Three games into this franchise and I finally understand why it is beloved by so many. Halo 3 maintains the fantastic soundtrack, gunplay, variety and pacing which made the previous entry so memorable. However, improved level design, enemy design and some surprising emotional beats in the story help elevate this experience. The final levels in this game are sheer bliss and are among the best I’ve experienced in an FPS campaign. Though there is still some room for improvement with the repetitiveness of facing seemingly endless waves of enemies and the lack of engaging bosses. However, this is still an incredibly satisfying conclusion to the original master chief trilogy, excelling both in its gameplay and story.

2007 Ranked
Ranked Shooter Campaign Recommendations
Halo Ranked

I don't think one simply stops playing Balatro, but I've beaten the game with every deck and had a win on gold difficulty, so I feel qualified to review it now. Balatro is very fun and incredibly addictive, but is it the best deckbuilder roguelike? Well... maybe. While this game is very good, I don't quite think it's the second coming of the messiah as many others seem to.

The great deckbuilder roguelikes before Balatro have all been enriched by sort of being two games in one. In something like Slay the Spire or Monster Train, you have the strategic element of building your deck and the tactical element of actually playing with the deck you've made, but I find that the tactical element of Balatro is a bit lacking. At it's best, playing a blind in Balatro consists of milling your hand until you hit the one or two hand types you've based your build around, and at worst with some joker combinations it barely even matters what you actually play.

This lack of moment-to-moment tactical depth leads to a couple of issues for me. In most great Roguelikes (specifically thinking of The Binding of Isaac and Enter the Gungeon here but it applies to deckbuilders too), you supplement shortfalls on a strategic front with player skill. That is to say, it's perfectly possible to beat Enter the Gungeon with a mediocre loadout if you just 'git gud' at using the tools at your disposal. This isn't a theme at all in Balatro; if you don't happen to get some good jokers by, say, ante 3, then that run is just dead and no level of player skill is going to fix that. This can make the game feel very frustrating at times; if you just roll badly when it comes to your first few jokers, there really isn't much you can do about it except sigh and hold the reset button.

The lack of a tactical side in Balatro also makes the game feel a bit brainless at times; while I greatly enjoy this game, it often feels like I'm enjoying it more on the level of something like Vampire Survivors or Cookie Clicker. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy both of those idle games greatly, but I don't like having to compare Balatro to them because Balatro feels like it could be so much more. I think the lack of context doesn't help with this gamefeel either; while the theming in Monster Train is kinda weird and cringey, it feels more tactile to actually be fighting against something rather than just have a raw number go up as in Balatro.

But all that said, this is absolutely not intended to be a negative review, because the strategic side of gameplay in Balatro is fantastic. There are so many different ways to break this game; I'm 50+ hours in and still finding new uses for jokers that I never would have dreamed of. Despite there being almost 200 jokers, none (or at least barely any) of them feel objectively bad or useless; some jokers are niche but powerful, some are only of value in the early game, but every card in here has its place. The game is also excellent at sprinkling little rewards throughout; most of the jokers are unlocked through side objectives rather than just for beating the game, and going for these extra goals can make you play in a completely different way, and it always feels like you are achieving something. Add on top of that the challenges, the many different deck types and the many different ways you can augment a run outside of jokers, and there really is just an obscene amount of content and replayability in here.

The game feels really good too... I'd compare it to Vampire Survivors again (this time in a good way) in terms of how great it is at using visuals and sound design to keep your lizard brain as happy as it can possibly be. And while I discussed downsides of the overall theming earlier, it really is great at both making this both stand out and be accessible. There's no big walls of text to read on your playing cards, it's just the standard pack of 52 that everybody knows, and you score using standard poker hands. Anyone familiar with poker will need no time to understand how to play this, and even if you aren't familiar it won't take long because everything in this game is very clear and presented upfront to the player. Balatro could definitely do with some more music though; the one song in the game is pretty good, but man do you get tired of it after 20+ hours of playtime, thank god for the mute button.

So in short yes, Balatro good. Balatro very good. I don't think it's the new undisputed champion of deckbuilding roguelikes as a genre and, while I don't think it would take much tweaking for it to become that champion, I don't think that's the niche that Balatro is looking to fill. It's probably better to think of Balatro as it's own thing... Balatro is to deckbuilders what Vampire Survivors is to bullet hells, a spin on the formula that completely changes the gameplay and gamefeel, opening it up to a whole new audience without alienating prior fans of the genre. And viewed through this lens, Balatro could hardly be any better.

