Balatro is INTERESTING

 

Hello there, Blogsketteers!

Today I'll be talking about a game plenty of you know (I think): BALATRO.

If you don't know, this game won GAME OF THE YEAR last year. I found it when I saw a video by hit YouTuber Markiplier, who played the game, and decided to buy it off the Play Store.

What is this game about?

BALATRO is a deck-builder roguelite that was released last year in February by LocalThunk. This is a card game where you score chips to beat a BLIND, so you can move up in an ANTE, eventually beating the BOSS BLIND in that ante and moving to the next ante. How do you do that? Well, let's get into the game's main mechanics first so you can beat the blind.

First and foremost, when you select a blind, you are drawn 8 cards in a set deck of 51 cards. In order to score chips, you need to select up to five cards and then play those cards.

And if those cards line up to a POKER HAND, chips and MULT are added. (Chips being the base amount of points the cards you scored earned, and MULT being what those base points are multiplied by to earn the total amount of chips you earned.)
Poker hands can be seen here:

Playing cards can earn you chips, but also uses a HAND, which you have about 4 of — meaning how many times you can play your cards. If you run out of hands without reaching the amount of chips required to beat the current blind, well…

You also have DISCARDS, which allow you to discard up to five cards in exchange for drawing the same amount of cards you discarded from your deck.

The best you can score in a single hand with cards is about 1,200 chips. Finding a hand this good is about a… 1 in 649,740. See that number over there?

We're obviously going to need some help.

After a blind is beaten, you go to the shop and can buy a PLETHORA of things with the money you earned from the blinds.

But let's talk about the most important one — JOKERS.

You have about 5 Joker slots which you can put your Jokers in after you buy them, and there are about 150 of them in the game, with some being locked and having to be unlocked when special conditions are met.
Jokers are basically cards with special abilities. They can do small things like adding a few extra chips, to literally MULTIPLYING your MULT! These can allow your runs to reach INSANE HEIGHTS. With the RIGHT Jokers, you can go from gaining 200-ish chips to 10^100 chips IN A SINGLE HAND!

However, sometimes, special conditions have to be met in order to activate your Joker’s abilities — like having to play a certain hand or card, or having to have a certain amount of a certain kind of card in your deck. So keep in mind you need to read the description first.

There are also other things you can buy in the shop, like Booster Packs, which basically give you other cards to use. There are a few different packs that may or may not appear in the shop, like BUFFOON PACKS, which let you choose one of a few random Jokers that may appear in that pack,

or STANDARD PACKS, which allow you to pick playing cards to add to your deck, with some having special traits.

The effects range from multiplying your MULT when held in hand, giving x2 MULT when scored, or simply being scored twice. These are called EDITIONS, by the way, and can also be found on JOKERS. But then there are also ARCANA PACKS, which allow you to get TAROT CARDS.
And now is the time I introduce you to the third kind of card you'll need to know how to use to get good at the game — Consumables.

Consumables are exactly what you think they are. You use your Consumables to benefit you, and then they disappear after use. However, they are a CORE ASPECT of the game. I remember on my first few playthroughs how I disregarded Consumables, and how that, in turn, negatively affected those runs…
Consumables do a LOT of things, like doubling your money, adding an edition to one or a few of your cards, creating a Joker, etc.
So let's cover all the consumable types.

First, the most simple Consumables are PLANET CARDS, which "level up" a poker hand — adding base chips and MULT to that specific poker hand. They can be found in the shop or in CELESTIAL PACKS.

Next, there are TAROT CARDS (not the witchcraft stuff, silly) which have a range of effects, but most involve changing your deck by giving them EDITIONS (mentioned earlier). They can also do things like doubling your money (with a limit of $20), or creating a random Joker. They can be in shops or found in ARCANA PACKS.

Last, but certainly MOST, we have SPECTRAL CARDS — and these are what I can only describe as TAROTS on steroids. Basically, they are better versions of Tarot Cards, but also sometimes have a downside. Like giving $20… but also destroying a random few playing cards, or creating a random RARE JOKER but setting money to 0. Or they could be simple, like leveling up all poker hands, or giving a random LEGENDARY JOKER (basically the best kind of Joker you can get). They can be found in the shop or in SPECTRAL PACKS.

Sometimes, some Spectral Cards can appear in things other than Spectral Packs as well.

SOUL sometimes appears in Arcana Packs:

There's so much more I could tell you about — like seeds, decks, mods — but I think it's better if you experience that for yourself. So instead, let's move on to…

Personal Opinion

I LOVE this game.
I have been playing it for the last few days. As a new player, I got into the game VERY quickly, and got into a groove really fast. Only a few videos and I was FLYING.
I like the sound effects — they are MESMERIZING — and the OST… Whoever LocalThunk hired on Fiverr to create the soundtrack…

(Yes, the OST was made by a guy LocalThunk hired on Fiverr)
Well, let's just say they did these tracks JUSTICE.

I mean, the game does have some difficulty, being a STRATEGY GAME and all, but ironically, the randomness — like an ACTUAL POKER GAME — makes it so that if you get lucky enough, you can get REALLY high scores.

I mean, this is the highest I've ever scored in a single hand, unseeded:

And if you're lucky enough, you can go even HIGHER.

The endless combinations with the 150 different Jokers in the game, along with all the other factors in the base game — and how EASY it is to make mods for — gives it nearly ENDLESS REPLAYABILITY, and the community is pretty nice as well.

FINAL SCORE:

So! Here is the final score:

• Creativity: 9/10

• Replayability: 10/10

• Modding capabilities: 10/10

• Accessibility: 7/10 (You need to buy it for a few bucks)

• Overall: addiction/10 Very good

And one last thing to tell you before I go is that this game can be ADDICTING at times. So be wary — sometimes I find myself playing this game at times when I'm not supposed to. So be wary of that if you want to get this game.

You can download Balatro from Google Play or STEAM for iOS, consoles including PS4, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, and PC. (It may not be compatible with some devices.)

And that's all, blogsketteers! See you next time!

Thanks for reading! Don't forget to comment! I'm always open to opinions!

Now… time for me to skedaddle!