TechJunkie Expert Recommendations
When it comes to gaming, it’s hard to beat RPGs. Unlike the standard phone game, role-playing games provide unique characters, engaging battle systems, and the level of depth that most hardcore gamers want from mobile titles.
However, with how accessible Google has made the Android platform, there are a lot of RPG games for Android available—some that are excellent, and some that are not so good. And with new games launching almost every day, how can one possibly find the good RPG games to play, let alone all of the options that don’t require a WiFi or cellular connection. It’s certainly a process, but luckily, it doesn’t have to be.
That’s why we constructed this list of our favorite no WiFi RPG games for Android—so that you wouldn’t have to go digging through the depths of the Google Play Store yourself. Not only that, but you certainly don’t want to download a random RPG game, only to find out that it was one big waste of time because it didn’t meet your needs or content preferences. We did that work for you. And so, without further ado, here are the best RPG games for Android that don’t require an Internet connection. Let’s dive right in!
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Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic was one of Bioware’s earliest role-playing games that launched on the PC and consoles in the early 2000’s. Even though, today, graphics might not be as modern and detailed as we would normally like, it’s still a fun experience with immersive storytelling, as well as thoroughly developed characters. And the best of all — you can play this one offline! This game is all about fresh content. Since it takes place thousands of years before the Star Wars trilogy begins, players will be pretty new to this world. You’ll play as a new Republic soldier, but do have some customizations that you can make to make him or her fairly unique. It’s a typical, but exciting good versus evil battle. Hundreds of Jedi Knights have fallen to the Sith, and you are the Republic’s last hope to save the galaxy from the crushing tension of the Sith; however, as you quest and progress through the game, you’ll make choices that will determine your side. Will you help the Republic and the Jedi regain power, or will you join the Sith to put an end to the Jedi once and for all? This game is best played with a Bluetooth controller; however, the touch controls aren’t bad, and do allow you to make some fairly precise controls. It’s worth picking up if you’re looking for a well-rounded and immersive story to take part in. If you’ve already played through Knights of the Old Republic, we have great news for you: its sequel, Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords is now available on Android as well.
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Evoland is up next, and is one of the most unique role-playing games that you’ll find on Android. It isn’t an open world like The Elder Scrolls: Blades, but takes on a history of video games approach. If you’re wondering what early games looked like Evoland will start you out at that, and take you to what games look like today. You start out in a small, 8-bit 2D world. You’ll search around the map for different chests and upgrades. One chest might say something like “Audio Upgrade”, and once you open it, you’ll start hearing things like footsteps and sword clashes. Another chest you might see would be something like upgraded colors, which would then in turn add more color to the universe. You’ll eventually find your first weapon, and start exploring a full fleshed out combat system. There isn’t much of a storyline in Evoland, but really does focus on taking you through the history of video games. It’s also a short playthrough, taking around 40 minutes at most to complete the game. It’s still a lot of a fun if you’re looking for something unique, but certainly not immersive like, say, Knights of the Old Republic.
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Dungeon Quest isn’t your classic role-playing game for Android. This one is all about action; however, it does have a lot of role-playing elements to it. You can create a Wizard, Rogue, or Warrior, and then customize them with endless amounts of weapons and armor. There’s a gear-based skill and talent system, as well as a Crystal and Mythstone crafting system that gives you even more control over armor and weapon options. The game has plenty of content for playing offline. There are actually four total acts, each with a large boss that you’ll have to defeat in order to progress to the next act. You’ll venture through tons of different environments, and face all sorts of enemies, and in masses, too. There’s a pet system, where you can choose and customize a friend to take with you on your journey! If you get tired of playing offline and alone, when you’re around a WiFi or cellular connection, you can choose to go online and play on multiplayer.
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If you love open worlds and immersive storytelling like Skyrim and Morrowind, you’ll love what The Elder Scrolls: Blades has to offer. Android hasn’t seen an open world to the extent of Morrowind, and now, we have just that in The Elder Scrolls: Blades. It’s one of the first massive first person role playing games to come to Android. The Elder Scrolls: Blades has an excellent character creation screen, allowing you to truly dive into this open world with your own unique appearance and skill sets. You’ll be able to discover and find unique weapons, armor and abilities that you’ll be able to use to venture through the world and fight the legendary enemies and hordes within. It has a really good quest system in place. In summary, The Blades, the Empire’s top soldiers, are forced into exile. After you create your character, you head to your home city, only to find it destroyed, possibly something to deal with the exiled Blades. You’ll quest to unravel the mystery, and in the progress, attempt at rebuilding your home town to greatness. If there’s one major issue with Blades, it’s the amount of waiting you’ll have to do in between actions in the game. Still, it’s a solid free to play offering from Bethesda, especially with The Elder Scrolls VI still years away.
