Balatro Review
If you have been to Dear Gamers before, you know I am particularly fond of roguelites. If you are new, welcome to Dear Gamers and my borderline-dangerous addiction to roguelites. Last year, I thought I saw it all with a sports roguelite (Tape to Tape - a fantastic hockey game). Someone, somewhere assumed that was a challenge and I present (drumroll please): a card game roguelite (technically, Solitaire is a roguelite, more accurately a roguelike but Solitaire is boring and….anyway).
Developed by LocalThunk, Balatro is a poker roguelite. THE poker roguelite. Play some poker, try to beat the blinds, rinse, and repeat until you lose. The DNA of a deckbuilder is buried in here but it remains a game of poker throughout. What if I told you that you could turn two pair into such an amazing hand that it would make 4 Aces look like a high card? You might think you know how to play poker but throw all that out the window when you play THIS game of poker.
Everything will start somewhat normal. All rounds have a small blind, a big blind, and a boss blind that require you to reach a certain score. You are dealt 8 cards and can play up to 4 hands to reach the score. Hands can be 1 card or up to 5 cards. You also can discard up to 5 cards at a time 4 times per blind. Any legit poker hand counts here but the better the hand, the more you score. Scoring here may seem daunting at first but in no time at all, you will make Alan proud.
Scores are calculated as Chips times Multipliers. Every hand has a base score value. For example, a high card is worth 5 x 1 and a full house is worth 40 x 4. The Chips side is increased by card value which is as simple as 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. with face cards equaling 10 and Aces worth 11. The game does all the math for you but I will admit that I broke out a calculator a few times when I was down to my last hand just so I could see my chances of winning with a straight versus a flush.
What is great here is that basic poker logic gets thrown out the window. The more you play the more you realize that things like a full house is not necessarily better than two pair and a single 8 could net you five times the points as four 10s.
Winning each blind rewards you with some cash to use in the shop that is only accessible between each blind. You earn a set value just from the blind itself and an extra $1 for each remaining hand you have left. Once you start accruing money, you can earn $1 interest for every $5 you have saved. There are additional ways to earn cash but these are standard. The aforementioned shop is how you make this regular game of poker into something of legend. Shops provide you with the following: 2 cards (these can be any type), 2 card packs (you get to pick a card from a number of cards), and a voucher. Vouchers generally cost a lot and are not as flashy as other cards but generally have long-term value. If you do buy it, another will not appear until you clear the current boss blind. Some of their perks include providing an extra item choice in the shop or permanently increasing the number of cards in your hand. Buying any voucher will unlock it for future runs although some vouchers only appear after some in-game milestones are reached (these can viewed from the collections screen in the main menu).
What exactly is in the shop that makes your cards better? First up are Jokers. Jokers may not be used in normal poker but in Balatro, they are super important and almost crucial to your access. They serve as temporary (they only last the current game) buffs to the hands you will play. For example, a Joker may add a +4 multiplier to all played hands and another Joker may allow you to go up to $20 in debt in the shop. Shopping spree!
Many Jokers have insane synergy with other Jokers. A favorite of mine was getting the Joker that granted +30 chips every time you play a face card. While this may seem tame because you have to hope for favorite deals, there is a Joker that treats all cards played as if they are face cards. Any card played in a hand, regardless of regular value, would also give me +30 chips. Throw in the Joker that scores all cards played and you could play a single Ace with a 2, 5, 9, and Jack, and the game will score the hand as a high card but also give you points for each card. That’s an additional 150 chips played (before adding in card value) on a simple High Card hand. Jokers can even affect how hands work like allowing for a 1-card gap in a straight or only requiring 4 cards for a flush. Jokers can be sold to fit new/better ones and once a Joker is discovered, they can appear in all future rotations.
The other cards appearing in the shop are called consumables as they change your existing cards versus being cards used in your hands. Tarot cards can alter your standard cards into enhanced cards. There are 8 types of enhancements to encounter. Two such enhanced cards are wild cards (the card can become any suit) and stone cards (the card value is completely removed but the card is worth +50 chips). Tarot cards can also change a card’s suit, increase their rank (J to Q, 2 to 3, etc.), or give money. Planet cards improve the value of your hands meaning they increase the base score of a chosen hand. This also has a chance to synergize well with Jokers cards specifically ones that affect a certain type of hand. Last but not least are Spectral cards. The player has less control of what the Spectral cards do as the buff can be somewhat random such as granting 4 cards an enhancement while destroying a random card or changing all cards in your hand to a random suit. Consumables can be found in the shop, usually purchased from a pack that allows you a choice of the given consumable or from a tag. Like Jokers, all of these only affect the current game and do not carry over but once discovered on one run can appear in future runs.
Most people hear poker and think of a group setting or something played online for money. LocalThunk has managed to take that and flip it on its head. What we have here is a genuinely fun, single-player experience. The gambit of runs can easily go from outrageously fun and adrenaline-pumping to incredibly frustrating in a matter of seconds. The “one more run” feeling seen in many roguelites can be seen here in spades (PUN INTENDED). Hands in Balatro last mere minutes and whether you have a successful run that goes many rounds or an early elimination, you will want to try again almost immediately. On top of all that, you can dive into the seed system as the game allows players to share their favorite runs (be sure to check out both the Steam forums and the game’s own Discord). Card games on PC have come a long way from being pre-packaged with the Windows Entertainment Pack to provide literally hours of fun. Become your very own card shark in this delightful twist on an old game.
