Balatro is a deck-building roguelite where you must play poker hands and earn chips to defeat enemy blinds. Enhance your deck of playing cards, buy Jokers to modify each hand you play, and discover new and wild synergies to win!
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You tell yourself you are going to attempt a quick run; it will take less than 30 minutes. You find yourself 3 hours later attempting your 5th run, completely unaware of how much time has passed by. Balatro is addicting as all hell. The art style is unique and the soundtrack has melted into my brain permanently. An absolutely satisfying and compelling roguelike like no other I have played. Game of the year contender for sure, and I couldn’t be more surprised by how great it is.
One of the most addictive games I’ve played in a long time. Incredibly easy to pick up but painfully difficult to master when you get to some of the harder stakes and challenges.
Does suffer a little bit from “runs going great but this one thing happened and now it’s dead” which can sometimes feel unfair but overall doesn’t change that fact that the game is a really fun time!
Does suffer a little bit from “runs going great but this one thing happened and now it’s dead” which can sometimes feel unfair but overall doesn’t change that fact that the game is a really fun time!
It's pretty cool
Hands down one of the greatest "1 more run" games, right up there with Hades
Alright let's get some Balatro thoughts down, since I doubt I'll return to it. I put in 20-30 hours and completed up through orange stake, but not gold. Didn't mess with the challenges much but they seemed fun. For me, this is a really well-designed, fun and addictive rogue-like/lite/who cares (I know there are people who care about the like/lite distinction, but I sure don't, sorry). Like most rogue-likes (all that I've played), there's never really a satisfying ending, I just play and play more and more runs, and everything in the game slowly becomes more and more routine and less novel. Eventually the fun wears away and so I just unceremoniously end my session one day and never pick it back up. I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with some games working like this, but it does make it so by the time I'm through with it my opinion has soured a little since I've played it until I'm burnt out and not enjoying it anymore. I end up quitting rogue-likes sooner than I used to do that I can avoid that feeling, I wasn't truly burnt out on Balatro, but I was starting to see the signs, IE: I didn't want to play out my run if I didn't get the upgrades I wanted right away, I preferred to just restart.
Anyway, if you're on this website reading this, you probably already know what Balatro is and why people like it, so I'll just say, yeah they're right, it's a well designed game. I enjoyed it quite a bit.
Anyway, if you're on this website reading this, you probably already know what Balatro is and why people like it, so I'll just say, yeah they're right, it's a well designed game. I enjoyed it quite a bit.
Great strategic game with lots of great interweaving gameplay mechanics. I really enjoyed the 20ish hours I put into it, but eventually hit a point where I felt like I had seen and done most of what the game has to offer. I don't see myself coming back to it anytime soon for that reason.