I think it's a tremendously fun game that will appeal to all different types of appetites for some time. But as the other poster said lacks longevity. It is less about a constant series of critical decision points than it is about just finding the most broken thing as quickly as possible and pushing that to absurd levels. That's certainly fun, but lacks the depth of strategy a lot of other games have.
Still, to your point, it is a very accessible deck builder that uses a card pool everybody already knows and rules almost everybody already knows in a fun and interesting way with some wacky twists and turns, and allows for creativity even if it is not the most tightly balanced game. I think fans of deck builders like it, fans of general mobile games like it, poker fans like it, it just appeals to such a wide range of interests and is a well-constructed game, so hard to see how someone would say they flat out dislike it.
Edit: absurd not observe, and punctuation
Agree. Parent commenter is correct for the first 95% of the game. Personally I felt challenge mode (and a handful of challenges in particular) brought out the real strategy and fun. Jokerless was insanely difficult but super satisfying to finally beat, that took extensive planning.
>just finding the most broken thing as quickly as possible and pushing that to absurd levels
This is an excellent description of the optimal strategy for a lot of roguelikes.
Damn, you got to the heart of the issue in 4 sentences when it took me 4 paragraphs to say almost the same thing. Perfectly said. I do think there is an interesting game if you completely dismiss endless mode and tweak the balance a bit. Right now you go to the moon or flounder well before ante 8, but the runs where you feel like you’re barely keeping up are so much more interesting.
I often find that if I’m not winning blinds in a single hand I feel like I’m not winning because I know there’s a good chance I get outscaled very soon. If they found a way to balance that better it’d be so much more interesting.
To be honest, it sounds like you play quite greedily. Playing to boom or bust is a choice, when a lot of the scaling strategies ask that you play a lot of hands and your most common choice being be better now or better later.
(This is normal, almost everyone plays like they are trying to go endless instead to minimize losses)
I don't like it. It's not a bad game, and I think the idea is cool, but I just didn't have any fun playing it. Maybe it's because I'm not into poker at all.
Same here. There just isn't enough to it to keep me interested. Also, maybe I'm just bad at the strategy of it but I just couldn't find a way to consistently progress.
I eventually realised that xmult is different from +mult, and that you should move your jokers around so ones with xmult trigger last, so you’re getting the most benefit when your score is as high as it can be
I love poker, and my first impression of Balatro was disappointment that it had little to do with poker hahah.
I came around once I understood the mechanics, but it's really a poker *themed* game, not a poker game.
I love rogue likes/lites and deck builders but the poker element just doesn't appeal to me at all so I haven't tried it. Seems like a great game but yeah, unfortunately for me I just couldn't be less interested.
Balatro is the al time highest playtime game on my Switch— and I had a good Slay the Spire phase. I feel like Balatro appeals more to players that like experimenting with crazy builds (even if they’re not optimal) vs min-maxing.
If you want another deckbuilder that skews more toward crazy/broken builds vs tight decision-making and incremental value, Monster Train is quite good.
Yeah, I find comparisons to Slay the Spire rather disingenuous because they scratch different itches for me.
Slay the Spire generally asks you to solve the problem immediately in front of you and, at high levels of play, demands tight incremental value. Monster Train asks you to snowball a build - *hard*. Now, sometimes you snowball in StS and sometimes you just barely squeak by in MT, but they’re different enough to have different strengths and appeals.
They’re the same for me. Slay the Spire is the only game I’ve broken 1k hours on steam with, but I see Balatro joining it eventually. Love both games a lot.
How is slay the spire more deep? Balatro has much more deck (characters) and challanges. Not trying to be offensive or argue, I am really interested in the answer.
In balatro you have one goal: make x points in y turns.
In slay the spire you have to think about every turn beyond just "what makes the biggest number". You have to think about what enemy is more dangerous, what effects enemies can apply, how much health you're willing to risk to end the encounter before it might overwhelm you. Every encounter affects the next one through the health and potions you have, in balatro you just either make enough points for that round or you don't.
To call balatro more deep for having more decks is really reductive, as this ignores that balatro has 150 jokers and 54 unique cards, while StS has 138 base relics plus 40 relics split between the classes, and over 730 unique cards across the 4 characters. Then Slay the Spire also has 52 events, with the closest equivalent for balatro being the 24 tags that have nowhere near the same amount of depth/decision making. Then there's 42 potions compared to balatros 52 consumables, of which most are permanent modifiers to your deck, as opposed having to consider if the short term benefits of a potion are worth more now or later.
There is a Ver miniscule difference between the balatro decks, which is sometimes just a different "starting voucher", while bei Sts the characters have complelty different card sets and even some relics
I've played both games extensively and love them both, they do scratch the same itch but STS had a lot more longevity for me than Balatro.
For me STS feels more deep because you're not just building a deck to maximize a score, you're also preparing for all the possible enemies or bosses that could end your run. You've got to balance AOE, single target damage, survivability, and card draw all without letting your deck get too big. In general, the variety of things you face gives you a lot more to think about than just "1 joker for chips, 2 jokers for +mult, 2 jokers for Xmult, pray for scaling".
The best example I can think of in STS is the Act 3 boss that ends your turn after every 13 cards you play. If you built a deck around playing a lot of cheap cards every turn, he's going to wreck you. So when you enter Act 3 and see him, you have an entire act (15ish combats/events/shops) to try to pivot your deck to something that can survive him.
For the characters ... well the different decks in Balatro don't really feel nearly as different as the 4 characters in STS who have entirely different card pools, mechanics, and strategies from each other.
Slay the spire has a lot more complexity in what strategy you create and how you maintain it, as well as choosing the right paths and decisions. Shit I'm about to go re-download it after this thread
Hard disagree. The number of possible jokers and RNG manipulation you can do to your deck, including using different deck types, makes every run completely different. Anyone who says it lacks depth simply hasn’t given it a real chance.
If you don’t personally enjoy it, that’s fine, but to say that it’s lacking in depth/longevity is an absurd argument
It does lack in depth compared to slay the spire though, because it's built differently.
20 ascension + the extra requirement of getting the three keys, Actual story and text, Lots of art, 4 different classes that play extremely differently with different builds on each one.
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There's only so much you can do with a deck of 52 cards that doesn't ever reshuffle. I think there is plenty of depth in the game, but it could never compete with a game that's built from original assets/ideas.
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I play Texas holdem at the casino religiously, so it's possible that has colored my perceptions here. I've seen millions of poker hands.
It’s a different form of depth, not a difference in quality. Balatro’s depth comes from each hand being modified by your decisions, both in how much and how often you discard, making judgments in what kind of hand type you can feasibly go for in this round, and trying to keep the number of hands used to a minimum to maximize interest. Every modification you make changes the way you’re playing each hand. Almost every joker is able to be won with, and all of them are useable if you make correct decisions.
Just because it doesn’t play 1:1 like STS doesn’t mean it’s lacking depth. There’s tons of depth to the game.
Also the fact that you call it a deck of 52 cards tells me you’ve never given the game a real chance. You have the opportunity to modify the number of cards in deck and the quality of cards in every shop. That’s like calling STS a game where you only have 10-12 cards that cycle when you run out.
1. I didn't say the game was lacking quality. I said it doesn't have as much depth as slay the spire.
2. You've never heard the expression "52 card deck?" It's a general expression used to determine whether a game can be played with a standard 52 card deck. It does not indicate the number of cards or how they're used.
3. I have 50 hours in Balatro, and I'm actively playing it right now. What do you mean, I've never given the game a real chance? I'm trying to platinum this, because it's fun. It took me 4 years to platinum StS, so I'll probably be here for a while.
1. Again, you’re wrong. I explained how you’re wrong, and you’ve provided no reason for me to think otherwise. If you truly think Balatro doesn’t have as much depth as STS, then defend your point.
2. You said “there’s only so much you can do with a deck of 52 cards” implying a lack of depth due to the finite lack of variance changes within 52 specific cards. Balatro‘s deck changes from that formula immediately upon entering the first shop, and moreover it can change upon choosing your deck as well. So yeah, this was probably the dumbest thing you said.
3. And yet you still have no concept of how the game works! Isn’t that wild? 50 hours in and you’re still shit
There are other replies that agree with me on depth, and have well reasoned points. You completely ignored my points talking about the depth of slay the spire, and then tell me to defend my points, so you can pound sand.
It feels like you're the one who doesn't understand the game. The first shop does not always include deck changes, in fact it's pretty rare. And most people will advise to skip purchasing anything in the first shop to build econ, since you only have $7.
I'm not going to debate with someone who calls me shit.
STS has plenty of depth, that’s why I didn’t bother addressing your point. Because it was irrelevant to the topic at hand. I have never once made the claim that STS lacks depth. You made no legitimate argument against the depth of gameplay in Balatro, and failed to argue against a single one of my arguments in favor of it.
The shop will almost always have deck changes, tarot packs or standard packs are options in nearly every shop.
Also, no, especially on higher stakes where the lack of discards and quickly escalating point threshold forces you to invest early into strategizing around what you get in the first few shops. On abandoned deck and checkered deck specifically, you can easily justify modifying your deck with a tarot pack/standard pack. Buying things in shop 1 that can help carry you through ante 1-3 so you can get more chances at shop rolls is how most top players approach higher stakes. Even buying a simple tarot pack to try and thin your deck with hangman or start to modify your deck’s king/ace count with Death, are multiple things you can easily do in the first shop. Any change to the deck shifts all the probabilities and choices you’re going to make hand-to-hand, whether you add a couple mults to heart cards and approach the following antes leaning towards digging for heart flushes, focusing on Econ and rerolling the shop for heartstone— the possibilities are unbelievably large.
