Puzzle & Dragons

Puzzle & Dragons stood at the birth of the puzzle-RPG genre and remains among the highest-grossing mobile games ever made, largely thanks to enormous popularity in its home country of Japan, where it dominated revenue charts for years. The principle seems simple: the player drags a finger across a grid to move colored orbs and tries to line them up in rows of three or more, triggering attacks from the team's monsters according to the color of the matching element. Beneath this simple facade, however, lies surprising depth – experienced players can chain several combos together in a single move and squeeze far more damage out of one turn than a beginner's first impression would suggest.

The game from GungHo Online Entertainment released in 2012 and became the template for an entire wave of similar titles that combined match-three mechanics with collecting and upgrading monsters – this recipe can be found today in dozens of other games, though few have reached the same commercial success and longevity. Collecting monsters, fusing them, and building a team with balanced elements form the other half of the game alongside the puzzle-solving itself, giving players a long-term goal for progressing through more difficult dungeons.

Monetization is built on gacha draws for rare monsters using in-game currency that can also be purchased, but regular play works fine without spending, and a lot of content remains accessible for free even to long-term players.

Why play it: For fans of puzzle games who want to see where the entire puzzle-RPG genre came from, and don't mind an older, less flashy visual style compared to newer titles.