Balatro review: A compelling twist on roguelike deckbuilding

Balatro is a poker-themed deck-building roguelike. However, that simple description belies how immersive the game has become for so many players. Coming out of nowhere following its Steam NextFest demo this winter, Balatro built on strong word-of-mouth. It then sold 1 million copies in its first month.

The game’s appeal lies in its game play and its loop. The gameplay provides all Balatro needs to for a compelling experience without any story and a simple video poker presentation. A blind of Balatro is much different from one of actual poker. Any money you win is spent on the in-game shop, and there is no gambling or wages, despite what PEGI thinks. Those shops unlock power-ups, and Joker cards that the game’s best mechanics rely upon.

More than just a poker game

Balatro is more of a solitaire game than actual poker. Any resemblance to poker or actual gambling is only down to the hands and the pack of playing cards. There are big blinds, small blinds and bosses to defeat over the course of each of the eight antes. Those points to beat the blind becoming larger as the game progresses. The player clears those blinds by multiplying their chips that the cards are worth against the multiplier (or “mult” in the game’s parlance) gained by playing hands like two pairs, flushes and straights.

The roguelike elements are what players use to defeat those blinds. There are 150 jokers to unlock over the course of the game, and each of them have different unique attributes. Some Jokers increase the mult or chip count of cards, while others increase probabilities. This changes the number of discards or hands you can play, or other more bespoke effects. During usual gameplay, a player can only have five Jokers active. Picking ones whose effects are beneficial for that given run is part of the game’s strategy.

And don’t forget the joker

One of my favorite Jokers is Red Card, a common that increases its mult whenever a card pack is open. The card incentivizes opening every pack in the shop the player can afford, but also offers a reward of that increased mult if nothing is actually useful in that pack. It is easy to have a powered up Red Card near the end of a run. It can really make a difference in a final score on the final boss.

In the screenshot below, Red Card is accompanied by Hiker, which permanently upgrades the chip count of a card every time it is played. For instance, a 9 normally counts for nine chips, but Hiker can make that card worth much more than that. The other joker is Sock & Buskin, which retriggers all face cards in a hand, so a Queen’s chips and mults would be counted twice.

Tarot, planets, and deckbuilding

Jokers aren’t the only cards that can be utilized to modify a play. There are also tarot cards with different abilities such as changing a cards’ suit, destroying cards all together, or increasing their mult rate. Planet cards increase the worth of different hands, and spectral cards can add cards to your deck. Additional cards can be purchased from standard decks. They can also have their own effects like foil and polychrome that have their own effects.

Decks can be built throughout a run to favor a certain hand. Flush is a popular and easy strategy, but even something like high card can win an entire game if played right and with the right combination of jokers. Other themes use more unusual scenarios, like five of a kind, power up cards, or joker card builds. There are also different decks, identified by their different card backs, that can be unlocked over the course of the game that include their own effects. Stakes and challenges also provide different gameplay abilities.

A game with mechanics you can lose yourself in

Balatro has a concept that is easy to explain – it’s the poker roguelike – and it’s also a game that is easy to find yourself sucked into for hours. The reason that this review is running over a month after its release is because yours truly cannot stop playing it. 

While the small and large blinds are fairly straightforward experiences, the third game in each blind is one of the game’s bosses, each of which have a different effect that a player must strategize for and which could end a run if things do not work in your favor. One boss takes away all your discards, another lowers the level of a hand every time you play it, others debuff cards of a certain suit, and another only lets you play one hand and if you do not beat the score it’s game over. The final bosses at the end of ante 8 also have their own effects, ranging from requiring a Joker to be removed.

A great experience on Steam Deck and Switch

The best way to play Balatro is on a handheld, and preferably a Steam Deck. Like Vampire Survivors before it, it might not be the most technically demanding game for such a powerful device. But it is the perfect simple-but-compelling game to play in a waiting room or on a train or while taking a break from work. While the game has a “just one more run” feel after winning or losing a run (mostly losing), it’s also a great game to play in short bursts, provided you can draw your attention away from the screen.

Balatro is one of those games like Tetris or Mini Metro where you might play enough to have dreams about it. It’s the kind of roguelike where you can have conversations about it with other players that are completely impenetrable to those who haven’t played the game. Balatro is a poker game for people who hate poker. It is one of the best roguelikes in years, and a deck-builder that can stand toe-to-toe with Slay the Spire as one of the best the subgenre has to offer.

Balatro is available on Nintendo Switch, Playstation Store, XBox, and PC via Steam and Humble Store.

Key art image courtesy of Playstack and LocalThunk.