Minimal Dungeon RPG is a strange mix between an idle game and a more classic RPG. It’s certainly incremental in it’s nature, but you’re not waiting for incredibly long periods of time, waiting for something to happen. Instead you tap on tiles in the rooms you’re visiting and you perform actions like exploring or fighting monsters that way. Where you need to wait is for your action and hit points to recover and allow you to keep tapping away. It’s a neat concept, but it got too stale too quickly and it also felt like being a free-to-play game hindered it a little.
Shattered Planet is a neat roguelike about exploring procedurally generated planets slowly succombing to a dark plague while fighting enemies, collecting loot and trying to survive while unlocking - and upgrading - new characters, discovering enemies, gear and events. I had a good time with it! I kinda wish it did more than what it does, but what is there is fun, addictive and still fun to play, even though it was released in 2014.
Knighthood is a mobile RPG with a great look, fairly simple but engaging mechanics and way too many layers of micro-transactions, currencies and other cruft layered on it. You play a ‘Rage Knight’ fighting your way through a land of monsters, collecting gear, leveling up, summoning powerful heroes and trying to keep track of all the activities you can do. I had a nice time with it (never hit a wall where I needed to spend currency) and would’ve played more, but ultimately lost interest.
Cosmic Star Heroine is an RPG that has clear Chrono Trigger influences made by the studio that brought us Breath Of Death VI and Chtulu Saves the world a few years ago. I really enjoyed these games and I also really enjoyed CSH, a game about a special agent in a futuristic security force that gets tangled into a conspiracy and has to fight her way out of it with her fellow party members. The battle system and other mechanics in this game are pretty good and the story was fairly engaging. I also liked the music and some of the graphical choices they made, so I’d totally recommend it to everyone!
Almost A Hero is half an idle game, half a free RPG that combines mechanics from idlers with a surprising amount of depth; I wasn’t sure what I was getting into - since mobiles RPGs are pretty hit-or-miss for me, but this one was great! I probably would’ve stuck with it for way longer if I didn’t want to go down my list of iOS games to play. With a ton of things to unlock, a very generous currency progression and some interesting game mechanics that unlock themselves after a long while, Almost A Hero is real neat.
Pokémon Masters is another mobile gacha offering from Nintendo and it just disappointed me, much like Dr Mario World (and Mario Kart World as well). In it you go through missions and fight with some iconic pokémon trainers from all over the lore. To do so, you recruit them in your party, upgrade their skills, complete missions and mash through a lot of dialogue. This game has a ton of production values, but ultimately still results in a product that feels shallow, unbalanced and exploitative.
Borderlands 3 is the fourth entry in the borderlands franchise; one which I enjoyed a lot in the past. I was on the fence about this new one - whether to get it at all, for instance - because of controversy surrounding people involved in making it, but ultimately I nabbed it during a pre-order sale; I had to know what they would do to the Borderlands recipe to make it update it to 2019s standards, I wanted to know if I still enjoyed that game of game and also how they would tone it. After playing about half the campaign (I still want to finish it at least once) I can answer these questions. They didn’t update it, I still enjoy that kind of game but with diminished returns and the tone is still horrible.
West of Loathing is a delightful Western-themed RPG made by the Kingdom Of Loathing folks - a browser game that I’ve played for years - and I had a great time with it. It’s not perfect - I had some issues with the difficulty in the endgame and some puzzles alongside the infinite inventory clutter you quickly acquire but it was overall an amazing little RPG (which took me about 7 hours to complete) that I would recommend wholeheartedly to pretty much anyone.
I played a bunch of old-school RPGs back when I was younger; Baldur’s Gates, other D&D properties and a few of the Fallouts as well. I had never touched Planescape: Torment, so I was pretty intrigued to try Torment: Tides of Numenera, as I started the game I wondered which aspects of the genre it would reflect in this modern offering; I tried getting into T:ToN as much as I could, but ultimately just hit my weary brain against a wall of pre-established lore and way too many NPCs to chat with. I didn’t have a bad time, but I also didn’t feel like I was connecting with the game, I was always waiting to get to some point that might not even exist.
Questland embodies most of what I find is wrong with mobile games today; Good production values, interesting core systems - sometimes, but ultimately a bunch of timers, resources to buy and spend for incremental upgrades that almost don’t matter and a gameplay experience that involves a lot of busywork for not much fun. I tried to get into Questland and see if there was anything in there, but it didn’t take me too long to stop trying.