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One of our favorite offline role-playing games is Knights of Pen & Paper 2. This one takes on a unique style, actually resembling how a tabletop role-playing game like Dungeons & Dragons might play out. You have a Game Master at the table, and then your party members, as well as yourself. The Game Master guides you through the game, and helps you make decisions during combat and exploration through mysterious environments. In typical tabletop fashion, Knights of Pen & Paper 2 takes on a turn-based fashion, so the game does play out a little bit slower. It has some retro 8-bit graphics, which actually look really nice on mobile. There are plenty of character classes that you can choose and build out. There are the newly released Druid and Psion, and then you have the classics like Wizard, Warrior, and others. There’s a complete skill system that can upgrade your abilities, and Knights of Pen & Paper 2 also has a substantial amount of customization as far as weapons and armor goes. There’s even a crafting system where you can combine armor together to make, well, better armor! Knights of Pen and Paper 2 takes what was great in the original and makes it that much better.
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Eternium: Mage and Minions is a cross between your traditional role-playing game and a hack-and-slash action game a la Diablo 3. The game has an immersive and multiple thrilling story lines that you’ll be able to partake in; however, there’s also a vast and detailed world that you’ll be able to explore and dump hours upon hours of time into. Depending on the world or environment you enter, you’ll be able to battle robots and aliens, beasts and demons, and even the undead. There’s a lot of touch controls that will keep you very engaged in the gameplay — you’ll tap around the world to move your character, and then you’ll also swipe in different combinations to cast different spells on your enemies. Similar to games like Diablo 3, you’ll be able to select your class—Mage, Warrior or Bounty Hunterùand then wield a sword, axe, staff or gun to take into combat. As you progress through the game, your character will level up to learn new abilities, which is where the swiping function we talked about comes in. You can put an endless amount of hours into this game, because, not only are there three distinct and vast worlds to explore and conquer, but you can also fight enemies in an endless amount of automatically generated levels. The game can be played online; however, you can take Eternium: Mage and Minions offline for some no Wi-Fi fun after a couple of content downloads. Just make sure you have the room on your phone!
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If you loved the time of 8-bit retro games, you’ll love the vast adventure content that Exiled Kingdoms has to offer players. It’s a slight upgrade over the 8-bit style, taking on more of a early 2000’s style akin to Diablo 2. That said, the graphics aren’t the best by today’s standard, but it has an immersive storyline that’ll easily keep your attention. It takes on an action RPG style, giving you the top down perspective in a tap-to-move world. Exiled Kingdoms’ goal is to drop you in a challenging environment that you can truly have an impact on. There’s a consequence with every choice, and there are multiple paths to develop out your character and affect the world as a whole. There are dozens of quests, beautifully written dialog, over 135 areas to explore, and an endless amount of mysteries to uncover. Exiled Kingdoms says that there’s about 120 hours of gameplay in this game, which will keep you busy for weeks to come. Pick your class, upgrade your character, and bring peace to the Exiled Kingdoms once and for all.
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Portal Knights is one of the newer role-playing games to arrive on Android, placing you in a cooperative 3D sandbox where you’ll be able to fight solo or with your friends. The game can be played offline, giving you plenty of solo content to play; however, if you ever happen to be around a wireless connection, you can play local multiplayer with your friends. In Portal Knights, there’s a character progressions system like many typical role-playing games. You’ll be able to level up your character as you progress through the game and complete quests. You can craft powerful gear in order to upgrade your character’s skills, and really make yourself a force to be reckoned with. And you’ll definitely need that armor and upgraded skills when you go to defeat the epic boss battles. Players will be able to explore dozens of generated islands, and can work solo or together to restore peace to the world. As you explore, you’ll be able to meet inhabitants of the different worlds, complete their quests, and even recruit some of the citizens to your own homeland. When you want a break from exploring the vast world, you can actually create and architect your own island. Even with touch controls, you’ll be able to build up amazing and jaw-dropping structures in Portal Knights’ Creative Mode. You can mine and father resources, and then build your homeland up with plenty of different materials and furnishings.
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In this awesome RPG, you’ll be transported to a medieval world. One that requires strength, tenacity, and a measure of fierceness to sustain yourself and fight your way through life. In this fantasy world, you’re the hero tasked with battles and assignments to gain experience and keep climbing the level-ladder. In Forgotten Tales, you’ll encounter monsters, dragons, orcs, trolls, and plenty more mythical creatures. How you’ll overcome them is up to you: will you risk your life by taking on the challenge of battling against them in your own? Or will you build a band of trustworthy brothers of war to help aid you in times of trouble? Beyond the adventures of war, there is plenty to discover in this RPG. When you’re not fighting for your life, you’ll be discovering treasure, finding new deserts or getting lost in vast forestry. Be sure to carefully in both dungeons and caves, and maybe, just maybe, you’ll make your way out to see the sun again. Forgotten Tales is free on Google Play, and it’s an exciting game you won’t want to miss.
