There are too many shovelware games. Too many cash grabs. Too many games that are just plain terrible!

Many people argue today that mobile is "filled" with such games. In a sense, they are right. There are a lot of games that are out there to get your money, with perhaps little thought put into making an enjoyable experience. Games like Final Fantasy XV: A New Empire and World War Rising are built upon the same framework, with both games being boring timesinks that beg for your money through irritating popups. Some might say the games have no actual gameplay.

But what of the other end?

The other end exists and may be more visible and prominent than the former.

Consider the two major platforms for mobile gaming: The Play Store and the App Store. Each displays, primarily, games that are curated for your experience. The games you see most visibly are not merely the most popular: They are often highly rated and well-received.

But one store does this better than the other: The App Store. The iOS App Store doesn't put a hundred games in your face at once. It puts a focus on choice games, games that are sometimes higher quality than those displayed in their competitors' storefront. This isn't to say of itself that one store is inherently better than the other. But on iPhone, the more popular games are often more directed, in a sense, to be the higher quality ones. An overall less add-ridden and intrusive experience is on iOS, and this sometimes comes at the cost of higher prices.

But this says little of the quality of the games themselves. It is true that many of the more popular games are not the most fun or enlightening. But let's take a look at some of the most popular games on iOS.

Paid: Minecraft comes in at #1. Heads Up, #2. Plague, Inc. #3. The first game is an innovative, groundbreaking (cough) puzzle-platformer, with a lot of focus on creativity. The second is a party game that is a ton of fun. The third is a sort of strategy game that tasks you with destroying the world...through disease.

Free: #1 is Color Bump 3D. Won't win any awards for its name, but appears to be a fun game about avoiding colored obstacles. Polysphere is #2, a game about aligning shapes into a singular, larger object. Third is "Words Story", a game that appears to have achieved its status as a sort of meme game. Each game is free. Each game has ads and IAPs, some that will set you back quite a bit.

The Paid section has games that break boundaries. The Free section has three games with concepts that either have been done before/similarly or have severe potential hampers to their enjoyability. This is part of a larger trend. But let's consider the better part of the trend.

Consider the Editor's Choice games on the App Store. A large number of these are paid games. These games are "hand-picked" as games that excel in some way or another. Games like Old Man's Journey or Monument Valley or Gorogoa are puzzle games that task you with changing your perspective in unique ways. Dandara, Oddmar and FEZ are platformers that each have unique "hooks" that make them magnificent. Supergiant's Bastion and Transistor are there, too, both games that pushed narrative boundaries and meshed them with great gameplay.

There are more and more games following trends like these on mobile. In addition, there are console to mobile ports of old games (Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasies), there are ports of newer games (Monster Hunter Stories, Monster Hunter Freedom Unite), there are games launching on mobile first before heading to console (Layton's Mystery Journey), and more! We are getting an influx of great original games as well as ports of already great games.

There once was a time when Angry Birds and Cut the Rope were considered groundbreaking games, and let's face it, they were. They were at the cutting edge at the time of their release, and while they are still great games, there are many, many great games that have risen to meet them. While we may lament that mobile is filled with "trash", we have to admit that there are plenty of great games on there as well.

What about Nitrome? The guys make a living on puzzle game formats centered around taking the simplicity of phone control schemes and plunging it into the depths of the ethereal plain and back. They even managed to sell one of them on steam, Bomb Chicken. Chicken lays bombs, that's about it, but this one ability is pushed to its max. They make platformers, a physics based dungeon run, turn based board combat, and a bunch of other games that, while you would typically find these on a flash website, make good investments as far as a quick time waster on the phone is concerned.

Mecha Leo :

Nitrome was my jam back in the day. I don’t keep up with them much anymore, but they had a lot of fresh concepts, or at least existing concepts presented in new ways. I’ve played one or two of their mobile games, and they ought to be mentioned.

I rarely trust the top charts for mobile games. I only go by editors choice or what's hot/word of mouth.

Even some of the games that are near the top of the free section aren't all that great, just some remade reskinned versions of other games.

There are amazing games though, like Summoners War and Fire Emblem Heroes, obviously games like Pokemon Go, and others.

zanderlex : Honestly, when it comes to mobile games. You should probably just check to see if it looks fun. (Usually you can tell by the trailer.) And check the reviews.

A lot of devs pay for reviews, so you should see what the 1 - 4 star reviews are complaining about.

pennylessz : they pay for reviews? Tell me moar.

zanderlex : If you search hard enough on the play store, you can find an app that offers to pay you to post reviews. It's like 11 cents per review or something. And often times, they'll tell you exactly what to write. Sometimes you can write what you want, but you might not get paid if they dislike it. You're supposed to download the app and use it for a minute. I don't know if I always did that. Anyway, I attempted to cash out and couldn't. I don't know if the app was a scam, or if it glitched, but I never got my money.

Mobile games have been on the rise for some time and I don't think that it will stop anytime soon since it has kinda shown a trend where they usually earn a lot of money through the micro transactions that are usually in them.