IMO, smartphones had the chance to revolutionize the gaming industry, but ended up wasting almost all of that potential on skinner boxes riddled with ads and microtransactions. Most of the best mobile games are ports from other systems, like the mobile edition of Minecraft and whatnot.

I think Pokémon Go was possibly the closest any major publisher has come to actually realizing the full potential of mobile games as a format, but it still fell painfully short with massively dumbed down mechanics and an absolute grindfest of a progression system.

There are still a few good indie projects out there (I like Soul Knight) but generally the mobile gaming market is so full of absolute dreck that I usually just don’t bother.

Generally, the games that have a larger up-front price are good. Bonus points, if they were ported from PC or consoles and don’t track you.

There are a few hidden gems (I enjoy Plague inc. and Rebel inc. on occasion, for example), but for the most part, the majority of mobile games are mtx-laden cash grabs. So the actual quality is commensurately low because the devs figured out they don’t have to put in real effort to implement gambling and hook addicts.

After trying bunch of Android games I found Nintendo DS games that can be entirely played with a stylus have been the best games to emulate and play on mobile.

Edit: Kirby Mass Attack is great and felt like a native experience.

Some others that might be worth trying.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/925329-nintendo-ds/65539209

Monument 1 and 2 are great puzzle games well worth the purchase price.

I find Dark pattern games site to be fairly informative on which mobile games are good and which are not. The Healthy Games section has bunch of good games while the dark games section has games you should actively avoid.

If game is listed as healthy and has a good rating there’s a pretty good chance for it being actually good.

My hard and fast rule is, “Don’t play freemium games.” The second I see stars, coins, tickets, tokens, I’m out. I exclusively play what are mostly ports from console. Trials of Mana, The Alliance Alive HD Remastered, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy, Danganronpa, Spiritfarer, Oxenfree, Stardew Valley, Minecraft etc. I also have Apple Arcade from my Verizon package, and I play the Netflix games. Avoid freemium / gacha / IAP-riddled games, and some of the ports are at least decent.

If you want good mobile games, look out for paid ports of PC indies, like:

• Door Kickers: Action Squad
• Baba Is You
• Bad North
• Bridge Constructor Portal
• Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night
• Crypt of the Necromancer
• Dead Cells
• Don’t Starve
• Don’t Starve: Shipwrecked
• Downwell
• Forager
• GRIS
• Retro City Rampage DX
• Reventure
• ScourgeBringer
• Sparklite
• Teslagrad
• This War of Mine
• Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion

Actually, if you have Netflix, there’s a decent number of good mobile games through that

It could just be you are not the target market for these games and you see through the bullshit. A lot of them are designed with shitty dark patterns to keep you coming back for more. Also, a lot of those reviews are probably fake to draw in the curious.

Pretty much. Unless you’re an anime/gacha fan there really isn’t any ‘good’ mobile games since the entire world decided that premium mobile games aren’t worth it. Which pretty much fed back into itself. So the only thing approaching good will be either emulation/ports of games from console, the your mileage may vary genres (incrementals/idlers, and gacha) and the occasional diamond in the rough.

Just download a SNES/Genesis/GBA emulator, no need to waste time sifting through the piles of shit that is mobile gaming.

There’s no good mobile exclusive game, in my experience. There are plenty of great games that are 1:1 ports of their PC or console versions, with buy-once pricing and no microtransactions.

The ones I have installed on Android are: Baba is You, Slay the Spire, Peglin, Downwell, Super Hexagon, SNKRX, and 20 Minutes Til Dawn.

I’m a big fan of BuriedBornes. Great little old school rpg to pick up and play. Lots of in depth mechanics and replayability.

It is really hard to find good mobile games.

Most games are just blatant pay to win fronts. I especially despise those “idle whatever” style games where you wait for your ‘money’ to rake up. Boring stuff.

With smartphones getting more and more powerful, I miss sophisticated games on it. And I am not talking Skyrim here. Even most stuff we could play on Newgrounds 15 years ago blows most of the shit in the store out of the water.

There is just not a big enough market for it, it seems.