Balatro (2024)
I will be honest, I don't have many card games. I'm a huge fan of Resident Evil VII's 21 mode. I previously owned both Poker Night games. You know the crossover Telltale Poker games? You would think I wouldn't struggle much in Balatro. You actually would be quite wrong about that. Balatro is a rather unique take on poker.
One guy over two years developing this made an roguelike poker game. Which quickly became one of my favorite indie games in years. I am quite serious, Balatro turns poker into possibly the most exciting thing ever!!! Of course, you have access to the typical deck of cards. Then that's when things quickly becomes more interesting.
Balatro also adds trait cards as well as planet cards into the mix. Also Joker cards are notably presented in this too. All of them adds to the overall experience in so many ways. Trait cards all differ in what they do. My two favorite trait cards are Fool and High Priestess. Fool card automatically gives you the recent planet or trait card yo used.
This could be a double edge sword. But assuming you worked this into your strategy like I did. Then using this could be a god send. High Priestess card gives you two random planet cards. Planet cards in general level up your combination you can draw during matches. For example if you want to increase your overall points to win matches.
You could level up a single pair or double that. Yes this also applies to Flushes and Straights too. Before we get into the true uniqueness of it all. I still got to discuss the remaining stuff with the shop. You also can buy more cards which includes additional bonus versions. Yes some of those bonuses stack on top of each other.
The best part is unlike both planet and trait cards, these will reappear within your deck by default. Which means you can eventually use em again. You always have the option to add in more cards to better your chances. You also can buy Vouchers that differ things to a degree. They usually on a slightly higher price range.
Also every set which there are three each has an Voucher you can buy. Now all of that out the way, I bet some of you dying to hear about Joker cards right? Easily the best cards in the entire game. Sure, not all of them are winners for many reasons. Some requires particular combinations played in order to work. They notably differ in what each Joker card brings to the table.
It's very critical you get the right five Joker cards. Even having four of them that works amazingly well will get you further into runs. One or two not great Joker cards will quickly end runs. You also have the option to skip most of a set through buying those skips. Personally I don't recommend relying on skipping.
I rather go the longer route with my upgrades being more higher leveled. I finally can discuss the main points system. You get a blue side that represents amount of chips that can get multiplied. The red side virtually is the multiplier itself. Which can be notably increased to better your chances. I had so many failed attempts at trying to win just one run.
Before anyone asks this game forces you to start from the easiest difficulty. You can push yourself to get the harder difficulties. I should mention, you also get different decks with a notable change. A couple of them are simply in a different color. Balatro does have more unique designed decks you can unlock.
I also wanna say Joker cards really has personality to em. You can tell the developer really had a thing for Jokers or clown characters in general. Somehow all this additional complexity works in a surprisingly much simpler method. At first starting the game you got so much to learn. Obviously you are going to lose a lot before you start to truly understand how the game works.
Just in case people wanted to know. Which Joker cards are among my favorites. Misprint Joker has randomized multiplier. I also kinda liked it's design as well. Popcorn Joker is great for bigger point multiplying in matches. The only real issue I have with that is at random the card disappears. My personal favorite Joker card is Burnt Joker.
This card in the right hands can destroy a good amount of this game. Burnt Joker involves your first discards within matches. Whatever combination even High Card automatically gets leveled up one. This obviously comes with a risk. At the same time, the right cards to discard can make all the difference.
The better part is considering you can stack. You could get two similar Joker cards that levels up your multipliers. Just imaging Space Joker with Burnt Joker. Speaking of Space Joker, he's among my favorite Joker cards too. Space Joker at random among doing any combination even High Card will level em up.
This also means you can be quite creative how you go about increasing the multiplier. Balatro is heavily about being creative with your moves. Not a single match is boring in this whatsoever. In every possible way the perfect balance of everything imaginable. I really can't directly criticize anything because the game automatically balances itself out.
Balatro is virtually an 9.5 game right off the bat. I know some people didn't like an card game made it into Game of the Year awards. Hell it even won a particular Game of the Year award. I can strongly say this game truly deserved it's nomination. This reminds me in a few ways to REVII's 21 mode. Look I know I'm about to compare an Black Jack mini game to an poker game.
I'm more of a Black Jack person myself. I still wanna say Balatro is the one way I really wanna play poker. To me, this game was really refreshing as well as inspiring. Again one person made such an game, I'm deeply impressed. This is exactly why I recently found indie developers more impressive. Balatro already on most platforms, I played it through Steam.
I would love to own this on GOG. Balatro is a game you wouldn't believe works this mind blowing well. Especially considering all the information you need to take in. Eventually you quickly memorize enough of it to play the game well. There's also additional skins for decks, which I haven't tried yet. I'll give an example considering Death Battle about to do Among Us vs Fall Guys episode.
They have an Among Us skin for the decks, I love that!!! The best part is this game amazingly cheap as well as being notably smaller than most Game of the Year nominees. You are getting everything right off the bat justifying it's price. In comparison, most of them are notably a lot bigger than Balatro. You actually need to free up a lot of GBs off your platform of choice to play em.
They are much more expensive with some having DLCs too. It's nice to have a game that gives you everything for much less. Of course you should know the famous saying. "Big things comes in small packages." Which perfectly describes Balatro in a nut shell. I am deeply proud to given this game my votes in The Game Awards 2024.
Balatro is never boring at all even during the first matches. Where you need to earn 300 points to continue on. No upgrades prior you can still lose this. Roughly 8 out of 10 times you'll win. Then again I didn't go beyond the second lowest difficulty at the time of writing this review. In all honestly, Balatro made something like poker into one of the absolute greatest indie games I ever played!!!
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