Play store is unusable tripe. I member back in the day there being websites and forums that actually gave honest insight into what was good and what was trash. Anything like that today? Where does one find the good android games nowadays while avoiding all the shovelware crap?
Emulators are where it’s at on Android, at least for me. There’s a handful of good native android games but you can play so so many fantastic old games using emulators.
Here’s a thorough guide on setting it up:
https://retrogamecorps.com/2022/03/13/android-emulation-starter-guide/
And a link for ROMS collections:
It seems like a lot to take in just to play some games but I promise it’s easier than it looks to get up and running.
Try F-Droid, there’s some good quality games in their listing, and it’s a lot more transparent than the Play store.
There’s also a lot more indies (whether new or old) that have made it to mobile, like Stardew Valley, Terraria and Dungeon Clawler, so it’s worth checking out the “premium” category on the Play store to find some decent games too
Unciv is nice
Actually the official google “play games” app has a nice feature that should be included in play store: it can filter for games without purchases.
Other than that, the mentioned minireview app has good filters.
I use Appsales to catch sales on paid games: https://play.google.com/store/search?q=appsales&c=apps
