Balatro: review

Yep, that’s right. I’m starting a new category of posts on my blog. I wanted to create an outlet for all of the wonderful media I consume. Be it games, books, films, courses or even music, everything I would like to share my opinion on will be gathered in this part of my website.

To start things off, I wanted to talk about my game of choice for this winter. Yes, yes, everyone has already talked about this game plenty, but I really really enjoyed this game, which is why I would now like to review: Balatro.

As these reviews are a new thing I am trying, I would like to give a little detail to the way in which I want to compose these reviews. Every fact about this game can be easily looked up online, so I won’t bother recapping all of that here. Instead, for each review, I’d like to go into my personal context, the good, the bad and my final verdict based on my own measure. I may write a blog about reviewing in general, in which case I will cut this segment from this review :)

Context

I played this game on and off on a trip to Malaysia. We had some long car rides along the highways, and this was a great distraction from those long and winding trips. Besides that, I found myself playing “just one more round” in the evenings if things were slow. This game, to me, was a perfect filler game, as it scratches that itch of having something to wrap your mind around without the puzzle being either too frustratingly challenging or too simple.

I also played this with my brother, as we played it on our own phones. This added an extra layer of enjoyment, where we showed each other our runs and discussed each other’s strategies. We were both trying to compete for a new high-score, and this was a fun back-and-forth.

The good

• The soundtrack is very addictive and doesn’t really get old, even though it consists of only one song.
• The simplicity of the rogue-like mechanics are very refreshing coming from someone who’s played a lot of rogue-likes.
• The game is surprisingly challenging, and you need quite some strategy, especially on higher stakes.
• You can be done with a run really quickly, and you can whip out this game at any time really. It also helps that this isn’t that “embarrassing” of a game to play in public, as people probably won’t think you’re a nerd for playing it.
• The game is very satisfying if you play your cards right (get it?).
• I love the pixel art in this game.
• The different decks make for a lot of nice variety.

The bad

• The runs can feel a bit samey sometimes, as there are some jokers that are just obviously better than others. I sometimes find myself needing to force myself to not pick certain jokers just so that my run will not feel like some of the runs before.
• Some of the boss blinds can feel a bit unfair sometimes, especially if they simply counter your current build. Working around this is however a nice puzzle, so I don’t think that badly of this.

The verdict

Having given my opinion on this game, I’d like to rate this game on my three content criteria: Impact, Enjoyment and Recomendationableness.

Impact: Small

This game has not really been life changing for me, but it has become my favorite phone game for when I want to do something relaxing while in the bus for example. In that sense it has some impact on my mobile gaming, but as I don’t game that often, the impact is quite small.

Enjoyment: A lot of fun

I had a lot of fun playing this game, and it has made me fist-pump on several occasions. I do notice that I am not really that addicted to this game like some people did. I really need a lot of variety in rogue-likes, and I found Balatro just didn’t quite scratch that itch. It was still one of the more enjoyable games of 2024 for me, so I would still rank it very highly.

Recomendationableness: Easy to recommend

I really do think this game can be recommended to anyone who knows how to play games. I think it is easy enough to grasp for most people, and that it offers enough depth for people that like that kind of puzzle while still feeling approachable in difficulty. If you are looking for something to fill your downtime with, I’d suggest you give this a look.

Thus ends my take