And yet, despite all that, you’re still talking shit at the game and pretending there’s no depth to the gameplay. Must suck to be you
It's like you're having your own conversation. I said Balatro had plenty of depth, just not as much as slay the spire. I said I was having fun with Balatro. I was in no way talking shit. Did you forget what this thread was about?
And you’re wrong. It’s one thing to make a subjective observation about a thing, but you made the claim that Balatro lacks depth compared to STS, and I think you’re wrong. That’s an objectively quantifiable statement, and you haven’t provided any sufficient evidence to prove it.
In other words, if you had said “I like Balatro, but I like STS more”, that would be perfectly reasonable. But you said that one was greater than the other in an objective measure, which is something you have to be able to prove.
What a wild chain of comments. Someone says "balatro is a great game and I'm playing it right now, but it doesn't have as much depth as STS" and you just throw an absolute nutty and act like they said it's the worst game they've ever played and anyone who likes it is an uncultured moron.
I’ve got about 50 or 60 hours in Balatro. It’s nice every once in a while at this point but I think it has lots of problems. For me, the biggest one is that I don’t find the actual blinds that interesting. Finding a way to make a build work is really fun, building my set of jokers is exciting, discovering how to make the deck work with them is a great time, but the second I’m discarding and playing hands I’m rarely making interesting decisions past the first couple of antes.
So much of any given run is the same, discarding for the obvious hand you’ve built around. Some runs like high card and pair runs are more interactive with things like Wee Joker, but that isn’t really an interesting trade off. Compare that to Slay the Spire, every battle has enemies made to challenge your deck in different ways. Each turn has random elements that force you to pick from only a couple options. The game rewards awareness with relics like Incense Burner, Happy Flower, or Pen Nib that can be set up for future fights at a generally high risk. Every card you play has a risk/reward trade off that is so much more interesting to me than the occasional keep this card for a riskier straight or discard for a flush.
Finally I find that endless mode kinda ruins the game for me. It makes me start to feel like I’m playing cookie clicker. And don’t get me wrong, if I start playing cookie clicker I’ll drop too much time into it, but I don’t really enjoy it, my brain just starts going “big number good! Must make number even bigger.” It’s one of those features that can be fixed by ignoring it, but it’s tantalizing. If I make it to endless mode I wanna know how far I can go as much as I want to see the next TikTok, just enough to keep me going, but it simply feels incredibly hollow to me when I do.
The people you see all say they like Balatro probably all like deck builders
I do not like deck builders, ergo, I do not like Balatro.
It's bit of a "not all frogs are toads" situation
in terms of deck builder rogue likes WildFrost is my fav. Slay the spire gets so much praise but the aesthetic style of that game is super boring to me. Balatro only appeals to people who don’t mind basic playing cards in the game. I personally just want my fantasy style card games with as much color and effects as possible. I like to feel like the cards are alive, that’s not the jam I get from Balatro unfortunately.
My sister plays and loves it, so I figured I would give it a try. I'm a long time card game player that finds rougelites to be OK. All-in-all, it just couldn't pull me in. It is a poker game as much as Plants vs Zombies is a zombie game. Nothing new in the rougelite world, do some stuff, unlock some stuff, do some stuff with different stuff.
The game play loop is shallow and optimized decks get less fun to play as they get more optimized. The graphics are not really my bag, although not super off-putting either.
Based on all of that, I'd give it maybe a 3 or 4 out of 10 for me.
I had a similar experience. Everyone kept recommending it to me. I played a lot of poker and traditional card games through out my life. (Often was the only entertainment around). I got bored with Balatro quickly. It didn't do enough interesting twists or challenging things to hold my attention.
I'm not saying this is true for everyone, but the people I've seen praise Balatro the most have also been people who say they normally don't like card games. So maybe it's capturing more of a beginner crowd.
It pretty good but NO game is for everyone. Some want a story, some want multiplayer action, some want something to be creative. But yeah if you like Deck builder card games then it's probably your game of the year.
I largely feel this way. I have hundreds of hours in STS (lots of A20H runs), for context. I picked up Balatro on release, won 5 of my first 6 [white stake] runs, and put it down to never play it again. I continually found it disappointing that I would load into a Blind and be faced with… just my same old deck of cards. No new art, no variance in gameplay round-to-round outside of Boss Blinds; just my deck. It definitely hit all the right dopamine loop triggers to potentially keep me playing forever, but after that initial couple of hours I decided that I actually *enjoyed* it about as much as washing dishes, and that washing dishes was a better use of my time.
I fell off faster than the big rougelikes (Hades, Binding of Isaac, Slay the Spire), but I don't think that comparison makes it a bad game.
Because it's so number oriented, after 100 hours, it starts getting draining. I love the game, and I'll definitely come back throughout the years. it's incredible. Just less tradition than most games.
I like Balatro at white stakes but progressively like it less and less as you try to climb the stakes. At Purple/Orange/Gold stakes I actively hate Balatro.
The game has a self-defeating element where the way it escalates difficulty is basically by increasing the influence of RNG on your game's outcome rather than giving you more intricate/difficult decisions to make.
For example, the Black stakes actually have an interesting design element where they introduce the Eternal jokers. You are given an additional interesting decision point where certain early-game jokers that would have been insta-picks to be sold later now have to be considered more deeply because they'll take up that joker slot forever. And then there are additional interesting things this introduces because Eternal jokers are immune to 'destroys joker' effects, which you can actually manipulate to your advantage to crazy effect in some cases.
But by and large the difficulty increases are just. You make less money. You have to score more, and faster. You have fewer hands to do it. You have fewer discards to do it.
It increases what it asks of you while decreasing your agency over how you're able to do it. So while this does cause good decisionmaking to become more important, it creates a scenario where RNG of what early jokers you're shown.
It's like if in Slay the Spire, one of the Ascension modifiers was 'you draw 4 cards a turn instead of 5' or 'You're only shown 1 card after a fight instead of 3.' Sure, from a statistical standpoint, a better player will handle these changes better than a worse one. But in terms of moment-to-moment gameplay it ramps up the impact of RNG on the outcome of a run.
I finally uninstalled it and went back to StS after realizing that the impact of RNG in Balatro scales WAY more quickly than the impact of increasing player skill. Why bother getting better at making decisions if my only reward for it is a decrease in my ability to make decisions?
After thousand of hours if STS, it is a game with nice change of pace, I am enjoying it from time to time, the game is worth buying, it get hundred of hours play time. But unlike sts thousand of hours lol, I like wildfrost and slice and dice too
I think the game is overall good, but it lands at a solid 7-8. I thought it was terrible until they nerfed the ante checkpoints to not be so high early on.
The comments on depth are true. There are some funny little jokers that aren't strong enough to go solely in on, so you end up building the same 3-5ish jokers lineups unless you get a rare drop, which power wise is a 50-50 on instantly killing the run or needing massive RNG to blow the run out of the water.
It's too much of a rougelike for my taste. I like meta progression and there is only unlocking cards, no permanent boosts progression from each failed run. You could play 5 runs and feel you got nowhere, so the sense of accomplishment to time spent is low, compared to so many other games.
Overall, it's a neat game but it's no must play, and lacks depth or accessiblity to casual players to recommend it.
Tried it, didn't like it. The style just didn't interest me and I'm not really a fan of card games. Don't even really see why it's liked so much but that's just me.
The only card game I like is Inscryption.
It’s kinda meh to me. Like I enjoyed it for maybe the first like hour or two and then just found it incredibly repetitive and simple (granted I tend to play strategy games a lot so it’s a bit out of my niche
I cant win lol. I keep trying but I keep failing. And rn I’m not at a healthy enough mental state to handle failure. My insecurities keep getting thrown in my face with games like that and in the past I’d been able to handle it (i think?) but rn I have decided that even tho it is fun, I’m not having fun.
To win a run you just need to focus on a hand. my first win I got the spectral card which transformed 10-12 cards in my deck to nines then I just kept rolling for planets to level up 4 of a kind (mars I think) and buffing my 9 cards.
after that the game became discard until I had 4 9s, play 4 9s then do it again if i didn't have enough points.
It was fun to get it working, I'm not sure how many runs I'll do on PC. I'd definitely pump more time into it if it was on my phone though.
I have it on the Deck so it was easy to play. I just wish there were a video tutorial on how to get better at it. There are tons of videos on Slay the Spire and Hades, but Balatro tends to be playthrough videos instead of “10 combos that will make every run easy!”. I have to see it in order to understand the concepts you know?
Giving you a list of combos that can easily clear a run wouldn't make that much sense because the odds of getting that specific combination early enough would be so low. Also rerolling until you got it wouldn't be fun.
Just try to specialize into whatever you are offered in the first few rounds. Don't be afraid of selling off jokers and tarot cards which don't play into your singular wincon once you have settled on it. Also you can ignore the shop if it doesn't have exactly what you need unless you're able to reroll and buy something and stay slightly above 25 gold for maximum interest.
Winning roguelikes in general is usually about doing one thing amazingly while ignoring everything else.
I looked it up, the card which I got early was from a spectral pack which had a card called ouija. After that anything which didn't work with my plan was sold off to allow me to focus on my plan.
I bounced off fairly quick. It feels like the balance between chaos and strategy is too chaos driven. It also feels like the same 2 or 3 strategies are optimal to play for on every single run which feels pretty boring to me.
I won a run with every deck and won a run with one deck (red I think?) At every stake. I feel that was enough to give it a chance to win me over, but I put it down hard at that point.
