This is absolutely another one of the top tier of roguelike deckbuilders. The concept of starting with a normal poker deck and modifying it by changing, adding, and removing cards and accumulating power-ups is brilliant in its straightforwardness and depth. Like all the best games in this genre, you can imagine endless iteration on the core game in the form of new decks, new jokers, and even new enhancements. Like no others, you could imagine playing essentially the same game with physical cards and a calculator.

I do have a few design quibbles here. Balatro could use something like Slay the Spire's Neow to discourage the player from rerolling until they get a good reward for skipping the first blind. At higher difficulties, the variance also starts to get very pointed, with the difference between opening a particular planet or getting a decent economy joker or not making or breaking a run. But these are minor complaints—the game is fantastic, and I can see myself sinking plenty more time into it piecemeal from now on.