When people think of mobile games, they usually think of endless runners and gacha games. The perception is that they’re time-wasters at best, and people who want something like an engaging story should look elsewhere. However, mobile games have come a long way from the 2000s when there was nothing to them other than getting the player to spend money. Both developers and the tech have changed in that time.
These days, everyone knows they have to keep people’s attention if their game is going to succeed. Newer games are being developed with surprisingly good stories, while older console games are being ported to powerful phones with better mobile experiences.
10 Forgotton Anne Is A Platformer With A Cinematic Story Experience
Developed by ThroughLine Games, Forgotton Anne is a beautiful cinematic puzzle-platformer that was originally released in 2018. The series starts out in the Forgotten Lands, the location everything that’s ever lost winds up. The protagonist is the guardian of the Forgotten Lands, working on shutting down a group of rebel forces. Anne might not be a good platforming mascot, but she’s exactly the character players will want for this story.
For a game that runs well on phones, Forgotton Anne doesn’t just have a good story, but it has a gorgeous one told with traditional hand-animated cutscenes. Combine that with an awesome orchestral soundtrack, and this is a title mobile gamers won’t soon forget.
9 Lone Wolf Is A Neo-Noir Game About A Sniper
Lonewolf is a sniper game in a neo-noir setting that makes the player a dangerous assassin. Not much else is known about the lead when players start, other than he’s part of a criminal group known as the Assembly. But really, people love assassins in all media, so there’s not much players need to know. Still, over the course of thirty missions, the player learns who the assassin is and his motives for joining the Assembly.
Lonewolf’s story is told through hand-drawn scenes that resemble a comic book, while the gameplay offers nearly two dozen weapons to battle enemies with. In the end, completely finishing the game and collecting all the game’s trophies will take well over five hours.
8 Jade Empire Is One Of BioWare’s Most Beloved Games
BioWare released Jade Empire for the Xbox in 2005, and their longtime fans have been begging for a remake ever since. There was nothing like it at the time, and even today, there aren’t many western RPGs that emulate Wuxia influences.
The series is based around a player taking on the role of the last Spirit Monk, looking to save their trainer, Master Li, from emperor Sun Hai. Like many BioWare games, the player is affected by the moral choices they make during the game, which affects everything from the other party members to the techniques the player uses.
7 The Banner Saga Is A Challenging Story About Survival
Sometimes being a Viking doesn’t mean stories about warriors going down in a blaze of glory. With The Banner Saga, the player instead guides a caravan of people during an eternal twilight as they try to escape an unstoppable army. If this game’s art style looks familiar, it’s intentional; the game was designed to resemble famous animators’ styles like Ralph Bakshi.
Banner Saga‘s story is told over three parts, but fans can forget about trying to make sure everyone gets out alive. The title auto-saves frequently by design, forcing the player to live with their choices in this grim world where humanity’s chance at survival seems increasingly unlikely.
6 Epic Seven Features Beautiful Animation To Tell Its Story
Developed by Super Creative Inc, Epic Seven is jam-packed with story. The player takes on the role of the Heir of the Covenant, intending to battle against the Archdemon. However, the player is unable to do it alone and must gather an army of heroes to fight the Archdemon and protect a world that has already been destroyed six times before.
Despite the unfortunate gacha elements of this game, Epic Seven is grounded in a compelling story told with plenty of animated cutscenes. It’s also got a straightforward turn-based combat system that will prove familiar to fans of old-school JRPG games.
5 Batman: Telltale Story Provides A Chance To Play As Batman And Bruce Wayne
One of the biggest problems with most Batman games is that the characters are often stuck within their costumed identities. As much as everyone wants to be Batman, to fully step into that role, the player has to become Bruce Wayne as well.
Fortunately, since Telltale games don’t focus on the action, they’re able to tell a story that involves both Batman and Bruce Wayne. Batman: Telltale Story might not have a high Metacritic score, but that’s largely because of technical issues. The game’s story and graphics have been lauded as top-tier for a mobile game.
4 War of the Visions: Final Fantasy Brave Exvius Tells A Political Story About A War Between Five Nations
Everyone wanted War of the Visions to be the next Final Fantasy Tactics. While that might be asking a lot, it’s still a great game. On the continent of Ardra, five nations have been vying for control between one another. Each nation battles using Visions, warriors from other eras and worlds.
This game has been praised for both the single-player story and the high-quality voice acting, but it’s not a perfect title. As ever with a mobile title, the gacha elements are the biggest problem. The Consumer Affairs Agency accused Square-Enix of manipulating the odds of pulling characters and items in their favor in 2021, forcing them to perform greater self-regulation.
3 Octopath Traveler: Champions Of The Continent Is A Prequel To Octopath Traveler
Octopath Traveler pioneered Square’s now popular HD-2D style, something they’ve used to great effect twice so far in 2022. But while fans wait to hopefully get a second game within the Octopath Traveler world, Square-Enix has introduced something else in the meantime.
Meant to be a prequel to the main story, Champions of the Continent follows three main storylines — Herminia, Tytos, and Auguste. Though these are the central stories, there’s also a whole other cast to carry through the story. Champions was released to great success in Japan in 2020, and it has recently released stateside.
2 Another Eden Is The Latest RPG From The Writer Of Chrono Trigger
Developed by Wright Flyer Studios, Another Eden was a project from the mind of Masato Kato, who was known for writing both Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross. Another Eden follows brother-sister pair Aldo and Feinne. Aldo’s goal is to rescue his sister from the Beast King, who used his sister’s powers to wipe out all of humanity.
With Aldo being sent hundreds of years in the future, he’s forced to try and find his way back to the past, hopping throughout different points in time. So far, the series has gone through over eighty story chapters, with more to come. With an 88 on Metacritic, this is one of the best JRPGs that no one is talking about.
1 Genshin Impact Tells A Compelling Narrative Across Unfolding Chapters
Genshin Impact has quickly turned into one of the biggest games in the world. In just two years, the game has generated billions of dollars in revenue for miHoYo, as players try to pull their five-star waifu and husbando. What most people who aren’t already addicted to the game don’t know is that the game has a solid story as well.
As the Traveler, the player is taken on a journey through the continents of Teyvat in the hopes of finding their missing sibling. Each country has its own struggles, characters, and adventures for the player to go on. So far, three countries have been introduced, with several more waiting to be revealed.
