Ember and Ash

Ember and Ash is a proper role-playing game that respects your time without dumbing itself down. Combat is turn-based and reads clearly on a small screen, with big tappable icons and a queue that shows exactly what happens next. We rarely mis-tapped, which for a mobile RPG is a small miracle.

The story surprised us. Your early decisions actually change which companions stay with you, and a couple of branches locked us out of content we didn't get to see until a second run. Save files sync well, so we bounced between two phones without losing progress.

It does ask for a bit of storage and the longer battles heat the device up, so we knocked the resolution scaler down one notch and lost almost nothing visually. Anyone who likes a slower, thoughtful RPG will get a lot of hours here.

What we liked

• Choices that genuinely branch the story
• Readable turn-based combat on small screens
• Reliable cloud saves between devices