BlitzKeep is a really neat iOS RPG where you fling yourself around on enemies to kill them in order to level up, collect power-ups and get strong enough to kill stronger enemies to repeat this cycle. You get gold for doing so, and you can use that gold to unlock new character classes with various abilities and upgrade your stats as well. I liked it and I wish I could've played it more, but after a very short while it just... stops. And the endless mode they've included doesn't do it at all for me.
Terraria meets exploring island on your ship with your crew, fighting enemy pirates, finding treasures and dying of scurvy, Pixel Piracy is an odd one. I definitely think it's an interesting game, but some of its mechanics are a bit on the cumbersome side, some of its systems are bugged in ways that hurt the player way too much, and it's progression leaves a bit to be desired. That being said, I still had a great time with it and managed to overlook its few flaws.
Grimrock 2 is a well made RPG with roots in a past for which I have no nostalgia. The arcane mechanics it uses, combined with spotty systems that feel weird and unpolished - all of that mixed with the relative difficulty - prevented me from getting super invested in it. I had an okay time and a few of the things I did were fun, but overall I wasn't sad to move on.
KoPAP2 is too greedy for its own good. It stacks even more gold sinks on top of its already money-hungry systems and then adds randomness to the mix to a frustrating result. I don't mind getting gold to buy the special furniture (like in the first game) or to buy more party members, even the seemingly infinite moneysink that 'equipment' represents isn't too bad in the long run, but everything else almost requiring you to grind combined with weird balance made me wary of the game pretty soon. Which is a shame because I have completed the first one.
Undertale is amazing. It's a funny, whimsical, sometimes nonsensical, sometimes disturbing turn-based RPG with a flair that I cannot help but compare with Earthbound in some ways. The strength of its plot, the complex story you can experience multiple times, the depth of it's mechanics (pretty cool wario-ware battle system) and the humor make this a game you won't want to skip if you're a fan of any of these things.
I'm a big Puzzle Quest fan, but I can't say that I enjoy roguelikes - or the FTL model - very much. This made my relationship with Ironcast a bittersweet one; Some of its core mechanics are pretty fun, others are kinda infuriating, and there's this inevitability aspect that stresses you in time and reduces the number of actions you can do in a set game that leaves some of the fun aspects of match-3 RPGs behind.
Trulon is a classic turn-based RPG where you fight using cards that represent your different moves. You go along through a story, fighting enemies and collecting cards to build your deck, you equip various pieces of gear and complete quests. You walk around on a world map. It's neat and well-built, it also uses the strengths of iOS devices in the form of the card-based battle system. That being said, it felt way too slow for me, and that slowness turned into boredom.
You Must Build A Boat is a perfect iOS game, it's build from the ground up to work on touch devices, it has no in-app purchases, no timers and no ads, it could be a bigger product on a portable console without much changes. The #1 block-sliding upgrade-buying boat-building game of 2015 was a blast and with only a few blemishes to an otherwise amazing title, I've only had fun with it and probably would've kept playing if the New Game+ carrot had been more enticing.
Valkyria Chronicles is a weird mix between a turn-based strategy game and a third person shooter set in fictional Europe during a parallel world World War. With plenty of content, neat style and somewhat deep systems, it could've been a great game for me, sadly it doesn't go over "good" since the mix of strategy and shooting created a bunch of frustrating messes that I didn't enjoy slogging through at all.
Masters of the Masks is a confusing and convoluted free to play turn-based RPG where you spend stamina in order to fight guys, only to die on the fourth level because the balance is out of wack. To do so, you find materials to create masks and gear and you spin wheels and wait for a few minutes in order for crafting to complete - or you can always pay to make it faster. I didn't have much fun with it.
This is a bad game. If you ignore the core, the mechanics around it are encrusted with layers upon layers of systems, resources, microtransactions and other purchases, unlockable content and levels, things that need to be added carefully to not spoil the broth. But then, if you look at the main game, this just adds insult to injury, as the core gameplay is clunky, unbalanced and not fun.
Pixel Heroes: Byte & Magic has the potential to be a 5/5 in my book because of it's neat systems, focus on buffs/debuffs/status effects, a wide range of unlockable rewards and other challenges and a large number of skills and items to use. Sadly, poor balancing in many spots, lack of information to focus player choice and other oddities made me stop playing after finishing the first campaign and rolling a new party. It's still pretty fun, and good!
There isn't a simple recipe for idle games, but they have to follow some basic rules in order to be fun. You need to be able to go almost infinitely and it needs to scale. The things you do manually in them are often more powerful than simply idling and it needs to keep your interest so you don't stop letting it run because you're bored of it. Tap Heroes doesn't do most of these things, and it's a weird idle game that couldn't keep my interest.
Characterizing itself as a RPG, I think that Desktop Dungeons is more of a puzzle game than something else. The core concept of the game is fighting through a ton of dungeons, each time with new characters of various races and classes by killing enemies, finding gear and potions, using skills and unlocking thing for your city which will help you in the following runs. In practice, most of my runs were trainwrecks, I had few options I could actually use and the game felt like a puzzle that couldn't be won except by dumb luck.
Leaving behind my fears of moving from opinions to hyperbole, I have to say that FFRK represents one pillar of mobile gaming that is turning this side of my review section into a runaway train of 1/5s and 2/5s. Around the Final Fantasy nostalgia core, around the microtransactions, the energy timers, the roulettes to buy stuff, the fusion and the weird impenetrable systems designed to make money might have been an okay game only if the designers hadn't chosen to make this game excessively reliant on online.
Far from me wanting to launch uPlay in order to run a steam game - and get performance issues for my trouble - Child of Light is a really good RPG that reminds me of Grandia and other games of that style - one with a time bar where you act after a certain point and can get knocked back and do the same to your enemies - mixed with a stylish 2d adventure where you fly around collecting items and solving puzzles. I'm not a big fan of poetry as the base for video game writing, but the actual game is pretty fun to play.
SwapQuest is quite interesting with it's core systems and the ways you can upgrade your character and improve it, but ultimately the act of playing it is boring, mostly because of the main idea that you walk along a path made out of tiles and you have to switch them around in order to progress forward; a needed progress because of the wall of darkness that follows you. Doing so, you fight monsters and pick up chests and things like that.
Pillars of Eternity is to Baldur's Gate what Wasteland 2 was to the old Fallout games - and Wasteland 1, of course. It's a nice throwback to old school RPGs mixed up with new systems and mechanics. I had a good time with it, but I feel like I had an even better time with Wasteland 2. Some of the systems in PoE were too complex. the story felt too verbose at times and the level progression was slow and somewhat unrewarding. I have to preface all of this with the disclaimer that I haven't played any of the older games because I also found them a bit too dense for my tastes.
Swap Heroes 2 is a fun little game where you swap heroes on a grid in order to have them attack monsters or use special abilities. It's a bit too simple with very light RPG elements and there is one tune that reminds me of a Super Mario RPG boss fight theme - which is funny. All and all, I've had a few good moments with it, but it didn't last very long, as the core of the game is doing the same thing over and over.
Although the South Park brand of humor might not be your cup of tea - and I have to admit that it's not mine either - the game inside SPTSOT is quite solid. Against a backdrop of high fantasy only existing in the character's minds - and everyone plays along - you control a normal kid going around South Park, doing quests, fighting enemies and collecting loot, all of that done in an ocean of poop jokes and pop culture references. I had a ton of fun with it and I would recommend it to most turn-based RPG fans.