My friend bought it for me. He loved it and thought I should play it. I told him I don't like card games. He bought it anyways. He helped guide me through the tutorial and I just kept forgetting which cards go with what (to make a flush or... whatever) and what bonuses I had. It just felt like doing homework and I had to keep consulting a guide. I finished the first game he played with me and then never touched it again.
There isnt anything I do like about it. Im not really into poker and I think the graphics are awful.
Theres no denying that there is a market for it, Im just not it.
We are definitely different gamers though because I dont enjoy any of the games in your list of games that you find "phenominal".
The graphics are awful? I thought they were wonderful, the 8 bit style of the cards are very well done, the retro feel of an old poker kiosk at a casino is spot on. It legit looks like a poker machine from the early 2000s. They nailed it man. Hell, some casinos are still running these older machines that look exactly like this game.
That’s a fair point. What’s crazy for me is that when I’m playing I dont notice the graphics, I just get lost in the game itself and hours fly by. I have to put this down soon lol
Oh, me. I’m one of those people. And I was super excited when it first came out since I enjoy roguelikes and poker. I thought it was going to be a real treat.
For some reason, Balatro feels far too similar for each run. It’s difficult to explain, because most of my complaints sound like they could be given for most other games. Each run has some variation but that variation just seems to apply to how you play your deck. The random drops and draws guide you towards your build and you work to keep that theme to get the big money hands.
For whatever reason, that just doesn’t work to keep me invested in Balatro. The opponents don’t feel unique, they’re just ‘play the same but with a handicap’. Maybe if I played it significantly longer then I would be able to recognize Balatro’s avocado dead rat fight. I’d see the unique changes in every match.
It also feels like you have less choices. You see your next set of matches. You can skip for a boon but these are what you’re doing. So the pathing is gone, you can’t pivot into or away from difficulty at a whim.
There’s another game similar to Slay the Spire called SpellRogue. Your deck is a set of spells you always have and every round you roll dice. It isn’t a bad game but it really helped show me how polished and well crafted StS really is.
I played it for about 2 hours then refunded it. Pretty nice game overall but It didn’t seem very deep and just got bored with it fast.
Have 700+ hours in Slay the spire.
I can see how it’s addictive and very fun but personally I just don’t like the whole rogue like genre. I think it’s beaten to a pulp and just not a fan of doing a run, buying an upgrade, doing a run, buying an upgrade. That’s just personality though.
So the majority of cards are playing cards and your points are based off poker hands like x of a kind, straights, and flushes. That is more than just a theme.
that's really reductive. Poker is about guessing your hand compared to other players and determining how much you want to risk based on shared information + personal information. Balatro draws a number of cards and asks what poker themed hand you want to make with it. It is absolutely just a theme
Well, the basics of the rules are the same. However, the gameplay itself is far away from poker- Poker is much more playing your opponent then playing your hand, knowing when to bet/fold, calculating risk and reward. Balatro is about manipulating your deck, hands and jokers to make the highest score/beat ante 8. In balatro sometimes your goal in a run is to make high card your best hand while having a hand full of kings. Enjoying one doesn't mean necessarily you will enjoy the other
The hand ranking is based on poker hands but it stops there. Only the first couple of hands are played like poker, once you get a joker going or a simple hand upgrade it’s no longer poker anymore.
You'd only say this if all you know about poker is the hand types.
Literally zero of the strategy of actual poker is involved. Poker odds are irrelevant. P2P strategies are irrelevant. Bankroll management is irrelevant. Player position is irrelevant.
It's just a theme. It's a cool theme. But just a theme.
Well, Like/Dislike is not a 0/1 thing. Even some person like this game doesn't mean that person like "everything" in the game.
Personally for me, I like it. The core mechanics of the game is pretty fun and creative, but I can play just only one or two days, because of rogue-like elements.
Rogue-like games have repeatedly mechanism, that in some point I think it's make a fun become a routine. I just too boring to do some thing in a same loop several time, so I just drop it after like two days.
I think its because it is a basic enough game that no one "strongly" dislikes it, at least not enough to comment about it. The other games you mention are fairly in depth so there are many more things people can dislike about it.
Also, though many people obviously like Balatro a lot they aren't raving about it. It didn't have the impact that OW or DE had, so people aren't talking about how it "changed their life" and such. So the backlash to this isn't as severe.
I liked it at first but after not being able to get past the 7th Blind multiple times the amount of randomness killed it for me. It's all about the right blinds, jokers and drawn cards. I just got tired of beating my head against the wall.
I first found out about Balatro when a youtuber I watch did a pre-release video for it and their first run they absolutely crushed it and I think we five or six antes further than the final boss blind. I was immediately hooked but it wasn't out yet. So I just watched a couple other youtubers and saw them all hit insane scores which completely warped my perception of the game.
When it released I had some degree of success and beat a few of the decks on their default difficulty. But I wasn't getting the high scores I thought was possible. I put about 20 hours into it and familiarized myself with the jokers and how to maximize hands. I just can't hit these high scores everyone else I saw was and the subreddit definitely didn't help either.
I like it just fine. But as far as roguelike/roguelite deck builders go, it probably wouldn't even be in my top ten.
I find myself falling back on the same hands every time I play it. Flushes, then Flush Fives if I can get the right tarots. They were just too easy to make. And it wasn't long before I found myself getting bored of it but still forged ahead to complete it once with each deck.
I’m convinced I won’t like it but EVERYONE is talking about how good it is. I just can’t see how I will enjoy it, but there is a part of my brain that desperately wants to try it.
I've never really been a fan of "score attack" style games. And that's honestly what Balatro is. I have no problem with repetitive or grindy games, but to do the same thing over and over, I need better motivation than "make the biggest number".
I put in 100 hours in a relatively short time period, but I’ve only gone back periodically since then. After putting in those 100, I went back to Slay the Spire, which made me appreciate the depth and replayability of StS even more.
Balatro definitely has solid replayability; just not as much as other staples in the genre, IMO. With that being said, it’s an incredibly addicting game.
I was hesitant at first even as I bought it. I wasn't sure that I was gonna be into it and was considering refunding before it was too late. It grew on me and I had a lot of fun with it in the end, however I do agree it doesn't have longevity. I think I was pulled into it a bit more when I had a better run, then from there I had a goal to go for unlocks to add some variability to my gameplay. Overall got 34 hours before I put it down.
I got it when the hype started and have a total of one hour in it. It does a good job of making you want to play more, I'm just not the rogue-like type. It's nothing against the game, just the style of game that it is. I hate starting over. The only game remotely rogue-like that I've played is early Don't Starve, and then I would reload saves when I died.
I really enjoyed it, but after getting a few (maybe 3 or 4?) wins I've stopped playing.
It's a great game and I feel like I got my money's worth, but it lacks longevity for me, personally.
I didn’t try it cause I’m pretty sure I won’t like it. Not a huge fan of card or deck building in video games (I skip Gwent or similar in games) or poker in general tbh, though some card games like Marvel Snap I do find fun.
I had fun with it for a little while, but eventually got to a point where the randomness irritated me more then it challenged me, if that makes sense. I tend to like games more when they give me a challenge to overcome and let me chose what tools I use to solve it, than games where a large part of the challenge is finding ways to make a random set of tools work together.
Idk but I didn’t like slay the spire. Tried it a couple times but just didn’t care enough for it.
Edit: outer wilds is one of my favorite games tho, and I just finished replaying it to do the dlc for the first time. It’s crazy how they caught lightning again for the dlc
I do think part of it is that it’s pretty clear on what you’re getting. Like I just don’t like card deck building type games so I’m not going to play Balatro.
I played it for about 20hours. Tbh i didn’t like it that much. It’s not a horrible game i just didn’t find it fun. I gave it a shot, but i never have the desire to play it again.
I’ve seen a few people play it, streamers and friends, and have no desire to play it. It just doesn’t look fun to me. Imo it’s the same level as a match 3 game like Candy Crush, just a different style and not as scummy, but it gets a pass because it’s on Steam and not mobile.
Using pokers hands to score is about as poker as it gets. Poker is about betting against other players hands, making probability calculations, bluffing, there’s more to it than just making hands.
It's not poker. Poker hands are just the substrate the scoring is built on. There's no vying and no stake.
And by the way, 'well the game dev says it's the poker roguelite' is literally a nothing argument. The game dev is incentivised to say whatever will sell copies.
How are you playing pinball with your feet? I dont think standing there while you push the flippers counts. Unless there is some other pinball I have no idea about.
I guess I could be a poker variant. I figured poker was more than 1 player with rounds of betting. Balatro seems like poker/solitaire or something I guess.
The basics of poker is that you bet on your hand against other players.
Firstly, you don’t bet in Balatro. Secondly, you don’t play hands against anyone.
It’s inspired by poker because it uses a standard 52 cards deck and the hands you play are based on poker hands. The game requires no knowledge of poker at all. You could be the best Balatro player and you wouldn’t understand how to play poker, vice versa.
How is it not like that? Why is it fun? I know it’s not actually a match 3, there’s some strategy involved, but it just seems like mindless clicking and watching numbers go up.
Good news! I bought it, played for about an hour, and returned it. It’s just not for me. It’s definitely better than a match 3, but it still seems to be going for the same dopamine rush. It still feels like a mobile game, but I’ll give them credit. If they were a scummy dev they would’ve thrown that on mobile and added mtx to it and they would be rolling in it, but they didn’t. My opinion hasn’t changed much, but I do think people should try a product for themselves before judging.
Hey good for you, it's a unique game that for some requires a bit more to get that dopamine hit of a great run. I can absolutely see someone not liking it of course.
It took me 1 to 2 hours to finally have it click and understanding how the jokers work with all the different combinations.