The Warlock Of Firetop Mountain is a game that reminds me of a choose-your-own-adventure book (and has the creative pedigree of such works, also has some Dungeons & Dragons baggage). You play an adventurer that goes into a vast dungeon to try and accomplish some personal objective while avoiding traps, fighting monsters and exploring the bowels of the mountain. I thought the core concept was neat, but the finer mechanics didn’t click at all for me. For a game that you need to replay multiple times, it quickly becomes a chore and the battle system feels random and unfair.
Pathfinder Adventures is a card and dice based RPG where you control a party of adventurers going through a few quests in order to find loot and improve their stats and skills. To complete challenges you use cards and skills that give bonuses to your checks in order to match specific challenges. You lose if you run out of time and characters can die if their decks run out. I had fun with it even if the dice-based aspects of the game made it very random at times and I had some difficulties wrapping my brain around the concept of losing cards forever in a card game where your rewards are cards. Oh and there are also a bunch of free-to-play mechanics snuck in there that rubbed me the wrong way.
Pokemon Quest is an official free to play mobile Pokemon Company game where you explore an island using a pack of pokemons that run around and defeat enemies automatically. By doing so, they find items to equip and food to cook in order to attract more pokemons for your roster. You can customize your base camp, complete quests and achievements and more. I think it's well made but I got stopped by an energy timer the moment I started really getting into it, which soured my opinion a bit. Combine that with the extremely simple and borderline boring battle system, and you have an okay game that won't steal any mainline franchise pokemon fans.
Swipe Casters is barely a game; it is an okay core mechanic slapped around in-app purchases, weird systems and one-note gameplay. The idea to trace glyphs in order to deal damage to enemies is fine, but when that's all there is to it, when all the game does is pile on more difficulty on the glyph tracing and when the upgrades feel pointless and not fun, it feels more like a tech demo than an actual game. I tried to have fun with it, but I left sorely disappointed.
At first, I didn't think Darkest Dungeon was for me; It's way too oppressive and difficult, and the game wears that on its sleeve. I struggled a lot at the beginning, experiencing full party wipes with characters that I had already started to become attached to. Then I did something I almost never do; I installed a few mods. This simple tweak made the game much more palatable for me and I managed to get through a huge chunk of its content. Darkest Dungeon is a fantastic title and I wish I could've played the whole thing.
Chroma Squad is a neat little strategy RPG where you move your characters on a grid to fight enemies, like Fire Emblem, Disgaea or Final Fantasy Tactics. Inspired strongly by the Power Rangers, it follows a team of actors as they progress doing their own show, growing their studio and equipment from nothing to having a ton of fans, great gear and even a giant robot they can fight with. I enjoyed the core gameplay of the game although I feel that there is too much stuff on the edges that ultimately prevented me from having a great time.
Dandy Dungeon has a somewhat neat core mechanic of puzzle-rpg that is heavily bogged down by free to play mechanics and unnecessary cruft. There is a good idea in there about planning paths for your character to take and defeat all enemies, but I think that it would've been a better product with a premium price and more balanced mechanics. I had -some- fun with it, but in the end it could've been way more enjoyable than what it was.
Steamworld Heist is a weird strategy RPG with shooting and platforming aesthetics that I really enjoyed. You build up your team of robots and bring them on missions where you have to gather loot and defeat enemies to get stronger and advance through the story. It's really fun and the challenge level is customizable enough where you can tweak the difficulty if it's too tough for you. I really enjoyed playing it and I almost completed it because I kept wanting to see more of the skills, items and challenges it had to offer.
Inexistence is a platformer RPG that didn't do anything for me. I've found it too difficult and I've found that it didn't offer me enough customization or options in order to defeat the challenges in front of me. I feel like I've gave it its fair shot, but couldn't muster enjoyment out of it. On the positive side, I liked the graphics and style of the game.
Sonny was a game I had played on my browser ages ago; it was a turn-based RPG with a lot of depth, a good amount of skill effects and difficult challenges. When I saw it on the app store, I wondered if it was going to be the same as I once played. It's almost that, but not quite. Sonny on iOS is a cool RPG with enough customization and difficulty to keep you engaged. It does mostly one thing - fighting enemies - and it does it well. I didn't manage to get through it, but I've played enough to know that I liked it.