going to need a complete rewrite of a majority of its writing and a clean-up of its UI, but it can be a nice time. Unfortunately, I’ve played plenty of better games that are similar but is a better bang for your buck.