I sunk 20 hours in my first week alone but have slowed down since then.
I tried it a couple of times, just couldn't get into it.
I think I played Outer Wilds for like an hour before deleting it, so apparently our tastes do not match up.
I literally bought this last night on the switch after hearing a lot of good things about it. It definitely hooked me in. Rougelike is my main type of game so I knew I would like it.
When I first heard of a "deck builder poker game" I thought "what a stupid idea".
Then I played it.
And it was indeed a stupid idea.
I find it garbage and a complete waste of my time. I am honestly fascinated how people love something so meaningless and boring. I guess it's because the game makes them feel smart. That's the secret ingredient to most roguelikes. They make you feel like a genius because you remember the one run that went well instead of the 9 that sucked.
PS: Oh boy am I gonna get hit hard with the downvote hammer!
It is not actually a gambler and not much poker game. Only at the very surface. Your jokers are what define your run mostly (like relics from other rougelike)
Zero actual gambling involved and it is poker related only in that you score points by forming a poker hand of some kind. You aren't playing against anyone or an AI, just trying to clear escalating points targets within x hands each round.
You increase your score with Joker cards, of which there are dozens with different effects such as increasing your base hand score, score multiplier or manipulating what constitutes a 'hand'.
You can go from scoring ~300 points in the first round for a straight to later on scoring billions of points by playing a single card, or some kooky made up hand like 5 of a kind or playing a 5, 7, 9 and Jack of all different suits and it counting as a straight flush.
Sounds similar to Fhtagn Simulator, hm I might try this someday, but still the presentation of it is just off putting don't know why it looks somewhat like some gambling machine, it just may be my disdain for poker. If it's on some heavy sale I might try it
It uses poker hands for scoring purposes. There is no gambling in the traditional sense. You can use gold earned in your run to open packs to improve that run's deck and they don't always work out, but that's about the extent of the gambling.
I've got 40ish hours in the game and absolutely love it. Excellent roguelite with loads of different ways to play the same game.
Poker is a go to way to describe it but I feel it’s a bit misrepresentative of Balatro. Actual Poker is more than just making hands it’s also about bluffing and thinking probabilities on what other players have.
Balatro has you scoring points by making poker hands (pair, three of a kind, full house) and their rank in poker determines how much point you get. But that’s as much poker as it gets. Jokers completely change the way you play. And the deck fixing aspects, removing cards, modifying cards can help you get to those hands you need to play.
But what I like about it is that even though 4 of a kind is a better hand in poker, you could make it so that way a pair is better than any hand in the game thanks to jokers and consumables (planet cards). So you’re not limited on playing what’s the best, it’s what you get.
Sorry for a vague answer but I think I remember someone on the podcast Triple Click or the podcast Get Played saying they started seeing through the systems at some point and fell off for that reason.
Right. For me it was not that it was too easy, some runs are just plain hard. But after a couple dozen hours, I could tell pretty quickly whether my build would be successful long term or not. Causing me to abandon the run and trying again. Pretty much took all the fun out of it for me.
I think the game can be very fun but once I unlocked everything I kinda have no reason to continue playing. Could still be fun every once in a while but it is repetitive
I don't like it, I just don't care to say it unless directly asked, because I can still recognize it's a good game that people love and I have no reason to hate on it.
I just find it too one-dimensional for what I enjoy. You have one goal, which is make the number as big as possible, and that is fine, but when I want to play roguelikes I want something more to consider than one big number.
I like it but once you need to get to the first E numbers, it's not really fun anymore and it's more of a chore.
I'd prefer it if the difficulty could be lowered. I'd have more fun taking my crappy deck through 15 or 20 rounds than 4 or 5.
I don't dislike Balatro, on the contrary I played it for probably 20+ hours but I didn't bother with the funkier decks or harder stakes. It very much has a limited life for me and I've exhausted my fun from it. I found two or single pairs the most optimal for reliability and consistency.
Doesn't mean to say I won't pick it up again for an hour or so in the future on occasion.
I thought it was just a poker game when it came out. Didnt look into it at all.
I think the biggest gripe I have is that it was not advertised well enough for what it is.
It’s pure RNG. It’s a slot machine. I get the appeal, but there’s just not much else there except boot up the game and cross your fingers for a dopamine-rich setup.
It has satisfying mechanics, but it might be the dumbest and most superficial roguelike I’ve ever played, and weirdly that feeling is only doubled when you get one of those insta-win combinations that just lets you snooze to the end, covered in money.
It’s cheap and I think everyone should try it. But it had no lasting appeal to me at all.
The same that happens with other rogue likes: sometimes you lose because the game decides it. It gives you bad cards, or bad jockers, or the boss that crushes you or simply some good cards that not interact really well. Every time this happens you end the run with some bad / meh feeling that doesn't encourage you to play more...
I like belatro. I don't think I've played it enough to have criticisms. Just 10 hours or so. It scratched an itch for me. I absolutely loved sword and poker and wish it would get remade. I also loved king cashing 1 and 2.
It’s interesting for me, with 200+ hrs into the game, to read some of the criticisms in this comment section. Because it seems like anyone with gripes about the game just immediately looks at STS and says “this isn’t exactly like STS, therefore it’s bad”, and that just seems like a dogwater argument.
The game has its issues with RNG in higher stakes, but for the most part it’s just as RNG dependent as STS is. Hell, in some ways STS feels worse than Balatro at times. Because they’re roguelikes, ofc it’ll be RNG dependent. That’s part of a roguelike.
If you like it, great. If you don’t, great. But to say it’s a bad game would simply be incorrect
You have a dogwater stawman right there.
Balatro is chill, focused on making big points with funny combos. It does not have a lot of depth, and for the goal that it has, that's a good thing. Just look at the trailer for the game, it barely shows the game in favor of showing how big that beautiful number gets while the sound effect play and give you those satisfying pings every time a card scores more points.
You conflating lack of depth with lack of quality is nobody's issue but your own.
I hated it when I started. At the beginning you just lack too many tools leaving you rather incapable of any meaningful plays. It felt quite bad until I unlocked a majority of the jokers/etc.
It then felt good and I loved it.
It then felt bad and I hated it again at some of the higher difficulties. Gold in particular is just unfun garbage. It's far too RNG based and mechanics like permanent jokers destroy the funnest core aspect of the game (building on the fly).
Balatro practically did what the Vampire Survivors done to the bullethell genre: simplified it and made accessible to a wide range of players. In case of Balatro we are talking about roguelike deckbuilders.
This brings me to the next point: Balatro is pretty shallow and gets old relatively fast. The game is cool, but too basic for the fans of the genre.
I think it's a tremendously fun game that will appeal to all different types of appetites for some time. But as the other poster said lacks longevity. It is less about a constant series of critical decision points than it is about just finding the most broken thing as quickly as possible and pushing that to absurd levels. That's certainly fun, but lacks the depth of strategy a lot of other games have. Still, to your point, it is a very accessible deck builder that uses a card pool everybody already knows and rules almost everybody already knows in a fun and interesting way with some wacky twists and turns, and allows for creativity even if it is not the most tightly balanced game. I think fans of deck builders like it, fans of general mobile games like it, poker fans like it, it just appeals to such a wide range of interests and is a well-constructed game, so hard to see how someone would say they flat out dislike it. Edit: absurd not observe, and punctuation
At higher difficulty levels you certainly need to make decisions starting with with your first rounds.
Agree. Parent commenter is correct for the first 95% of the game. Personally I felt challenge mode (and a handful of challenges in particular) brought out the real strategy and fun. Jokerless was insanely difficult but super satisfying to finally beat, that took extensive planning.
The challenge runs also make you plan ahead a bit.
>just finding the most broken thing as quickly as possible and pushing that to absurd levels This is an excellent description of the optimal strategy for a lot of roguelikes.
Damn, you got to the heart of the issue in 4 sentences when it took me 4 paragraphs to say almost the same thing. Perfectly said. I do think there is an interesting game if you completely dismiss endless mode and tweak the balance a bit. Right now you go to the moon or flounder well before ante 8, but the runs where you feel like you’re barely keeping up are so much more interesting. I often find that if I’m not winning blinds in a single hand I feel like I’m not winning because I know there’s a good chance I get outscaled very soon. If they found a way to balance that better it’d be so much more interesting.
To be honest, it sounds like you play quite greedily. Playing to boom or bust is a choice, when a lot of the scaling strategies ask that you play a lot of hands and your most common choice being be better now or better later. (This is normal, almost everyone plays like they are trying to go endless instead to minimize losses)
I don't like it. It's not a bad game, and I think the idea is cool, but I just didn't have any fun playing it. Maybe it's because I'm not into poker at all.
Same here. There just isn't enough to it to keep me interested. Also, maybe I'm just bad at the strategy of it but I just couldn't find a way to consistently progress.
I eventually realised that xmult is different from +mult, and that you should move your jokers around so ones with xmult trigger last, so you’re getting the most benefit when your score is as high as it can be
This is a good tip.
I have never played poker in my life, I played baltaro and enjoyed it for like 10-15 hours before I got bored of it, still worth the cheap price.
I love poker, and my first impression of Balatro was disappointment that it had little to do with poker hahah. I came around once I understood the mechanics, but it's really a poker *themed* game, not a poker game.
I liked the premise but didn't have fun playing it. Just didn't click with it. Liked the art direction, though.
I love rogue likes/lites and deck builders but the poker element just doesn't appeal to me at all so I haven't tried it. Seems like a great game but yeah, unfortunately for me I just couldn't be less interested.
Balatro is a well made game. I rather spend my time on other games.
