Emberfall Chronicle

Emberfall Chronicle is the real RPG of this batch, and it's one of the better mobile ones I've played this year. You build a party of four, wander a hand-drawn continent, and work through a story that actually bothers to give its characters motives. Combat is turn-based with a tap-to-target layer that keeps your thumbs busy without demanding twitch reflexes.

The menus are dense, as RPGs tend to be, but they're organised well and everything is reachable with one hand in portrait mode. There's a generous auto-save and a low-power mode in the settings that caps the frame rate during exploration. I used it on longer train rides and it stretched my battery meaningfully, at the cost of a slightly less silky map screen.

My only real gripe is the early pacing, which front-loads a lot of text before the combat opens up. Push past the first hour and it becomes hard to put down.

What we liked

• Genuinely written story and characters
• One-handed friendly menus
• Low-power mode for long sessions