Just 1 and a half days more to 2016! Let us recap the Top 10 Japanese mobile games from 2015!
Top 10 Japanese Mobile Game 2015
One of the closest thing to an actual MMORPG, Final Fantasy Grandmasters is a mobile game based on the hit MMORPG, Final Fantasy XI. Players will find the game familiar in the land of Vana’diel. FFGM is a 4-player co-op game where Players can join into another person’s battle any time and in real-time. During events, players can tag along 3 other friends to kill bosses and stand chance to acquire great S-rank loots! Similar to the MMO version, Players can pick a main and sub job to complement each other and boost your character’s power. With weekly events and a in-game chat system, FFGM has become one of the most community played game in Kongbakpao.com.
This could easily be the top game for 2015 if not for some minor hiccups during it’s launch month. Basically, there wasn’t any new content for almost a month. Developed by Alim, the creators of Brave Frontier, Final Fantasy Brave Exvius is a simple tap battle game with original characters and also characters from the original Final Fantasy franchise. The game is story driven, it has familiar bosses from the previous Final Fantasy games, Eidolens and many other features that brings back nostalgic memories of the Final Fantasy franchise. Till date, FFBE is still my staple game.
Fans of the Bravely (Bravely Default) series will definitely love this game! Set in a parallel universe a few hundred years after the events in Bravely Default, follow our young protagonist and travel all over the world to recover the lost knowledge and memories that is trapped within the Giant Crystal. Combat is turn based and almost as similar as the Tap-Battle system. Players will have to decide whether to do normal attack (swipe left), hit the enemy up to set up for air combo (swipe up), and finally, swipe down to hit the enemy down from the air to deal a high amount of damage. The game is great with constant updates and collaboration earning the number 3 spot from me!
Bleach Brave Souls is a simple ARPG game with tons of nostalgic Bleach scenes. The game’s story mode follows closely to the original Anime version and remind us players what made Bleach one of the Big 3 Anime back then. This is one of the rare games that do not have an Evolution system thus rerolling for a 5* character is very important at the start of the game. Also, with each increase in rarity level, there will be an additional skill for your characters to use. Fortunately, the game is quite generous in giving out gems and Gacha tickets to the players, thus it’s still viable for F2P players with decent luck. Lately, there has been tons of events going on keeping the game’s community busy till 2016! Can’t wait for the English version to be out though!!!
The game that has probably the most fans from the original Anime series. Fate/Grand Order went through a major hiccup during its Android launch. The game was down for maintenance almost everyday and for an extended period of time without knowing when it’ll recover. To make things worse, the Gacha is a mixture of Servants and Essences. I remember I had to re-roll for 5 days before pulling a 5* Saber to start the game. The game was also not balanced well initially as Jeanne or Hercules is almost 2 tiers above the other 5* cards. However, over the months, there are tons of improvements in the game and the Publisher Aniplex is also generous in giving out gems. With one of the most fanbase in the world, Fate/Grand Order earns the number 5 spot here.
This is one of those hidden gems that I regretted not investing some time in it. Players take on the role of a High School Teacher, who has newly joined Battle Girl High School. Being the only Male teacher or rather the only MALE in the whole school, players will have to train your girls, I mean train your students to save the world from invading monsters. The game is a mixture of Action RPG plus a little dating sims element. The game is similar to White Cat Project (Rune Story) where Players will only need to use 1 finger to control your Waifus. Players can collect all kinds of wonderful costumes from the Gacha machine and doll up your students. There’s also a Chinese version in the Taiwan Play/App Store.
7. Monster Gear
Monster Gear is a Monster hunting game with over 150 different types of monsters. The game supports a 4 player co-op battle system where players, together with your friends, can come together and hunt powerful equipments. Controls are pretty simple, there are 4 main buttons to look out for. The Attack Button, the Defense Button, the Weapon Skill Button and the Monster Skills portrait. Players will need to strategize when to tap each button and not just mindless tap the attack button. The bad thing about the co-op system is that it uses proximity connection which means you can only connect with players who are within a certain range and not globally. The game is actually great if not for Sega’s greedy IAP monetization. Yes, good gear must be Gachaed.
Capcom’s flagship Monster Hunting series. Similar to it’s predecessors, players will take on the role as a Monster Hunter, going around killing Monsters, farm equipments and become stronger to unlock more monsters to kill. Unlike other Japanese games, MHE doesn’t have any gacha system. Gems are only used to gain extra loots. However, since there is no Energy system in the game, Players can easily farm the monsters the whole day and save up those gems. Combat is simple and similar to White Cat Project. Players will control your characters using only 1 finger. There is a co-op feature just like the original Monster Hunter series where you can party up with 3 other people to take down bigass raid bosses. The game is great for Monster Hunter fans but the grind is also too great for me to handle >.<
This is probably the first Japanese Mobile game I’ve played that made me really wished I knew Japanese. There are tons of videos and cutscenes before every mission. The voice-over for the Seven lady Cops is great and the game is actually quite challenging. I’m never really a fan for Arcade Shooters as I’m really bad in it, but this is definitely a must try! If you enjoy playing Virtua Cop or Time Crisis in the Arcade, now you can stay at home and play a similar game on your mobile devices. Controls are very simple. Since you don’t get to step on a pedal, Players will only need to tap on the Fire button to shoot and release it to take cover. You can also slide the screen and run to another cover to dodge bullets shooting from different angles. Also, while holding on to the Fire button, you can shift your fingers slightly up or down to move the crosshair.
Guardians Violation is a Real-Time Battle RPG game. Like most recent Japanese Mobile games, dialogues are fully voice-overed, there’s also a few Anime cutscenes throughout the game. The game’s combat is pretty simple. Players will summon and equip different Spirit Weapons. In battle, there are 3 options to choose from; Attack, Defend and Skill. As combat is real time, players will need to take note of the opponent’s actions and timely tap on the defend button to defend. If you’ve played Monster Gear, the battle concept is similar.
This list is created based on the following factors:
1. Gameplay
2. Popularity (on this site, Facebook group, app ranking)
3. My own bias.
There are tons of great Japanese mobile games in 2015 and it took me quite some time to come up with this top 10 list. Hope some of these games will make it into the English market. Stay tuned for the Top 10 English Mobile games later.