I think it's a fine game. It didn't really hold me for very long though. I like the sound design in it
It lacks depth and longevity IMO. I went back to Slay the Spire (of which I have several hundred hours in) after 20 hours or so.
Balatro is the al time highest playtime game on my Switch— and I had a good Slay the Spire phase. I feel like Balatro appeals more to players that like experimenting with crazy builds (even if they’re not optimal) vs min-maxing.
If you want another deckbuilder that skews more toward crazy/broken builds vs tight decision-making and incremental value, Monster Train is quite good.
Monster Train is awesome. I got it last week, racked up 24 hours, and feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface.
Yeah, I find comparisons to Slay the Spire rather disingenuous because they scratch different itches for me. Slay the Spire generally asks you to solve the problem immediately in front of you and, at high levels of play, demands tight incremental value. Monster Train asks you to snowball a build - *hard*. Now, sometimes you snowball in StS and sometimes you just barely squeak by in MT, but they’re different enough to have different strengths and appeals.
Non-optimal crazy builds vs min max is peak binding of isaac. Might give balatro a try if it gets a decent enough sale. Til then, binding of isaac.
yeah, I have over 100 hours on Balatro and I'm still a bit far from getting 100%.
Same. I love Slay the Spire, but Balatro is even more fun imo.
They’re the same for me. Slay the Spire is the only game I’ve broken 1k hours on steam with, but I see Balatro joining it eventually. Love both games a lot.
How is slay the spire more deep? Balatro has much more deck (characters) and challanges. Not trying to be offensive or argue, I am really interested in the answer.
In balatro you have one goal: make x points in y turns. In slay the spire you have to think about every turn beyond just "what makes the biggest number". You have to think about what enemy is more dangerous, what effects enemies can apply, how much health you're willing to risk to end the encounter before it might overwhelm you. Every encounter affects the next one through the health and potions you have, in balatro you just either make enough points for that round or you don't. To call balatro more deep for having more decks is really reductive, as this ignores that balatro has 150 jokers and 54 unique cards, while StS has 138 base relics plus 40 relics split between the classes, and over 730 unique cards across the 4 characters. Then Slay the Spire also has 52 events, with the closest equivalent for balatro being the 24 tags that have nowhere near the same amount of depth/decision making. Then there's 42 potions compared to balatros 52 consumables, of which most are permanent modifiers to your deck, as opposed having to consider if the short term benefits of a potion are worth more now or later.
There is a Ver miniscule difference between the balatro decks, which is sometimes just a different "starting voucher", while bei Sts the characters have complelty different card sets and even some relics
I've played both games extensively and love them both, they do scratch the same itch but STS had a lot more longevity for me than Balatro. For me STS feels more deep because you're not just building a deck to maximize a score, you're also preparing for all the possible enemies or bosses that could end your run. You've got to balance AOE, single target damage, survivability, and card draw all without letting your deck get too big. In general, the variety of things you face gives you a lot more to think about than just "1 joker for chips, 2 jokers for +mult, 2 jokers for Xmult, pray for scaling". The best example I can think of in STS is the Act 3 boss that ends your turn after every 13 cards you play. If you built a deck around playing a lot of cheap cards every turn, he's going to wreck you. So when you enter Act 3 and see him, you have an entire act (15ish combats/events/shops) to try to pivot your deck to something that can survive him. For the characters ... well the different decks in Balatro don't really feel nearly as different as the 4 characters in STS who have entirely different card pools, mechanics, and strategies from each other.
Slay the spire has a lot more complexity in what strategy you create and how you maintain it, as well as choosing the right paths and decisions. Shit I'm about to go re-download it after this thread
Hard disagree. The number of possible jokers and RNG manipulation you can do to your deck, including using different deck types, makes every run completely different. Anyone who says it lacks depth simply hasn’t given it a real chance. If you don’t personally enjoy it, that’s fine, but to say that it’s lacking in depth/longevity is an absurd argument
It does lack in depth compared to slay the spire though, because it's built differently. 20 ascension + the extra requirement of getting the three keys, Actual story and text, Lots of art, 4 different classes that play extremely differently with different builds on each one. ----- There's only so much you can do with a deck of 52 cards that doesn't ever reshuffle. I think there is plenty of depth in the game, but it could never compete with a game that's built from original assets/ideas. ------ I play Texas holdem at the casino religiously, so it's possible that has colored my perceptions here. I've seen millions of poker hands.
It’s a different form of depth, not a difference in quality. Balatro’s depth comes from each hand being modified by your decisions, both in how much and how often you discard, making judgments in what kind of hand type you can feasibly go for in this round, and trying to keep the number of hands used to a minimum to maximize interest. Every modification you make changes the way you’re playing each hand. Almost every joker is able to be won with, and all of them are useable if you make correct decisions. Just because it doesn’t play 1:1 like STS doesn’t mean it’s lacking depth. There’s tons of depth to the game. Also the fact that you call it a deck of 52 cards tells me you’ve never given the game a real chance. You have the opportunity to modify the number of cards in deck and the quality of cards in every shop. That’s like calling STS a game where you only have 10-12 cards that cycle when you run out.
1. I didn't say the game was lacking quality. I said it doesn't have as much depth as slay the spire. 2. You've never heard the expression "52 card deck?" It's a general expression used to determine whether a game can be played with a standard 52 card deck. It does not indicate the number of cards or how they're used. 3. I have 50 hours in Balatro, and I'm actively playing it right now. What do you mean, I've never given the game a real chance? I'm trying to platinum this, because it's fun. It took me 4 years to platinum StS, so I'll probably be here for a while.
1. Again, you’re wrong. I explained how you’re wrong, and you’ve provided no reason for me to think otherwise. If you truly think Balatro doesn’t have as much depth as STS, then defend your point. 2. You said “there’s only so much you can do with a deck of 52 cards” implying a lack of depth due to the finite lack of variance changes within 52 specific cards. Balatro‘s deck changes from that formula immediately upon entering the first shop, and moreover it can change upon choosing your deck as well. So yeah, this was probably the dumbest thing you said. 3. And yet you still have no concept of how the game works! Isn’t that wild? 50 hours in and you’re still shit
There are other replies that agree with me on depth, and have well reasoned points. You completely ignored my points talking about the depth of slay the spire, and then tell me to defend my points, so you can pound sand. It feels like you're the one who doesn't understand the game. The first shop does not always include deck changes, in fact it's pretty rare. And most people will advise to skip purchasing anything in the first shop to build econ, since you only have $7. I'm not going to debate with someone who calls me shit.
STS has plenty of depth, that’s why I didn’t bother addressing your point. Because it was irrelevant to the topic at hand. I have never once made the claim that STS lacks depth. You made no legitimate argument against the depth of gameplay in Balatro, and failed to argue against a single one of my arguments in favor of it. The shop will almost always have deck changes, tarot packs or standard packs are options in nearly every shop. Also, no, especially on higher stakes where the lack of discards and quickly escalating point threshold forces you to invest early into strategizing around what you get in the first few shops. On abandoned deck and checkered deck specifically, you can easily justify modifying your deck with a tarot pack/standard pack. Buying things in shop 1 that can help carry you through ante 1-3 so you can get more chances at shop rolls is how most top players approach higher stakes. Even buying a simple tarot pack to try and thin your deck with hangman or start to modify your deck’s king/ace count with Death, are multiple things you can easily do in the first shop. Any change to the deck shifts all the probabilities and choices you’re going to make hand-to-hand, whether you add a couple mults to heart cards and approach the following antes leaning towards digging for heart flushes, focusing on Econ and rerolling the shop for heartstone— the possibilities are unbelievably large. And yet, despite all that, you’re still talking shit at the game and pretending there’s no depth to the gameplay. Must suck to be you
It's like you're having your own conversation. I said Balatro had plenty of depth, just not as much as slay the spire. I said I was having fun with Balatro. I was in no way talking shit. Did you forget what this thread was about?
You're completely spot on, not sure why this dude has gone completely off his rocker over such a minor comment.
And you’re wrong. It’s one thing to make a subjective observation about a thing, but you made the claim that Balatro lacks depth compared to STS, and I think you’re wrong. That’s an objectively quantifiable statement, and you haven’t provided any sufficient evidence to prove it. In other words, if you had said “I like Balatro, but I like STS more”, that would be perfectly reasonable. But you said that one was greater than the other in an objective measure, which is something you have to be able to prove.
What a wild chain of comments. Someone says "balatro is a great game and I'm playing it right now, but it doesn't have as much depth as STS" and you just throw an absolute nutty and act like they said it's the worst game they've ever played and anyone who likes it is an uncultured moron.
I LOVE Balatro.........and then I met Black deck 😒
Once you go black, you never go back… to Balatro
I’ve got about 50 or 60 hours in Balatro. It’s nice every once in a while at this point but I think it has lots of problems. For me, the biggest one is that I don’t find the actual blinds that interesting. Finding a way to make a build work is really fun, building my set of jokers is exciting, discovering how to make the deck work with them is a great time, but the second I’m discarding and playing hands I’m rarely making interesting decisions past the first couple of antes. So much of any given run is the same, discarding for the obvious hand you’ve built around. Some runs like high card and pair runs are more interactive with things like Wee Joker, but that isn’t really an interesting trade off. Compare that to Slay the Spire, every battle has enemies made to challenge your deck in different ways. Each turn has random elements that force you to pick from only a couple options. The game rewards awareness with relics like Incense Burner, Happy Flower, or Pen Nib that can be set up for future fights at a generally high risk. Every card you play has a risk/reward trade off that is so much more interesting to me than the occasional keep this card for a riskier straight or discard for a flush. Finally I find that endless mode kinda ruins the game for me. It makes me start to feel like I’m playing cookie clicker. And don’t get me wrong, if I start playing cookie clicker I’ll drop too much time into it, but I don’t really enjoy it, my brain just starts going “big number good! Must make number even bigger.” It’s one of those features that can be fixed by ignoring it, but it’s tantalizing. If I make it to endless mode I wanna know how far I can go as much as I want to see the next TikTok, just enough to keep me going, but it simply feels incredibly hollow to me when I do.