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Speaking of games that have been around for awhile, Final Fantasy has been beloved by many for over thirty years now. For the seasoned-gamer, Final Fantasy is among the classics that have made so many memories. And because of the game’s lifespan, it’s something they can pass on to their children, especially as we see so many of these great classics evolving with technology. What started on the original NES has now come all this way to our smart devices, which means it’s even more accessible for this generation than the last. While this game is huge, you won’t regret it. The storyline alone is worth it, as you’ll work tirelessly to find Princess Garnet, who is the heir of Alexandria. There are so many plot twist (but we can’t offer spoilers) and adventures in this game, between meeting new people, forming alliances with others, and getting to the bottom of the impending doom before it’s too late. In Final Fantasy, some of the best parts of the game are in the details that seem minor at first glance. Between armor build-ability, mini games, achievements, new skills, and more, each little detail is there to create a game-focused app that will provide hours and hours of entertainment for a long time to come.
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If you’re in need of some comedic relief, look no further than Crashlands. While this game has a seemingly endless array of awesome gameplay, the tone of the storyline and banter between friends as you go along is well worth noting. Not only will you have fun playing, but hopefully you’ll get quite a kick out of even the most basic of dialogue as it was intended. Basically, if you need a good laugh, Crashlands is the game for you. So what is Crashlands actually about anyway? Basically, you’re an alien trucker who lives in the galaxies. You’ll gain experience through a number of things: battling monsters, cooking new recipes, and more. As you level up, more and more places will be unlocked for you to explore. But with all new planets and galaxies come never-before-seen enemies too, so be sure to be on your guard. One of the best things about Crashlands is how diverse it is. You can go from battling alien enemies and taming strange creatures to building a base, working on your house, cooking food, playing delivery-guy, and more. Crashlands is essentially a game built for you to never tire of playing it, and honestly, we’re more than ok with that.
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Though originally for consoles and PC, Battle Chasers is a throwback RPG that looks absolutely stunning on mobile devices. You control up to three characters as they attack, defend, and heal, while up to three enemies attack you from the opposite side of the arena. Each character has basic attacks, along with abilities that require a certain amount of magic or health to use. As you level up, you gain new abilities and increase your stats. Without much in the way of serious real-time action, Battle Chasers shines on touchscreen devices. The virtual controls are good-enough for moving through the world, but when it comes time to battle, selecting your moves or items just feels right. Battle Chasers won’t be able to satisfy the needs of every gamer, but for those looking to capture the feel of old-school JRPGs while heading in a new direction in terms of worldbuilding, art style, and exploration. Development team Airship Syndicate made a fantastic throwback RPG here that manages to (mostly) avoid the pitfalls of other retro-inspired games, and at $10 for a complete 30-40 hour game, it’s well worth the asking price. And hey, Airship Syndicate is using their experience with the Diablo-inspired dungeons for good use, with a Darksiders spin-off entitled Darksiders Genesis coming later this year.
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Considered one of the best games of all time and a major landmark in platform-RPGs, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night has finally arrived on Android. Originally released on the PlayStation in 1997, Symphony of the Night is a direct sequel to Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, and sees Alucard exploring his father’s castle after the disappearance of Richter Belmont. Once inside Dracula’s castle, you’ll find yourself lost in a maze, collecting items and abilities that let you traverse more and more sections of the castle. Symphony of the Night helped to cement the genre we now call Metroidvanias, and if you have yet to play this classic game nearly 25 years later, its Android release is a perfect opportunity. Available for just $2.99, this is the full game on mobile, with virtual controls, full Bluetooth controller support, no ads, unlockable characters like Richter and Maria, and a new continue system. It’s easily one of the best RPGs you can grab on Android today, and well worth the price of a coffee.
