Music games are many, but fine music games might take a while to weed out from the crowd. We have compiled a short list of the music and rhythm games we love, so without further ado, here they come.

Lost in Harmony

Developer: Digixart Entertainment, France
Download from Google Play | iTunes
Price: $3.99

When it comes to music games, Lost in Harmony (review) is my #1 recommendation. It has everything – an emotional story, protagonists who are easy to empathize with, gorgeous music, beautiful design and challenging gameplay. It’s accessible for anyone to pick up and play, yet difficult enough to please the serious gamer. Kaito and Aya are teenagers in love, and Aya is dying. Lost in Harmony is their story. They fight the inevitability, try to escape it, then try to let go. As you progress through the gorgeously drawn levels and fiendishly placed music keys, a deep, emotional journey unfolds. It’s the two of them against the world.
Lost in Harmony has an editor that lets you create your own tracks with the music in your library, and share your creations with the community. You can play other people’s tracks, too.

Some will fancy the customizations, like the clothes, hats and skateboards for the protagonist. The music genres are mainly great renditions of classic tunes and a few catchy new ones. Totally worth its price.

Deemo

Developer: Rayark International Limited, Taiwan
Download from Google Play | iTunes
Price: $1.99

Rayark is by a large margin the leader of the music games niche. Even though our list is short, we could not make do with just one game from Rayark. Deemo and Cytus have long become the go-to recommendations of the music fans, and for a good reason. Deemo is, again, a mix of a music game and a fantasy story, with beautiful hand-drawn art, and a gameplay challenging enough to keep you hooked. Deemo is an eerie character living in solitude that’s broken by an unexpected visitor. A girl falls down from the sky, amnesiac, and scared. She needs to go back home, and Deemo sees every time he plays piano a tree grows taller right in the middle of it. As they play the piano, they also develop a bond. Will Deemo let the tree grow tall enough to let the girl escape his world? The music selection is great, with many genres represented, some tracks are very famous.

Cytus

Developer: Rayark International Limited, Taiwan
Download from Google Play | iTunes
Price: $1.99

Coming from the same developer as Deemo, Cytus is yet another excellent music adventure with gorgeous futuristic art, and an enticing story. With over 200 tracks, many famous ones, Cytus offers 9 difficulty levels, plenty of music genres to satisfy many players, and quite a few customization options to tweak the gameplay to your liking. Tap to the notes as they reach the scan line, time your gestures and earn the high score. If you like sci-fi, Cytus is the way to go. A futuristic tale of a post-apocalyptic world where the last sentient beings are robots, hello transhumanism. The memories of the long-deceased people are transferred to robot avatars, and music helps them preserve the leftovers of the human emotions. Is there a soul in a robot with the memories of a human?

VOEZ

Developer: Rayark International Limited, Taiwan
Download from Google Play | iTunes
free, IAPs

VOEZ (review) is a brand new music game that is easily recommendable, especially to the fans of the Asian pop music. Beautiful, crisp design, several difficulty modes, frantic gameplay, and plenty of tracks, free and paid/unlockable, VOEZ may not be my personal favorite, for I am no anime fan, but the fans of the music games are loving it. A story is not so catchy here, but if you’ve ever been a teenager dreaming of a career in show biz, you will find who to empathize with here.

Groove Coaster 2

Developer: TAITO Corporation, Japan
Download from Google Play | iTunes
Free, IAPs for music packs

Groove Coaster 2 (review) is pure music fun. No story to distract you from the free, unabridged dash through the never-ending digital realm of the music. Choose your avatar and fly away catching the keys, and the rhythm and the beat. The design is superb, the controls are simple – all you need is to feel the vibe. 158 tracks in various genres and counting, 850 stages across multiple modes, tons of content available/unlockable for free, offline play – need anything else? Even if you’re a sucker at touchscreen controls, you can use anything to play Groove Coaster 2, like clap your hands, or knock on wood – whatever as long as the game registers what you’re doing. Don’t forget the arcade mode and events. Among the music games for mobile, Groove Coaster 2 is a must-have.