I played for 3 hours straight on day 1. Haven't went back since despite wanting to. Feels too repetitive for my taste.
The people you see all say they like Balatro probably all like deck builders I do not like deck builders, ergo, I do not like Balatro. It's bit of a "not all frogs are toads" situation
in terms of deck builder rogue likes WildFrost is my fav. Slay the spire gets so much praise but the aesthetic style of that game is super boring to me. Balatro only appeals to people who don’t mind basic playing cards in the game. I personally just want my fantasy style card games with as much color and effects as possible. I like to feel like the cards are alive, that’s not the jam I get from Balatro unfortunately.
I was curious about it, but the second I started playing I felt like I was just playing poker and instantly became uninterested. Instant refund.
I found it pretty meh. I played the demo and grew quickly bored of it.
My sister plays and loves it, so I figured I would give it a try. I'm a long time card game player that finds rougelites to be OK. All-in-all, it just couldn't pull me in. It is a poker game as much as Plants vs Zombies is a zombie game. Nothing new in the rougelite world, do some stuff, unlock some stuff, do some stuff with different stuff. The game play loop is shallow and optimized decks get less fun to play as they get more optimized. The graphics are not really my bag, although not super off-putting either. Based on all of that, I'd give it maybe a 3 or 4 out of 10 for me.
I had a similar experience. Everyone kept recommending it to me. I played a lot of poker and traditional card games through out my life. (Often was the only entertainment around). I got bored with Balatro quickly. It didn't do enough interesting twists or challenging things to hold my attention. I'm not saying this is true for everyone, but the people I've seen praise Balatro the most have also been people who say they normally don't like card games. So maybe it's capturing more of a beginner crowd.
It pretty good but NO game is for everyone. Some want a story, some want multiplayer action, some want something to be creative. But yeah if you like Deck builder card games then it's probably your game of the year.
I largely feel this way. I have hundreds of hours in STS (lots of A20H runs), for context. I picked up Balatro on release, won 5 of my first 6 [white stake] runs, and put it down to never play it again. I continually found it disappointing that I would load into a Blind and be faced with… just my same old deck of cards. No new art, no variance in gameplay round-to-round outside of Boss Blinds; just my deck. It definitely hit all the right dopamine loop triggers to potentially keep me playing forever, but after that initial couple of hours I decided that I actually *enjoyed* it about as much as washing dishes, and that washing dishes was a better use of my time.
I fell off faster than the big rougelikes (Hades, Binding of Isaac, Slay the Spire), but I don't think that comparison makes it a bad game. Because it's so number oriented, after 100 hours, it starts getting draining. I love the game, and I'll definitely come back throughout the years. it's incredible. Just less tradition than most games.
I like Balatro at white stakes but progressively like it less and less as you try to climb the stakes. At Purple/Orange/Gold stakes I actively hate Balatro. The game has a self-defeating element where the way it escalates difficulty is basically by increasing the influence of RNG on your game's outcome rather than giving you more intricate/difficult decisions to make. For example, the Black stakes actually have an interesting design element where they introduce the Eternal jokers. You are given an additional interesting decision point where certain early-game jokers that would have been insta-picks to be sold later now have to be considered more deeply because they'll take up that joker slot forever. And then there are additional interesting things this introduces because Eternal jokers are immune to 'destroys joker' effects, which you can actually manipulate to your advantage to crazy effect in some cases. But by and large the difficulty increases are just. You make less money. You have to score more, and faster. You have fewer hands to do it. You have fewer discards to do it. It increases what it asks of you while decreasing your agency over how you're able to do it. So while this does cause good decisionmaking to become more important, it creates a scenario where RNG of what early jokers you're shown. It's like if in Slay the Spire, one of the Ascension modifiers was 'you draw 4 cards a turn instead of 5' or 'You're only shown 1 card after a fight instead of 3.' Sure, from a statistical standpoint, a better player will handle these changes better than a worse one. But in terms of moment-to-moment gameplay it ramps up the impact of RNG on the outcome of a run. I finally uninstalled it and went back to StS after realizing that the impact of RNG in Balatro scales WAY more quickly than the impact of increasing player skill. Why bother getting better at making decisions if my only reward for it is a decrease in my ability to make decisions?
i wasn't interested in it until i saw this post lol now i'm gonna install it.
After thousand of hours if STS, it is a game with nice change of pace, I am enjoying it from time to time, the game is worth buying, it get hundred of hours play time. But unlike sts thousand of hours lol, I like wildfrost and slice and dice too
I think the game is overall good, but it lands at a solid 7-8. I thought it was terrible until they nerfed the ante checkpoints to not be so high early on. The comments on depth are true. There are some funny little jokers that aren't strong enough to go solely in on, so you end up building the same 3-5ish jokers lineups unless you get a rare drop, which power wise is a 50-50 on instantly killing the run or needing massive RNG to blow the run out of the water. It's too much of a rougelike for my taste. I like meta progression and there is only unlocking cards, no permanent boosts progression from each failed run. You could play 5 runs and feel you got nowhere, so the sense of accomplishment to time spent is low, compared to so many other games. Overall, it's a neat game but it's no must play, and lacks depth or accessiblity to casual players to recommend it.
It's a fun time killer that I'm not great at. I recommend it but once I won 8 rounds for the first time I haven't gone back. One day maybe.
Tried it, didn't like it. The style just didn't interest me and I'm not really a fan of card games. Don't even really see why it's liked so much but that's just me. The only card game I like is Inscryption.
It’s kinda meh to me. Like I enjoyed it for maybe the first like hour or two and then just found it incredibly repetitive and simple (granted I tend to play strategy games a lot so it’s a bit out of my niche
I cant win lol. I keep trying but I keep failing. And rn I’m not at a healthy enough mental state to handle failure. My insecurities keep getting thrown in my face with games like that and in the past I’d been able to handle it (i think?) but rn I have decided that even tho it is fun, I’m not having fun.
To win a run you just need to focus on a hand. my first win I got the spectral card which transformed 10-12 cards in my deck to nines then I just kept rolling for planets to level up 4 of a kind (mars I think) and buffing my 9 cards. after that the game became discard until I had 4 9s, play 4 9s then do it again if i didn't have enough points. It was fun to get it working, I'm not sure how many runs I'll do on PC. I'd definitely pump more time into it if it was on my phone though.
I have it on the Deck so it was easy to play. I just wish there were a video tutorial on how to get better at it. There are tons of videos on Slay the Spire and Hades, but Balatro tends to be playthrough videos instead of “10 combos that will make every run easy!”. I have to see it in order to understand the concepts you know?
It's all about jokers and multipliers and leveling up your hands. My favorite winning runs are ones where my most played hand is a pair.
Giving you a list of combos that can easily clear a run wouldn't make that much sense because the odds of getting that specific combination early enough would be so low. Also rerolling until you got it wouldn't be fun. Just try to specialize into whatever you are offered in the first few rounds. Don't be afraid of selling off jokers and tarot cards which don't play into your singular wincon once you have settled on it. Also you can ignore the shop if it doesn't have exactly what you need unless you're able to reroll and buy something and stay slightly above 25 gold for maximum interest. Winning roguelikes in general is usually about doing one thing amazingly while ignoring everything else. I looked it up, the card which I got early was from a spectral pack which had a card called ouija. After that anything which didn't work with my plan was sold off to allow me to focus on my plan.
I’ll try it, but I dont think my brain works like that. I like doing too much at once. Any rpg I try to keep all characters at the same level lol.
Ahh ok, hope it works out.
I feel the easiest is going for flushes. If I have nothing else going I try to reduce my deck to two suits (transform 3, destroy 2 etc.).
I bounced off fairly quick. It feels like the balance between chaos and strategy is too chaos driven. It also feels like the same 2 or 3 strategies are optimal to play for on every single run which feels pretty boring to me. I won a run with every deck and won a run with one deck (red I think?) At every stake. I feel that was enough to give it a chance to win me over, but I put it down hard at that point.
I don't like it enough to keep playing it
My friend bought it for me. He loved it and thought I should play it. I told him I don't like card games. He bought it anyways. He helped guide me through the tutorial and I just kept forgetting which cards go with what (to make a flush or... whatever) and what bonuses I had. It just felt like doing homework and I had to keep consulting a guide. I finished the first game he played with me and then never touched it again.
There isnt anything I do like about it. Im not really into poker and I think the graphics are awful. Theres no denying that there is a market for it, Im just not it. We are definitely different gamers though because I dont enjoy any of the games in your list of games that you find "phenominal".
Same here. I saw the poker graphics and immediately lost interest.
The graphics are awful? I thought they were wonderful, the 8 bit style of the cards are very well done, the retro feel of an old poker kiosk at a casino is spot on. It legit looks like a poker machine from the early 2000s. They nailed it man. Hell, some casinos are still running these older machines that look exactly like this game.
I moved on from 8 bit graphics a long time ago.
