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Shattered Pixel Dungeon is great, it's an open-source dungeon crawler. Neither adds, nor transactions, micro or otherwise. If you want to pay tho, there's a donation link for the dev team.
And if you still want too play GBA games, check check out the Lemuroid emulator, it's also open source and has no adds. Works for nintendoDS too.
You can find both of these on F-Droid. They're also be on Google Play, but since I've only tried the F-Droid version idk if the other has adds.
the dev team
The team is one guy. His name's Evan.
I also highly recommend Shattered Pixel Dungeon. I've been playing it for years.
There's also a version of Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup on mobile. Although the UI is quite clunky with the control and shift commands imported from PC. But the gameplay is more elaborate than Shattered Pixel Dungeon, I'd say.
Started playing Balatro on my phone at work.
I didn't need to know mobile balatro was a thing, oh no. Not good.. not good.
How bad could it be, just a quick little game.
Don't download Balatro on mobile unless you want to lose your job, family, friends, and health. It's that addictive.
Ooh yeah pc games that have good mobile ports are a good shout!
Surprised Slice & Dice hasn't been mentioned, it's amazing. That and Dawncaster.
A useful tool is DarkPattern.games, which lists dark patterns in mobile games (such as micro transactions).
I am ready to dedicate my life to adding reviews to that site and getting more people to contribute. I want an app store that automatically filters out things below like a 2.
I am in love.
That site is sick! TYVM!
Whatever emulator you can run and the ROMs of your choice.
Slay The Spire
How is the mobile port? I like the PC version but recall someone saying the mobile port specifically wasn't great.
It's exactly the same game
The only quirks I've noticed are minor. You sometimes go back to your home screen if you try dragging a card too close to the edge of the screen. Sometimes the the lower background elements don't stay in the background and cover pertinent information
Mindustry is basically Factorio-meets-tower-defense. It's open-source, also available on desktop.
Into The Breach
Some good ones from the fdroid app-repo.
Shattered Pixel Dungeon - already mentioned roguelike
SGT-Puzzles - already mentioned microgame puzzlers
Frozen Bubble - already mentioned bubble-shooter
Vector Pinball - already mentioned pinball
https://f-droid.org/en/packages/net.artificialworlds.boxstacker/index.html - Physics puzzler
https://f-droid.org/packages/com.simondalvai.ball2box/ - flick ball to the box for 3-stars
https://f-droid.org/packages/com.gpl.rpg.AndorsTrail/ - Massive story quest driven RPG
https://f-droid.org/packages/de.chadenas.cpudefense/ - Tower defense on a PCB
https://f-droid.org/packages/ch.logixisland.anuto/ - trad tower-defense
https://f-droid.org/packages/it.alessandropira.wesnoth114/ - hex turn-based fantasy RPG
https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.lettucepie.flickybee/index.html - flick the bee through the course
Mini Metro. Its a transportation strategy game where you build and manage a city´s metro system through the style of the London tube map. You pay once and get the whole game. No ads or micro transactions.
Open Tyrian is an old shoot em up thats open source and has been ported to dozens of platforms, including android. It plays very well with touch controls.
If you want a Minecraft like game thats free and has no microtransactions I recommend Minetest (Now called Luanti). Its open source and has tons of mods.
I didn't see Unciv recommended yet, it's a decent mobile open source version of Civilization.
Pocket City 2 also gets a shout-out, it's not very deep but a nice casual city builder with a one time purchase.
Slay the Spire is one of my favorite games of all time, and has a nice android port I play before bed all the time. No ads, just caw caaaw
Balatro and Slay the Spire both have a lot of reply value. Very different games.
Papers Please
Rollercoaster Tycoon Classic, if you feel like playing rollercoaster tycoon 1/2 on your phone. They slightly altered the UI to make it more touch friendly.
Stardew Valley! It was worth the $5 already in vanilla, then it got updated with more content at no extra charge and then again. And now 1.6 is around the corner with even more. It is the love child of one dev that keeps on giving and giving and giving. And there are tons of mods of all kinds including entire world overhauls that adds even more replayability. Very much recommended.
~~Freeciv~~ Unciv on Android is an almost feature complete re-creation of Civilization 5 with minimal graphics. You can also download the JAR and run it on a desktop if you have a Java SDK installed. As a Civ player that started with 4, I found it easier to pick up than freeciv which is trying to replicate something more like Civ2.
Edit: provide correct name
Plague Inc - control a plague and try to kill all humans on earth (tactical simulation)
Interstellar Pilot and Interstellar Pilot 2 - human explorers jumped through a wormhole to distant space and lost contact with earth. Factions control different sectors, some are friendly some are warring. You start with a single ship and try to do anything between simple survival and building a new faction to conquer all of this new space. (Open world rpg with tactical simulation elements)
Battlecruisers - The machines won, humanity is no more. You are not the smartest robot and somehow you managed to accidentally hijack a military battlecruiser. You are pursued across the world's oceans by several navies while you try to figure out how to get out of the mess you created. (shipbuilder)
Https://lichess.org/training lets me pretend I'm improving my mind by playing.
Google en provement
The Netflix version of mobile games have their micro transactions removed (or at least all the ones I've downloaded).
Threes
Fun puzzle game that got ripped off by 2048 and it's endless clones. They wrote a blog post on how shitty mobile game development can be.
Balatro
DATA WING is a great racing game with an amazing, short story.
Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion is a fun little RPG with lots of humour
Dribble is a surprisingly unique platformer, free with no iaps and unique swipe controls.
You can get ports of the marble blast games on Android, I particularly like Ultra.
You can play Morrowind on Android through OpenMW Android. I think this is the most updated version but you have to build it yourself: https://gitlab.com/cavebros/openmw-android
I have the following games on my iPhone:
Balatro, works really well with touch, numbers go brrrrrrrrr
I like vector pinball as well.
Endless Sky is a solid space trader and combat game, free on f-droid
Frozen Bubble is a pretty fun ~~bubble bobble~~ Puzzle Bobble clone, also on f-droid
Arx Libertatis allows you to play the full version of Arx Fatalis, a super in depth underground RPG inspired by Ultima Underworld. You need the PC game files to transfer to your phone though.
Balatro has no micro transactions but will consume your life regardless
Hoplite, Pixel Dungeon, micRogue
I really enjoyed playing the platforms cats are liquid: a better place(there is also a light in the shadow, but that game is worse); catbird, nameless cat, kitty death room and the 4 dadish games
If you want a game that has microtransactions, but rarely try to sell you things, i would recommended the tower defense game(i think) the battle cats. There is also a 10 year celebration that gives you a lot of rewards
Minecraft pocket edition has microtransactions but it only ever pushes them on the menu never actually in game so maybe that's a compromise? Also it's simple but this port of Simon Tatham's portable puzzle collection is pretty good and has no ads or microtransactions https://f-droid.org/en/packages/name.boyle.chris.sgtpuzzles/
iPhone or android?
There are a decent number of indie games, at least on iPhone. I play Balatro, monster train, binding of Isaac, stardew valley, slay the spire, dead cells, dicey dungeons, alto's odyssey on iPhone (some with a controller).
The whole Cube Escape Series.
Old school RuneScape
There is a f2p that you can get hundreds of hours out of, but the full game has a monthly membership. It’s possible to sustain the membership with the in-game money you make just skilling/pvm drops.