Gaming on mobile, tablet and other non-dedicated devices is incredibly convenient, and these days, often possible without too many compromises. But one of the big ones can be having to play with touch controls.
While developers often go to admirable lengths to ensure their games are playable with just the display on your phone, it’s almost always better to use a traditional controller where possible.
(Image credit: Konami)
These days, you could commit to playing only new Metroidvania games for an entire year and easily keep yourself occupied, so it’s a testament to Castlevania: Symphony of the Night that it’s still one of the best games in the whole genre all these years later.
And thankfully, the 1997 classic that started its life as a PlayStation and Sega Saturn game is fully playable with a controller on Android, which is absolutely the way you’ll want to play it.
Symphony of the Night on Android is a rock solid port that plays smoothly and doesn’t mess you about with in-app purchases. Pay the very reasonable £3 / $3 upfront price, and you’ll be left in peace to explore the intricate labyrinth that is Dracula’s castle in all of its interconnected glory.
Many games have imitated Symphony of the Night’s winning blend of combat and exploration, but few have done it this well.
(Image credit: Sega)
Alien: Isolation is all three of these things: the best (by far) Alien game of all time, one of the best licensed games of all time, and one of the most terrifying survival horror games of all time – and you can play it on your phone with a controller.
This first-person game has you play as the daughter of Ellen Ripley in an original story set 15 years after the original Alien. Just as the xenomorph relentlessly hunted her mother, Amanda Ripley is also trying to evade the deeply unsettling alien on a creepy and mostly empty spaceship, with the star of the game being the still impressive AI powering the iconic big bad.
Its unpredictable stalking routine means you never really feel safe, and with combat very rarely being your best option, you’ll instead spend most of the game’s chunky runtime trying to sneak past the xenomorph unnoticed – or desperately hiding from it once it’s spotted you.
Playing a game as scary as Alien: Isolation on a dinky little phone or tablet actually adds to the claustrophobia, and widespread controller support means that when the alien does catch you (and it will), it won’t be because the game failed you.
(Image credit: Chucklefish)
If you’ve never played a minute of Stardew Valley then you surely must have been living a life of blissful ignorance under a rock for the best part of the last decade. This endlessly generous and charming farming sim is a bonafide indie classic, and its bitesized tasks make it perfectly suited to mobile.
About as cozy and wholesome as games get, and so packed with content that it could easily be the only game you play, there’s a reason why it’s still so beloved after all these years.
Whether you’re committed to assembling the best farm the world has ever seen, tempted by a life of adventure or just looking for love, Stardew Valley is the game for you.
You probably could manage to knock together a pretty respectable farm with touch controls alone, but when it comes to stepping away from the turnips and getting stuck into the dungeon crawling element of the game, it just feels a lot nicer to play Stardew with proper controls.