Skyler Orton
When Nintendo broke into mobile gaming in 2016, no one knew what to expect from the gaming giant. The results were varied, and Nintendo has kept releasing weird new mobile experiences through September 2025 with the release of Fire Emblem: Shadows. With the recent release of that title, now seems like the perfect time to look at Nintendo’s mobile game history and see if their mobile experience was worth it.
As a note before I start, I’m only counting games and not apps like Nintendo Music or Nintendo Today. I will also not count Pokemon games as technically Pokemon is not owned by Nintendo (despite that common misconception). Also then I would have to rank over a dozen more games because why did they make so many Pokemon mobile games.
10. Hello, Mario! (2025)
I’m technically including this as it is a game in the loosest sense of the word. A part of Nintendo’s new line of products aimed at preschool children, this game is basically just the title screen to Super Mario 64. Users can drag Mario’s face around, decorate it, and more. There’s not really any substance here, but as a tool to distract young children it’ll get the job done.
9. Fire Emblem Shadows (2025)
When I opened up r/fireemblem on September 25th to look at theories for the next mainline game the last thing I expected was for a new game to be shadow dropped. But when I instead saw a chibi lion version of Fire Emblem Three Houses’ Dimitri I dropped everything to download whatever Fire Emblem Shadows is.
The game is technically a social deduction game but with only three players. The gameplay feels like an autobattler. Your character moves in real time and spells and actions happen through cooldowns. Where does social deduction fit in? It doesn’t really.
A single match happens in two phases. One where all three players combat npc villains while the secret villain tries to sabotage and another where the two heroic players fight the villain. Guessing the villain rewards players with an extra life but ultimately the deduction element doesn’t matter.
The most absurd thing about the game is that, as of the time of writing, there are only three Fire Emblem returning characters. The rest are original to this game’s cast. Not only that, two returning characters are locked behind the premium battle pass. This one is almost a complete miss which is a shame for one of my favorite Nintendo franchises.
8. Pikmin Bloom (2021)
Your mileage with Pikmin Bloom may vary depending on what you’re looking for, but this AR experiment is barely a game and more of a gamified lifestyle app. Following the åwild success of Pokemon Go it was natural for Niantic to follow it up in some way.
The game encourages you to be out and about, and as you walk, a trail of flowers sprouts behind your avatar. The game’s concept is cool and I especially appreciate the way it tries to be a lifestyle app with journaling while still being gamified. Despite this being a cool experiment it falls flat. For those in a rural area, it especially falls flat since a lot of the charm is seeing other users fill up the digital world. Combined with the barebones gameplay, it’s just not enough to beat the other games on this list.
7. Miitomo (2016)
Miitomo is technically a spin-off of Nintendo’s popular Tomodatchi Life series. Unfortunately, being a mobile game, this life simulation title doesn’t have the level of depth to the main series. Also, unlike the main series, most of the focus was on being social with other players. The game encouraged you to find other players, in real life and on social media, and interact with their Mii to gain rewards in your game. The concept was fun enough to satisfy those who enjoyed the main series. Your imported Miis couldn’t interact with each other so a lot of the charm of the original was lost. People fell off quickly and by 2018 it was shut down because of a lack of users.
6. Dr. Mario World
Dr. Mario World is the game that dares to answer the question everyone’s been asking. What if Dr Mario, the classic NES puzzle game, was a little more like Candy Crush? This mobile spinoff of the popular puzzle series is just that. A fun little mobile match three game with a Dr. Mario coat of paint.
Instead of falling from the top of the screen, capsules move from the bottom and after making a match the remaining capsule could be brought somewhere else. On top of the fun enough gameplay twists, there were also multiplayer modes. Versus mode was good fun and turned a typical match three puzzler into a competitive good time.
Plus I have to give it bonus points for some of the character designs. Why weren’t Dr. Dry Bowser, Dr. Dolphin, and Dr. Goomba Tower in Mario Kart World? Easy costumes.There you go Nintendo, you don’t even have to pay me.
Unfortunately the game didn’t earn back its server costs and the game was shut down in late 2021. I think it’s a shame since I would much rather play it than most match three games. Ultimately though it’s a simple good time especially compared to the more complex offerings on this list.
5. Dragalia Lost (2018)
This mobile game is unique since it’s Nintendo’s only original IP mobile game (although arguably Fire Emblem Shadows is basically an original IP). Collaborating with popular mobile game company Cygames, Dragalia Lost was a 3D action adventure gacha game with all of the good and bad that come with it.
The main gimmick was that all of the characters turned into dragons to unleash extra powerful attacks. The swipe based combat worked well with this riding the line between simple and too complex. The game was successful enough to get crossovers with other major franchises like Persona 5 so it’s a wonder why Nintendo canned the game in November 2022. Now Dragalia Lost is lost media which its small but faithful legion of fans mourn.
4. Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp (2017)
Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp is exactly what it seems. It takes the relaxing lifestyle gameplay of the Animal Crossing series and it works fairly well. Instead of the town you normally decorate, Pocket Camp gives you your own campsite to decorate how you please. Villager interactions stick around too, but with a more complicated system where your friendship level progresses over time.
Pocket Camp also experimented with timer based gameplay which makes it a much more casual experience. It was also a social experience at heart and trading with other players was a major mechanic. Despite the game being fun and gaining a large fanbase, it shut down in late 2024. Unlike other canceled Nintendo experiences, Pocket Camp got a paid offline version only days after it shut down. I wish Nintendo would do this more since Animal Crossing Pocket Camp Complete is the perfect way to enjoy the game without the microtransactions that dragged the original game down.
3. Fire Emblem Heroes (2017)
Nintendo surprisingly adapted one of its more niche (and my favorite) franchises as one of its first mobile games. Like countless other mobile games, it’s a gacha title that focuses on getting as many of Fire Emblem’s hundreds of characters as possible in one game. The gameplay is a simplified version of the main series’ combat as 4 units play in turn based battles on a smaller map.
When the game is at its best it plays almost like a puzzle game with RPG elements. Moving your units around the battlefield trying to find the perfect solution is genuinely engaging when it works. Game modes like Aether Raids are enjoyable competitive modes, while the main story mode has an interesting spin on Norse mythology. There’s a lot here to love and the game is relatively generous to free to play players.
Unfortunately the game also suffers from terrible powercreep. While building your units skills was one of the best parts of the game 5 years ago, at this point each skill is paragraphs long and requires a depth of knowledge on the game’s mechanics to understand. Another flaw is unfortunately monetization.
Fire Emblem Heroes is easily the most profitable Nintendo mobile game with a ridiculous $1 billion dollars in microtransactions over its lifespan. Despite this profit it only has 19 million downloads which is ridiculous when compared to a game like Mario Kart Tour which only made $300 million on 290 million downloads. This just means that, while the game is playable for free, its techniques to wring money out of you clearly work on a lot of people.
While the game has incredibly high highs, especially for longtime fans of the series, it also has low lows. While the style of gameplay won’t gel with everyone, those who do are sure to be rewarded with a new daily play. Just please be careful with your money; this is basically a slot machine.
2. Mario Kart Tour (2019)
Mario Kart Tour does an admirable job of translating Mario Kart’s gameplay onto your phone. In fact there are probably a lot of people who mainly know it from the tracks that were ported over to Mario Kart 8. The gameplay is classic Mario Kart with tight turns, ridiculous items, and colorful Nintendo charm. The character special items are the highlight and make me miss the same mechanic in Mario Kart Double Dash. So where does it go wrong? Two things: multiplayer and monetization.
At launch Mario Kart Tour didn’t have any multiplayer at all. Mario Kart, being a classic party game, really thrives on that multiplayer so it makes it especially baffling why this mainstay took over 6 months to come to the game. This killed a lot of popularity for the game but once it was added the aggressive monetization hurt it even more.
To play at the higher CC most players enjoy you need the premium subscription. On top of that, characters still use the dreaded gacha system to unlock. Finally the game’s format is not friendly to how most Mario Kart players enjoy playing. There are selections of cups and courses that rotate every two weeks, and unlock slowly over the two weeks. This drip feed of courses means you could get stuck with unfun courses and the rotation means it’s difficult to get good at them, especially the new courses.
Despite these flaws, the moment to moment gameplay is very fun and Mario Kart to the core. The new course designs are controversial to some but the layouts are engaging and fun. Not to mention the endless wealth of fun costumes. If Mario Kart World had half the costumes and characters this game had, no one would be complaining.
1. Super Mario Run (2016)
Super Mario Run is the game that proved to Nintendo these mobile experiments would work. It is notable since it is a fully paid game which means it doesn’t fall prey to any of the microtransactions that plague the other games. So is it fun? Yeah it’s a lot of fun.
It basically takes a Mario level but puts it on an autorunner. The autorunner might not sound fun, but it really fits the game’s level design. Despite the constraint, there are a lot of creative level designs within the space. The haunted mansion levels are a highlight to me and manage to still create mazes and puzzles with the autorunner.
The highlight by far is the Remix 10 mode added after launch. Remix 10 gives an endless number of short course segments played in quick succession. It never gets old as enough other factors like collectibles and such make it something to play for a long time. While that’s a highlight the main story mode is still fun and engaging for anyone to pick up and play. The best part? No ads and no microtransactions.
That’s my ranking but what’s yours? Are these even worth playing? Should Nintendo make more? Let us know in the comments below.
That’s a fascinating point about emotional connection in games! It really resonates – Sprunki OC Real seems to nail that with its character-driven stories & music creation. It’s cool to see depth beyond just gameplay! ✨