or "Why maybe I should think about my arbitrary goals before I settle on them"
Let me tell you a story; of a friend that kept watching an egg man. A story of seeing an indie game on the game awards, a contender for game of the year. A story of "oh man it's only like $11 and my chinese hell app is getting banned so it might be cool to have some other time filler"
This would all lead to A Mistake.
I have played so much Balatro, it absolutely absorbed me into its... jokery grasp. Unfortunately, while playing it, I was thinking "hm ok how am I gonna consider this beaten so I can do a write thing on it" "oh I'll just do what I did for WoW and set a goal: we'll beat a gold stake and finish the collection" aaaaaa that was a bit of a mistake; I'll get into that later though. FIRST.
A smaller game like this doesn't really have much possibility for sections, but sections I will do regardless. The concept of a poker roguelike, with the comedy of not playing cards is so simple, so appealing to my brain, and so... peak.
To start: it's just calculator with colors. Number times number. Number go up. Number on fire. Brain happy. Number good. It's such an appeal to the most basic part of the human brain.
The runs are so short that it feels so easy to hop into, it doesn't feel super awful when your run ends (most of the time), and it's generally pretty easy to figure out what you're gonna do at least by the first round (flush).
The jokers are so fun. The wide variety of options, how they interact with each other, it really appeals to my card-brained self; I love seeing a set interaction that leads to ridiculousness, and this game is just that in a nutshell. After a while, I got a really good feel of what jokers were good early, what were more useable later on, what ones to drop in favor of others; Misprint is my absolute goat in the first couple antes, and then of course everyone knows the legends of Hanging Chad, Blueprint, Baron. Man, nearly all of them have their own identity, which is great. Like yeah, some suck (The Foreboding Obelisk:) but for the most part, the entire cast is just real fun to play with. Jokers are what make this game something beyond what it could be.
After some time, I really got comfortable with the flow and I could take the game further beyond, where I got to start skipping blinds and using tags frequently. This really started when I was going for the 12 round speedrun; and I think for a game this simple to feel like it has layers and evolution to it makes it so much deeper than it could be.
I feel like I should have more to say but? It's really simple! Which is great! I love it! It's simple yet not, and that's why it's so good.
Like I had mentioned before, I absolutely love the concept of card game with nonsense thrown in there. I've personally enjoyed it in private games with long term friends. What if yu-gi-oh card in MtG, and so on. It's hilarious. Here we have our normal 52 card deck. And tarot cards. And booster packs that have playing cards in them. And jokers that range from normal jokers to crumpled pieces of paper; actual food, photographs, gold, celestial objects, rocks, etc. It's amazing! I genuinely love how this game just feels like a bunch of shit thrown together, it's such a novelty that appeals to my brain directly.
Also, on top of that, I love the ethereal nature of the whole game. Of course, there's the spectral packs, but the spiraly background, the music track, it makes the whole game oddly spiritual and otherworldly.
Speaking of the music, I CANNOT believe that I have not gotten sick of the song yet. Just like the gameplay, there's some fucking magic thrown in there.
So uh. I beat gold stake quite a few days ago. But I just couldn't let go of that collection. Had to fill it in. For the most part, it's awesome! Specially finding new things, having specific achievements that unlock new stuff, and of course filling out thing in video game feel good. I do not have an issue with it. I am glad it's there.
I'm more upset at myself for locking so much of myself into finishing it, because of a little thing called Legendary Jokers. Super rare buffoons, 5 of em in total. You can pull them from a very rare card that appears in some packs; and goddammit it's another Chicot. Oh my god I was going crazy these last few days trying to get these literal clowns. I can't hold this against the game at all. It's what the game is, it's what all games are. Hell, I play WoW. I'm familiar with insanity inducing grinds. But aagh.
Regardless, I think having an actual book of things to fill out in a roguelike is almost critical to the experience, and I'm glad Balatro doesn't skimp out on it. Especially how in depth it is with tracking actually everything. even if I was going crazy looking for Perkeo and Yorick
Balatro is amazing. This game is some magical, digital crack. Like, I set myself a goal so I could write this post and move on to other games, but I'm absolutely going to continue to play it. I still have gold stakes. I have other decks. I have Completionist++ if I really wanted to drive myself berserk.
I really feel like I should have more to say but? It's a small game? It's not one of the JRPGs I love to put myself through where I have 1,000,000 characters to talk about (I will continue to do this)
ok actually
jimbo: that clown fuck
alright there we go character section over
Anyways, Game of the Year nomination was 1,000% deserved. I'm sad I didn't get to it sooner, but I'm glad I got to it eventually.
10/10. A video game that will grasp you in its (poker) hands and Never let go.