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EvoCreo was started as a Kickstarter project back in 2012, where it raised $2683 with a $2000 pledge goal. Although EvoCreo isn’t the only mobile title trying to capture some of that original Pokemon magic on mobile devices, it is one of the few RPGs that tries to match the visual look of the series as closely as possible. Anyone familiar with Pokemon’s third-generation of games will feel instantly at home here, as the 16-bit graphics seem directly inspired by Pokemon Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald. The experience of EvoCreo isn’t identical to Pokemon, however. There are some key differences between the two that make EvoCreo feel like its own thing without feeling too much like a copy of the original series. The biggest changes come from the starter Creos, which wisely choose to forego the traditional experience of selecting a water, fire, or grass type in exchange for creatures with different stats. Each Creo you can choose from has a personality type that matches its stats, which you can view in number form once you’ve selected your travel companion. Still, much of the actual core gameplay remains the same. Most of the game is spent moving around the world using one of three options for movement. The default control scheme is relies on a virtual D-Pad, which is located by default in the lower-left hand corner of the screen It worked about as well as you’d expect—lots of missed clicks and unread button presses, which made moving around the world more difficult than it would be in, say, a traditional Pokemon game. You can also select the ability to use a virtual analogue stick and the option to touch on the screen where you want to move and interact with. Overall, all three of these options were lacking in some meaningful way, but it wasn’t a dealbreaker. Still, if you’re looking for an excellent Pokemon-style RPG, it’s hard to beat EvoCreo.
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Although many consider its predecessor to be the superior game, Final Fantasy VII is one of the best RPGs of all time, and with the first part of the new Remake saga available on the PS4, there’s never been a better time to jump back into the game. Final Fantasy VII follows the story of Cloud Strife, a mercenary and ex-SOLDIER who is hired by a team of environmental terrorists named AVALANCHE. After making a daring escape from the city of Midgar, Cloud, Tifa, Barrett, and the rest of the gang will find themselves in over their heads, as a strange villain named Sephiroth seems to have a plan to destroy the planet. The game runs great on Android, and although some of the menus and polygonal character models look a bit dated, Final Fantasy VII remains a classic for a reason. The ATB battle system still stands as an exciting alternative to traditional turn-based combat, and some of the moments have cemented themselves as the best in the world of gaming.
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You can’t beat Baldur’s Gate when it comes to old-school RPGs. Developed by BioWare in 1998 (the team behind Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Mass Effect), Baldur’s Gate uses a modified version of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons to power both its rules set and its world. The game is played in real-time, a pretty big change from classic D&D, and the story itself is divided into seven chapters for the player to roleplay through. The story of the first Baldur’s Gate follows the main character’s journey along the Sword Coast, set in the world of the Forgotten Realms, as he or she grows up following a worldwide cataclysm. The game features a morality scale, something BioWare would return to in most of their future games. BioWare released a sequel, Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn, and although a third game was planned, it languished in development hell for two decades. In 2019, Larian Studios—the team behind the acclaimed Divinity series—announced they would be releasing Baldur’s Gate III in early access in 2020.
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Although Dragon Quest has only had limited success in the United States, it’s one of the largest game series in Japan. The game has seen dozens of releases since the 1980s, with Dragon Quest VIII often considered one of the best RPGs of the era. This is an old-school turn-based RPG, something the series has excelled in since the original releases, which means you’ll be battling it out against the biggest, baddest monsters around. The story revolves around the silent protagonist, a former guard in the Kingdom of Trodain, who manages to escape from being cursed by a magic spell that affects every member found inside the royal castle. With a full group of mercenaries behind him, they’ll journey forth towards defeating the wicked Dhoulmagus. Despite a fairly standard fantasy tale, the English translation of the game has been praised for its sense of humor, and the game contains more than 80 hours worth of gameplay, making it great bang for your buck.
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If you’re looking for a Dark Souls-like game, it’s tough to beat Way of Retribution: Awakening. Despite its generic name, this game looks fantastic on Android, featuring a similar gameplay style to that of the first Dark Souls title. Unlike many landmark RPG series, Dark Souls doesn’t have a game on Android, but Way of Retribution can make up for that if you’re looking for an on-the-go title. From character creation and detailed classes to incredible action combat, Way of Retribution is perfect for any fan of FromSoftware’s games.
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Although the Mana series has spun out to create its own identity over time—with Secret of Mana on the SNES in particular being a legendary RPG—but it began its life as a Final Fantasy sub-series on the Game Boy, with the first game in the series titled Final Fantasy Adventure. After a long hiatus, a remake of Final Fantasy Adventure for mobile devices, now renamed Adventure of Mana, was commissioned to become one of the mainline games in reintroducing the series to gamers across the world. As you can tell from its inclusion on this list, their efforts were a massive success. Adventure of Mana is one of the best games on Android, and a must-play for any fan of the series. Remade from the ground up in brand-new 3D environments, Adventure of Mana follows a gladiator indentured to the Duchy of Glaive. After years of fighting for the amusement of the Dark Lord of the Glaive, your hero decides to create his own fate, and works to stop the attacks of the Dark Lord against the Tree of Mana. Pulling inspiration from dozens of classic fantasy titles, Adventures of Mana is the best way to experience the original Final Fantasy Adventure in 2020.
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