PROS:
- case quality-wise, easily the best in the series alongside AAI2. case 2 in particular has to be my favourite filler case in the series
- everything good about dgs1 is also good here (the cast, the presentation, just the overall feel of 19th century Ace Attorney)
- fully delivers on the amazing set-up of dgs1, making this duology the peak of the series, and very accessible for people who have never played ace attorney before (while also offering a lot of twists and subversions on the usual formula for those who have!)
- contender for funniest game in the series, every sholmes deduction section had me dying, and van zieks' reactions to the shit you pull out of your ass are still gold. even the throwaway witnesses are all great here. 90% of my playtime was spent smiling
- the port and localisation quality is very good. though there's a couple mods i recommend playing with (one allowing animations to be 60fps, another improving music quality)

CONS:
- much like dgs1, DO NOT GO IN ON AN EMPTY STOMACH. i made this mistake and ended up dining with my husbando, gregson, unexpectedly. so the price of this game may be deceptive.
- goes hard on the asset reuse. which is fine since it does it well, but it also makes it the only ace attorney game that heavily reuses the soundtrack of another. which is also fine because DGS has one of the best OSTs in the series. but damn it i want more. (EDIT: actually upon checking, this game had like 2 hours of new music which is more than i remembered. still wouldve liked a different cross examination theme or something tho)
- pacing not the smoothest. i think Scarlet Study (the fan TL people) said that these were meant to be 3 games, but budget issues and lack of popularity meant we only got 2. dont remember what their basis for this was but it does kinda feel like there should've been more.
- upon finishing this, you will immediately begin to despair at the thought of ryunosuke, sustato, sholmes, van zieks and the rest of the cast never appearing in an ace attorney game again.

FINAL VERDICT:
Guilty... of being a sick ass game and miniseries that everyone should play. i still cant believe i actually finally got to play this and it didn't let me down at all

I think it's time to not play this as a main game anymore. After reaching my goal with nearly all the decks at blue stakes and one deck finishing gold, I will just start to play it occasionally. The challenges look really fun, so I'm hopeful there will be some updates to get me back in here with more of them too. I really liked doing these in other card games, so I didn't really want to rush through them right now. I'll pray for anyone who even attempts to get all the gold stickers.

One of the best conclusions to one of the greatest trilogies of all time to end off a series. Not explaining any story stuff in this review because you should play it for yourself but one of the greatest ever cooked. This being a love letter and a goodbye letter to this series as whole, being a celebration of the journey Takahashi has taken us through. This DLC content is so damn good to add onto the base game as a whole as you can treat it alongside to base game as a dessert after the well-cooked meal.

This DLC helps show that in the series as it goes through a bunch of the themes it has gone through its three games, the culmination of this beautiful DLC. Matthew being one of the main characters alongside Noah to help push along the core themes of Xenoblade 3 along with what base games does and its cast of characters, Matthew approaches the future, takes the good parts of the past and accepts the bad, and keeps moving forward. Rex and Shulk are also there as well with their themes from Xenoblade 1 & 2 to show that all these come together such as the future may be unknown but we should always keep matching forward no matter what happens and how our past hurts but we shouldn’t let it drag us behind, we can learn from our pasts, get back up on our feet and get stronger to be able to keep moving forward. This speaks to the Xenoblade Series as whole, to be able to reflect on our past, don’t let it drag us down but to let it help us move forward in life. To face our trauma and to be our true selves rather than to run away from ourselves.

Takahashi up there with the greats on being able to make beautiful art and personal stories throughout video-games.

"Nevertheless, our intentions will live on, and one day coalesce again. Be it tomorrow... or in a thousand years... Surely, the time will eventually come. I can see it, clear as day."

Future Awaits

This game, bar none, is the best Ace Attorney experience I’ve ever had, one of the greatest gaming experiences I’ve ever had, to the point I doubt these two incredible games will ever be topped, in their series or otherwise. They didn’t drop the ball a SINGLE time in this entire collection, to the point where “good” doesn’t aptly describe a single one. Every single case is on par with some of the series’ greatest, a great cast of interesting characters, a great overarching story, great investigations, great trials, it has EVERYTHING. Truly deserving to be named "The Great Ace Attorney".