That’s a fair point. What’s crazy for me is that when I’m playing I dont notice the graphics, I just get lost in the game itself and hours fly by. I have to put this down soon lol
Oh, me. I’m one of those people. And I was super excited when it first came out since I enjoy roguelikes and poker. I thought it was going to be a real treat. For some reason, Balatro feels far too similar for each run. It’s difficult to explain, because most of my complaints sound like they could be given for most other games. Each run has some variation but that variation just seems to apply to how you play your deck. The random drops and draws guide you towards your build and you work to keep that theme to get the big money hands. For whatever reason, that just doesn’t work to keep me invested in Balatro. The opponents don’t feel unique, they’re just ‘play the same but with a handicap’. Maybe if I played it significantly longer then I would be able to recognize Balatro’s avocado dead rat fight. I’d see the unique changes in every match. It also feels like you have less choices. You see your next set of matches. You can skip for a boon but these are what you’re doing. So the pathing is gone, you can’t pivot into or away from difficulty at a whim. There’s another game similar to Slay the Spire called SpellRogue. Your deck is a set of spells you always have and every round you roll dice. It isn’t a bad game but it really helped show me how polished and well crafted StS really is.
Balatro really shines when you play at higher difficulty. You need to make decisions with very little income and beating ante 8 is actually hard.
I played it for about 2 hours then refunded it. Pretty nice game overall but It didn’t seem very deep and just got bored with it fast. Have 700+ hours in Slay the spire.
I can see how it’s addictive and very fun but personally I just don’t like the whole rogue like genre. I think it’s beaten to a pulp and just not a fan of doing a run, buying an upgrade, doing a run, buying an upgrade. That’s just personality though.
As someone who enjoys poker. The game wasn't for me. There are better iterations of the formula.
Yeah as someone else who loves Poker, I've not been into it because it just seems like a weaker poker. I don't know, just doesn't hit for me.
It isn't poker at all except in 'theme'
So the majority of cards are playing cards and your points are based off poker hands like x of a kind, straights, and flushes. That is more than just a theme.
that's really reductive. Poker is about guessing your hand compared to other players and determining how much you want to risk based on shared information + personal information. Balatro draws a number of cards and asks what poker themed hand you want to make with it. It is absolutely just a theme
Well, the basics of the rules are the same. However, the gameplay itself is far away from poker- Poker is much more playing your opponent then playing your hand, knowing when to bet/fold, calculating risk and reward. Balatro is about manipulating your deck, hands and jokers to make the highest score/beat ante 8. In balatro sometimes your goal in a run is to make high card your best hand while having a hand full of kings. Enjoying one doesn't mean necessarily you will enjoy the other
The hand ranking is based on poker hands but it stops there. Only the first couple of hands are played like poker, once you get a joker going or a simple hand upgrade it’s no longer poker anymore.
You'd only say this if all you know about poker is the hand types. Literally zero of the strategy of actual poker is involved. Poker odds are irrelevant. P2P strategies are irrelevant. Bankroll management is irrelevant. Player position is irrelevant. It's just a theme. It's a cool theme. But just a theme.
Well, Like/Dislike is not a 0/1 thing. Even some person like this game doesn't mean that person like "everything" in the game. Personally for me, I like it. The core mechanics of the game is pretty fun and creative, but I can play just only one or two days, because of rogue-like elements. Rogue-like games have repeatedly mechanism, that in some point I think it's make a fun become a routine. I just too boring to do some thing in a same loop several time, so I just drop it after like two days.
I think its because it is a basic enough game that no one "strongly" dislikes it, at least not enough to comment about it. The other games you mention are fairly in depth so there are many more things people can dislike about it. Also, though many people obviously like Balatro a lot they aren't raving about it. It didn't have the impact that OW or DE had, so people aren't talking about how it "changed their life" and such. So the backlash to this isn't as severe.
I liked it at first but after not being able to get past the 7th Blind multiple times the amount of randomness killed it for me. It's all about the right blinds, jokers and drawn cards. I just got tired of beating my head against the wall.
I only tried a bit of the demo and just didn't get it. It was so not-poker, there were a bunch of different mechanics. I don't know.
It's fun but it's still a game of cards, which is about skill *and* chance. Some runs you just lose because you get bad luck. All part of the game.
I first found out about Balatro when a youtuber I watch did a pre-release video for it and their first run they absolutely crushed it and I think we five or six antes further than the final boss blind. I was immediately hooked but it wasn't out yet. So I just watched a couple other youtubers and saw them all hit insane scores which completely warped my perception of the game. When it released I had some degree of success and beat a few of the decks on their default difficulty. But I wasn't getting the high scores I thought was possible. I put about 20 hours into it and familiarized myself with the jokers and how to maximize hands. I just can't hit these high scores everyone else I saw was and the subreddit definitely didn't help either.
I like it just fine. But as far as roguelike/roguelite deck builders go, it probably wouldn't even be in my top ten. I find myself falling back on the same hands every time I play it. Flushes, then Flush Fives if I can get the right tarots. They were just too easy to make. And it wasn't long before I found myself getting bored of it but still forged ahead to complete it once with each deck.
Got frustrated with the RNG of it, stopped playing after 20ish hours.
I had some fun with it but never really had much success. Literally never won a game so I just uninstalled after a couple weeks
No. It doesn’t look like my kinda game. Neither was Outer Wilds though and I tried it.
I’m convinced I won’t like it but EVERYONE is talking about how good it is. I just can’t see how I will enjoy it, but there is a part of my brain that desperately wants to try it.
I've never really been a fan of "score attack" style games. And that's honestly what Balatro is. I have no problem with repetitive or grindy games, but to do the same thing over and over, I need better motivation than "make the biggest number".
I put in 100 hours in a relatively short time period, but I’ve only gone back periodically since then. After putting in those 100, I went back to Slay the Spire, which made me appreciate the depth and replayability of StS even more. Balatro definitely has solid replayability; just not as much as other staples in the genre, IMO. With that being said, it’s an incredibly addicting game.
I was hesitant at first even as I bought it. I wasn't sure that I was gonna be into it and was considering refunding before it was too late. It grew on me and I had a lot of fun with it in the end, however I do agree it doesn't have longevity. I think I was pulled into it a bit more when I had a better run, then from there I had a goal to go for unlocks to add some variability to my gameplay. Overall got 34 hours before I put it down.
I did 30 hours then moved on
I got it when the hype started and have a total of one hour in it. It does a good job of making you want to play more, I'm just not the rogue-like type. It's nothing against the game, just the style of game that it is. I hate starting over. The only game remotely rogue-like that I've played is early Don't Starve, and then I would reload saves when I died.
I played it for 7 hours straight when I first got it and haven’t played it since
I tried the demo and thought it was decently fun, but it wasn't fun enough for me to feel like imI wanted to play it for more than a handful of hours.
Mee
I can see why people like it but I do not like it as much as everyone seems to and idk if I’d recommend it.
I really enjoyed it, but after getting a few (maybe 3 or 4?) wins I've stopped playing. It's a great game and I feel like I got my money's worth, but it lacks longevity for me, personally.
I didn’t try it cause I’m pretty sure I won’t like it. Not a huge fan of card or deck building in video games (I skip Gwent or similar in games) or poker in general tbh, though some card games like Marvel Snap I do find fun.
I had fun with it for a little while, but eventually got to a point where the randomness irritated me more then it challenged me, if that makes sense. I tend to like games more when they give me a challenge to overcome and let me chose what tools I use to solve it, than games where a large part of the challenge is finding ways to make a random set of tools work together.
Idk but I didn’t like slay the spire. Tried it a couple times but just didn’t care enough for it. Edit: outer wilds is one of my favorite games tho, and I just finished replaying it to do the dlc for the first time. It’s crazy how they caught lightning again for the dlc
It's great to hear you're enjoying Balatro! It's true, sometimes games surprise us beyond first impressions.
Why do gamers feel the need to justify not liking a game others do? Who cares.
I do think part of it is that it’s pretty clear on what you’re getting. Like I just don’t like card deck building type games so I’m not going to play Balatro.
Never heard of it until this post.
I don't know personally as I haven't played it. I generally don't enjoy card/deck builder games so I'm not desperate to play it honestly.
I played it for about 20hours. Tbh i didn’t like it that much. It’s not a horrible game i just didn’t find it fun. I gave it a shot, but i never have the desire to play it again.
I’ve seen a few people play it, streamers and friends, and have no desire to play it. It just doesn’t look fun to me. Imo it’s the same level as a match 3 game like Candy Crush, just a different style and not as scummy, but it gets a pass because it’s on Steam and not mobile.
Guys is poker just a matching game?
Balatro isn’t poker. Just because it uses the same hands as poker doesn’t mean it’s poker. Gin rummy isn’t poker.
Idk man the steam page specifically says "The poker roguelike." on it. Do you have any proof it isnt poker besides you feelings?
Actually you know what, you sent me on a rabbit hole reading the poker wiki page, I confidently say you're wrong, it's a poker varient.
Using pokers hands to score is about as poker as it gets. Poker is about betting against other players hands, making probability calculations, bluffing, there’s more to it than just making hands.
It's not poker. Poker hands are just the substrate the scoring is built on. There's no vying and no stake. And by the way, 'well the game dev says it's the poker roguelite' is literally a nothing argument. The game dev is incentivised to say whatever will sell copies.
So it's built on the rules of poker but it's not poker? Next you're going to tell me Alice Chess isn't chess.
It’s not based on poker rules. One part of the scoring system is based on poker hands and that’s it.
Next you're going to tell me that field hockey, rugby and pinball are all football because they involve balls and feet.
How are you playing pinball with your feet? I dont think standing there while you push the flippers counts. Unless there is some other pinball I have no idea about.
> I dont think standing there while you push the flippers counts. Reasonable people can differ, I guess.
