Super Mario Run

Super Mario Run was Mario's first genuine entry onto mobile platforms in 2016, and Nintendo chose an unusual control scheme for it – the character runs to the right on its own, and the player only taps the screen to jump, time bounces off enemies, and collect coins, similar to endless-runner games, just with carefully designed levels instead of random generation. This means the whole game can be played one-handed on the subway or on the go, which was clearly meant to make classic platforming fun accessible even to people who have never used a virtual joystick on a phone and don't want to learn one.

The level design carries the signature of classic Mario games – hidden coins, bonus paths, and a competition for the smoothest, most efficient run without a single hesitation – and the game also includes a separate mode where the player builds their own Kingdom using coins collected in the running levels and invites other players' characters into it. The music and visuals come straight from the Mario canon, so the atmosphere fits even on a small screen and doesn't feel like a cheap offshoot of the main series, but rather like a full-fledged, just shorter Mario outing.

Unlike most mobile titles on this list, this isn't free-to-play with gacha or ads – after trying a few initial levels for free, unlocking the rest of the game costs a one-time payment, which sparked discussion at the time about whether players used to free-to-play mobile games would even get used to such a model.

Why play it: Players who want a classic Mario platformer controllable with one hand and don't mind paying for full content instead of watching ads or dealing with gacha.