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.
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.
Mailman_GV
3 months ago