BEAT MP3 2.0 – Rhythm Game

Developer: CREAPPTIVE Co., Ltd.
Download from Google Play | iTunes
free, IAPs

Beat MP3 v2 may look like many other music games, but its undeniable virtue is it lets you play with the tracks in your library. It supports many file formats, and once you add a track it “analyzes” it and produces a map of music keys for you to play with, as you enjoy your favorite music. You can customize the difficulty and speed, enable/disable drag notes, and more. While some other games let you build music keys for your favorite music, Beat MP3 does all the complex job for you, and the result is amazing. It is by far the best way to listen to the music – when the four tracks of the incoming keys (yes, I play in easy mode) turn into a neon psychedelic highway. Resets you brain.

Groove Planet

Developer: Animoca Brands
Download from Google Play | iTunes
free, IAPs

Groove Planet is a different breed of music games. It’s a music game + clicker. Never though this could make for a successful formula until I dug a whole lot of hours into building my music space station on an alien planet by tapping my numb fingers to the beat. Watch aliens arrive to the party, build them restaurants and clubs, protect them from flying saucers, upgrade your buildings and tap to the beat. The music is awesome, and the game is pretty good at teaching you what the beat is. Great design, fun, addicting gameplay, decent progression curve, awesome EDM hits, your own music planet – and all for free, mostly.

Hachi Hachi

Developer: Skytree Digital Limited, Hong Kong
Download from Google Play | iTunes
free, IAPs

Orient seems to dominate the music games niche on mobile, and Hachi Hachi is yet another proof that they like music in the East, and gore in the West. Hachi Hachi offers real-time PvP, which is a rarity with this genre. Tracks from various genres have stories to them, and weekly tournaments test your skills. Two game modes offer great variety – casual mode pits you against a random player who chose the same track, and arena mode is that weekly tournament with random music, difficulty and opponent.

Beat da Beat

Developer: Nekki indie Arcade
Download from Google Play | iTunes
Price: $0.99

Nekki is the maker of the both Vector games, Shadow Fight and Beat da Beat. An action game that combines two of my favorite genres – shmup and rhythm game. Frantic, crazy and unforgiving, this game ties all the shmup action on screen to the music that runs in the background – very psychedelic and unique gameplay. A love story, cool pixel art, plenty of difficulty modes and great music – extremely fun to play.

Frederic Resurrection of Music and Frederic – Evil Strikes Back

Developer: Forever Entertainment, Poland
Download from Google Play | iTunes
Price: $1-$2.99

An underestimated gem, Frederic is a two-part game about Chopin who resurrects in the modern day and gets terrified at the state of the modern music. I can’t blame him. He decides to fight the soulless music with this timeless masterpieces, and hone your skills, as Frederic duels with many pop singers. Quite a lengthy comic book style scenes with wonderful sense of humor make the story really unique and creative. Colorful design, beautiful music and fun gameplay – Frederic could really bring the real music back, if you let him.

Musiverse

Developer: Pocket Games ltd
Download from Google Play | iTunes
Price: free, IAPs

Music game and a racer, Musiverse lets you play with the tracks in your library, and compete with friends, score-wise. Ride a futuristic space ship across a neon track to collect the cubes and feel the beat. It offers pretty good music, daily challenges, various difficulty levels and control modes, great design and a lot of free content.

Honorable mentions are Lost Sounds Adventures of Poco Eco (adventure, gorgeous design) and Fotonica (endless runner, vector graphics). Even though these games don’t see you tapping exactly to the music, both offer outstanding, exclusive music composed by some of the finest European MCs and very interesting gameplay mechanics.

What is your favorite music game on mobile? Share your suggestions in the comments below and don’t forget to follow PocketMeta for more games and apps roundups, insightful guides and reviews!