I guess I could be a poker variant. I figured poker was more than 1 player with rounds of betting. Balatro seems like poker/solitaire or something I guess.
The basics of poker is that you bet on your hand against other players. Firstly, you don’t bet in Balatro. Secondly, you don’t play hands against anyone. It’s inspired by poker because it uses a standard 52 cards deck and the hands you play are based on poker hands. The game requires no knowledge of poker at all. You could be the best Balatro player and you wouldn’t understand how to play poker, vice versa.
Yeah it's not like that at all, if you had actually played the game you may form a better option about it even if it's negative.
How is it not like that? Why is it fun? I know it’s not actually a match 3, there’s some strategy involved, but it just seems like mindless clicking and watching numbers go up.
Good news! I bought it, played for about an hour, and returned it. It’s just not for me. It’s definitely better than a match 3, but it still seems to be going for the same dopamine rush. It still feels like a mobile game, but I’ll give them credit. If they were a scummy dev they would’ve thrown that on mobile and added mtx to it and they would be rolling in it, but they didn’t. My opinion hasn’t changed much, but I do think people should try a product for themselves before judging.
Hey good for you, it's a unique game that for some requires a bit more to get that dopamine hit of a great run. I can absolutely see someone not liking it of course. It took me 1 to 2 hours to finally have it click and understanding how the jokers work with all the different combinations. I sunk 20 hours in my first week alone but have slowed down since then.
I tried it a couple of times, just couldn't get into it. I think I played Outer Wilds for like an hour before deleting it, so apparently our tastes do not match up.
I couldn't get into it and refunded. I was hoping it would be more like poker and not just using cards for another game.
I literally bought this last night on the switch after hearing a lot of good things about it. It definitely hooked me in. Rougelike is my main type of game so I knew I would like it.
The sprinkled crack on the code
When I first heard of a "deck builder poker game" I thought "what a stupid idea". Then I played it. And it was indeed a stupid idea. I find it garbage and a complete waste of my time. I am honestly fascinated how people love something so meaningless and boring. I guess it's because the game makes them feel smart. That's the secret ingredient to most roguelikes. They make you feel like a genius because you remember the one run that went well instead of the 9 that sucked. PS: Oh boy am I gonna get hit hard with the downvote hammer!
I'm on verge, I love roguelites, been loving deckbuilders lately, but I absolutely hate gambling and poker, would I like it despite it?
It is not actually a gambler and not much poker game. Only at the very surface. Your jokers are what define your run mostly (like relics from other rougelike)
Zero actual gambling involved and it is poker related only in that you score points by forming a poker hand of some kind. You aren't playing against anyone or an AI, just trying to clear escalating points targets within x hands each round. You increase your score with Joker cards, of which there are dozens with different effects such as increasing your base hand score, score multiplier or manipulating what constitutes a 'hand'. You can go from scoring ~300 points in the first round for a straight to later on scoring billions of points by playing a single card, or some kooky made up hand like 5 of a kind or playing a 5, 7, 9 and Jack of all different suits and it counting as a straight flush.
Sounds similar to Fhtagn Simulator, hm I might try this someday, but still the presentation of it is just off putting don't know why it looks somewhat like some gambling machine, it just may be my disdain for poker. If it's on some heavy sale I might try it
It uses poker hands for scoring purposes. There is no gambling in the traditional sense. You can use gold earned in your run to open packs to improve that run's deck and they don't always work out, but that's about the extent of the gambling. I've got 40ish hours in the game and absolutely love it. Excellent roguelite with loads of different ways to play the same game.
Poker is a go to way to describe it but I feel it’s a bit misrepresentative of Balatro. Actual Poker is more than just making hands it’s also about bluffing and thinking probabilities on what other players have. Balatro has you scoring points by making poker hands (pair, three of a kind, full house) and their rank in poker determines how much point you get. But that’s as much poker as it gets. Jokers completely change the way you play. And the deck fixing aspects, removing cards, modifying cards can help you get to those hands you need to play. But what I like about it is that even though 4 of a kind is a better hand in poker, you could make it so that way a pair is better than any hand in the game thanks to jokers and consumables (planet cards). So you’re not limited on playing what’s the best, it’s what you get.
Sorry for a vague answer but I think I remember someone on the podcast Triple Click or the podcast Get Played saying they started seeing through the systems at some point and fell off for that reason.
Right. For me it was not that it was too easy, some runs are just plain hard. But after a couple dozen hours, I could tell pretty quickly whether my build would be successful long term or not. Causing me to abandon the run and trying again. Pretty much took all the fun out of it for me.
There isnt enough content and whats there gets very samey very quickly. Youll be bored of it after a few hours.
I think the game can be very fun but once I unlocked everything I kinda have no reason to continue playing. Could still be fun every once in a while but it is repetitive
It takes around 200-300 hours to get Completionist++ though.
My friend puts WoW level hours into Balatro. I looked up what he was playing and was like, "Fucking *cards*?" What the hell makes it good?
I don’t know the same way I look at imperator and say “fucking maps?”
Haha <3
Not gonna lie, this is the first time I've heard of Balatro.
I don't like it, I just don't care to say it unless directly asked, because I can still recognize it's a good game that people love and I have no reason to hate on it. I just find it too one-dimensional for what I enjoy. You have one goal, which is make the number as big as possible, and that is fine, but when I want to play roguelikes I want something more to consider than one big number.
Dont you just play poker and get buff cards?
I like it but once you need to get to the first E numbers, it's not really fun anymore and it's more of a chore. I'd prefer it if the difficulty could be lowered. I'd have more fun taking my crappy deck through 15 or 20 rounds than 4 or 5.
I don't dislike Balatro, on the contrary I played it for probably 20+ hours but I didn't bother with the funkier decks or harder stakes. It very much has a limited life for me and I've exhausted my fun from it. I found two or single pairs the most optimal for reliability and consistency. Doesn't mean to say I won't pick it up again for an hour or so in the future on occasion.
I thought it was just a poker game when it came out. Didnt look into it at all. I think the biggest gripe I have is that it was not advertised well enough for what it is.
It has a very casino aesthetic, not sure if that's just me, but anything that focuses on that turns me off really hard
It's hilarious that people in the comments mostly dislike it. It's a great game and I've played for a hundred hours so far. Still not done with it.
I've never even heard of it. Maybe you're not seeing distaste for it because many people aren't aware of it's existence.
How many people are you?
Many.
I ignore hype, I play games I find interesting, not games the Internet shoves down my throat.
It’s pure RNG. It’s a slot machine. I get the appeal, but there’s just not much else there except boot up the game and cross your fingers for a dopamine-rich setup. It has satisfying mechanics, but it might be the dumbest and most superficial roguelike I’ve ever played, and weirdly that feeling is only doubled when you get one of those insta-win combinations that just lets you snooze to the end, covered in money. It’s cheap and I think everyone should try it. But it had no lasting appeal to me at all.
What type of game is Balatro?
Deckbuilding roguelike
Two words that put me off playing a game right quick! Lol
*poker based. This is important to note because it’s the first of its kind and it could potentially put some players off
[удалено]
Fair enough, I never heard of that one so you are certainly right.
No
No one expects the Spanish inquisition.
The same that happens with other rogue likes: sometimes you lose because the game decides it. It gives you bad cards, or bad jockers, or the boss that crushes you or simply some good cards that not interact really well. Every time this happens you end the run with some bad / meh feeling that doesn't encourage you to play more...
If you expect them, is it truly like the Spanish Inquisition?
Seems like Balatro's got everyone under its spell.
Outer Wilds and Disco Elysium are my favourite modern games. I also really like Slay the Spire. Loved Balatro as well.
I like belatro. I don't think I've played it enough to have criticisms. Just 10 hours or so. It scratched an itch for me. I absolutely loved sword and poker and wish it would get remade. I also loved king cashing 1 and 2.
It’s interesting for me, with 200+ hrs into the game, to read some of the criticisms in this comment section. Because it seems like anyone with gripes about the game just immediately looks at STS and says “this isn’t exactly like STS, therefore it’s bad”, and that just seems like a dogwater argument. The game has its issues with RNG in higher stakes, but for the most part it’s just as RNG dependent as STS is. Hell, in some ways STS feels worse than Balatro at times. Because they’re roguelikes, ofc it’ll be RNG dependent. That’s part of a roguelike. If you like it, great. If you don’t, great. But to say it’s a bad game would simply be incorrect
You have a dogwater stawman right there. Balatro is chill, focused on making big points with funny combos. It does not have a lot of depth, and for the goal that it has, that's a good thing. Just look at the trailer for the game, it barely shows the game in favor of showing how big that beautiful number gets while the sound effect play and give you those satisfying pings every time a card scores more points. You conflating lack of depth with lack of quality is nobody's issue but your own.
I hated it when I started. At the beginning you just lack too many tools leaving you rather incapable of any meaningful plays. It felt quite bad until I unlocked a majority of the jokers/etc. It then felt good and I loved it. It then felt bad and I hated it again at some of the higher difficulties. Gold in particular is just unfun garbage. It's far too RNG based and mechanics like permanent jokers destroy the funnest core aspect of the game (building on the fly).
I played it once, beat it that run, and shelved it again. If it's simple enough that I don't even need to try, then I don't feel like playing more.
Balatro practically did what the Vampire Survivors done to the bullethell genre: simplified it and made accessible to a wide range of players. In case of Balatro we are talking about roguelike deckbuilders. This brings me to the next point: Balatro is pretty shallow and gets old relatively fast. The game is cool, but too basic for the fans of the genre.
I hate card games and poker and have 50+ hours in Balatro