Conquering the Three Kingdoms can take a long, long time | Review - Infinite Borders

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✨Overview

Infinite Borders puts players in the ever captivating Three Kingdoms period of Ancient China, and offers a blend of strategy, RPG city-building, and gacha mechanics. Having spent considerable time in both its native East Asian markets —previously known as Reign of Warlords or ROW: Tam Quốc. — It is now entering a global release during its Closed Beta Test phase. However, the English localization is still a bit spotty.

📌Pros and Cons

🎨Graphics and Art Style:

The visual aspect of any game plays a pivotal role in capturing the player's imagination and enhancing the overall gaming experience. Infinite Borders somewhat excels in this department, offering impressive 3D graphics that transport players to the ancient Eastern world of the Three Kingdoms while still being faithful to the era’s artworks by infusion of Chinese-style art that adds an authentic touch to the game, particularly to the character and unit design, including some of the iconic Three Kingdoms heroes such as Liu Bei, Cao Cao, and Lu Bu.

There are also real-time weather changes for additional flavor, which add a layer of dynamism to the game's world.  Additionally, Infinite Borders offers an alternative "2D mode" for players who prefer smoother performance or those playing on low-end phones, while maintaining the same aesthetic and still looking somewhat 3D. One area where it falls short is its sound design. It lacks any sort of voice-overs, leaving character interactions devoid of spoken dialogues; even the video cutscenes only have captions. It feels like I'm watching a muted video with subtitles. Its combat sound effects also fall short of delivering the expected intensity in battles. However, the game manages to redeem itself through a well-composed and fitting soundtrack.

🎮Gameplay

The heart of any game lies in its gameplay, and Infinite Borders combines several popular elements to create a multifaceted experience. The mechanics can be a bit confusing, but it gets better in time as you play, especially if you have prior experience with RPG city builders. New genre players may find themselves grappling with the complexity of the game early on. At its core, the game is a kingdom builder set in ancient China during the Three Kingdoms period. Players are tasked with constructing and upgrading various buildings within their city to gather essential resources like wood, iron, and stone.

Unlike other city-builders where you can place individual buildings alongside the main Town Hall, Infinite Borders castles are a monolithic, one-big structure, and the upgrades are accomplished through a research or skill-tree-like system instead.

The city-building aspect of the game can be highly addictive, as the desire to expand your city and conquer neighboring territories drives you forward. Armies form the backbone of doing any action in the game’s world, and you can recruit armies, assign heroes to lead them, and to be able to expand your city and territory, one tile at a time. I can definitely see the resemblance to the iconic game series “Romance of the Three Kingdoms”, just mobile-ized in terms of mechanics and monetization techniques.

Combat in Infinite Borders is resolved automatically between armies, determined by your armies power level, this results in players forming unique teams of heroes, each with their own skills and abilities. The gacha mechanics come into play here, as recruiting heroes becomes a vital part of your strategy, aside from army strength and your “strategem” used. Players can either spend real money or grind in-game currency in order to partake in gacha pulls.

One of the game's strengths is the freedom it provides in terms of playstyle. Whether you want to be a relentless warlord, a passive city builder focused on resource management and defense, or a diplomatic lord forging alliances, the choice is yours. This flexibility allows players to tailor their experience to their preferred style of play. You can play the game without interacting with other kingdoms and just turtle play on your own. While the game offers a compelling mix of strategy and city-building, it's worth noting that Infinite Borders requires patience due to its troop stamina system, limited builders, and real-world waiting periods for actions such as construction, research, raiding, or troop travel time. It takes too long to do anything worthwhile in quick sessions, this game is best played over a span of days, weeks, or months. Just occasionally checking in on a day to day basis, unless you are willing to spend loads of money.

⬆️Progression

The addictive nature of upgrading buildings, conquering new lands, and expanding your territory is one of the game's major strengths. This constant sense of growth and improvement keeps players engaged and invested in their cities' development, until they hit that brick wall which requires waiting in real time or the lack of resources, which can pressure players into spending more money. The hero collection aspect also contributes to the progression system.  The game features In-app purchases that allow players to acquire premium currency, which can be used for various purposes, including speeding up construction, acquiring heroes, or obtaining other in-game advantages. With over 300 heroes to recruit, players can constantly work towards enhancing their teams and unlocking new strategic possibilities. The diversity of heroes and their unique abilities provide depth to the gameplay and keep it from feeling stale.

⚖️Conclusion

Infinite Borders is an interesting strategy and city-building game, particularly for players who have a fondness for ancient Chinese history and the Three Kingdoms period. It’s basically another take on the Romance of the Three Kingdoms game formula, but made with mobile gaming in mind. While it's not without its flaws, including localization issues and a slow progression pace designed to pressure you into spending money, beyond that, it’s a quite decent game nonetheless.