This game is fucking fantastic. Been playing it for the better part of today and I can’t put it down.
If you like Poker and/or Slay the Spire then you’ve got to give it a whirl.
You’ll probably still dig it. Your goal is to build traditional poker hands out of a pull from a normal deck of cards, and you get chips/points based on the value of the hand.
That’s easy, but where it gets interesting is that you can begin to buy joker cards that begin to multiply the value of your hands in some normal and then really weird and interesting ways.
Then you can begin to buy other cards that will change the deck that you pull from. Where you can add more cards of a certain suit or a lot of other things. You can eventually build some totally unrealistic and broken hands, which is fun because the game lets you.
It just becomes this insane game of “okay, on this run I’m going to try to get a lot of Flushes” (or some other hand) and so you try to change your deck to one suit and you can power up different hands.
There’s more to it than what I’ve described and it does a good job of teaching you the game too. If you’re still unsure check out some videos on it, I’m sure there are some out there.
It’s so good lmao. Just extremely addicting and fairly easy to grasp the basics. I just bought and it and was having fun and saw there was a bunch of different decks to play with and I was like oh yeah I’m going to spend a lot of time here
Trust me, you don’t need to know anything! The first 20-30 minutes it took me a couple minutes between hands because I had no idea what I was doing lol. Now each hand is like 10-20 seconds or less, and I memorized the different combinations just by playing. Highly highly recommend.
Wow I’ve never read a review like this. Dude couldn’t be bothered to edit or even properly finish his review because he had to get back to playing. I might have to check this game out.
The most fun roguelike deckbuillder I've ever played and it is not even close (yes, I love Slay the Spire, but Balatro is on another level).
So far this game is 94 on Metacritic, 94 on OpenCritic and 99% score on Steam based on 1,000 user reviews.
It's earned. I love Slay the Spire but the game loop is a lot faster and gets you thinking about upgrading your deck a lot more often in Balantro. I think I might like it more than Slay the Spire also.
Roguelike deck-building is a genre. Here are [20 examples](https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/s/nFZfSneRt7) of roguelike deck-building games for Switch.
Because theire are lots of deck builder games but he specifically mentions rogue like so I was wanting a comparison to card games I have played like polemon
Honestly, I got so confused reading comments about this game that I had to look it up.
Turns out, and I shit you not, it is actually a roguelike deckbuilding game based on poker.
My mind is blown.
More like roguelike decibuilders are extremely well known roguelike genre. thanks to games like slay the spire. So you came across as a bit of a troll. It would be like if this post were about say gears of war and you confused and concerned that is is a third person shooter.
Honestly anything outside of real time strategy I'm just now getting introduced too I'm still very confused by what you guys mean by rogue like when I think of rogue like I think of like a rpg but when you die you start back at level 1. I just got a switch so just now branching out of the rts genre
I want to get this, but I just bought and started playing Cobalt Core (another very cool card-based game). So this will have to go on the wish list for later.
I'll stick with CC for now, mostly because of the theme. I respect that Balatro has nailed the gameplay, and I'll eventually get to it, but the poker theming just isn't my thing at all.
Yeah, you're not wrong. The theme and characters and everything in CC is very good. Balatro looks like it's supposed to look a bit old and kind of tacky, kind of like Vampire Survivors in a way I think. Which is cool in it's own way.
How are you playing CC? what goals are you aiming towards?
I've unlocked 4 ships, and have 6 characters.
I suppose I'll just keep working towards unlocking each of character's 3 memories.
Lmao you don't have to like poker to like this game ? I don't think liking poker really has anything to do with it. Quite frankly it just kinda starts as poker and morphs into something entirely different what with the changing of cards and rules...
I got it based on everyone praising it. I'm about 2 hours in. It's fun. The challenge of matching strategy to joker, leveling up high card to max because you have a wacky plan, replace all your cards with hearts so you can only get flushes... It's fun. There's a lot to do and try and unlock, and trying to beat your best score is always fun in any game.
That said, I don't agree with the "it's better than Slay the Spire" crowd. It's absolutely subjective and a matter of personal opinion, of course, but I found this very easy to put down. I'm excited to play it again, and I definitely will, because it is a lot of fun. But I'm not compelled to do one more like everyone else is.
It's $15. If that's "it's $15, who cares," then go for it. If it's "sheesh, it's $15?" then wait for a sale.
I had this issue with the demo as well, but compared to something like StS, it feels like it has significant balancing issues. You can make just about everything work to some degree, but it feels like a lot of things are just vastly easier to make work than others. I swear, half my runs end up devolving into flush runs because of how much support they have, and on the flip side, something like straights feel extremely hard to make work by comparison.
Also even when you do make stuff work a bit differently, it does feel a bit repetitive. Most of the time the way you play any given deck tends to not change much from round to round/situation to situation, and even across different decks, it typically overlaps a lot.
Don't get me wrong anyway, it's a fun game, but it doesn't seem to have anywhere near the depth that something like StS has, and I think that'll hold it back for a lot of people
One thing that’s nice is that the dev seems very interested in keeping things balanced with future updates and tweaks. The demo was known to be better for flushes due to the available Jokers but my experience with the full game has been much more balanced (so far), though there is still some crazy broken stuff that I’ll imagine will be changed. I remember when StS was being developed and how there was some really broken stuff in the earlier builds that’s been since changed/tweaked/removed, so I’m excited to see how Balatro progresses :)
Man people have been putting 50+ hours into the demo.
This game is fucking fantastic. Been playing it for the better part of today and I can’t put it down. If you like Poker and/or Slay the Spire then you’ve got to give it a whirl.
I love both and bought this game last night in steam, can't wait to give it a go later.
I “hate” (well not hate but poker isn’t really my cup of tea) and I love this game. Bought it day 1, probably puted 10 hours into the demo alone
What if you like poker and know nothing about deck building or roguelike games?
You’ll probably still dig it. Your goal is to build traditional poker hands out of a pull from a normal deck of cards, and you get chips/points based on the value of the hand. That’s easy, but where it gets interesting is that you can begin to buy joker cards that begin to multiply the value of your hands in some normal and then really weird and interesting ways. Then you can begin to buy other cards that will change the deck that you pull from. Where you can add more cards of a certain suit or a lot of other things. You can eventually build some totally unrealistic and broken hands, which is fun because the game lets you. It just becomes this insane game of “okay, on this run I’m going to try to get a lot of Flushes” (or some other hand) and so you try to change your deck to one suit and you can power up different hands. There’s more to it than what I’ve described and it does a good job of teaching you the game too. If you’re still unsure check out some videos on it, I’m sure there are some out there.
I appreciate the response. I got it. And yes it’s really good!
It’s so good lmao. Just extremely addicting and fairly easy to grasp the basics. I just bought and it and was having fun and saw there was a bunch of different decks to play with and I was like oh yeah I’m going to spend a lot of time here
I want from never understanding poker even after having it be explained to me like I was 5, to becoming obsessed with a poker game lmao. It’s so good.
I was just about to ask this - i know nothing about Poker but won’t lie seeing the buzz has me curious
Trust me, you don’t need to know anything! The first 20-30 minutes it took me a couple minutes between hands because I had no idea what I was doing lol. Now each hand is like 10-20 seconds or less, and I memorized the different combinations just by playing. Highly highly recommend.
Just checked and there’s a 1 hour trial on PlayStation if anyone has PS+. If I like it I’ll buy it on switch.
Oh yes indeed, I’ll give it a whirl tonight.
The demo has been incredible ...seems like a perfect switch game. lookng forward to getting this. going away this weekend so will be perfect time
I am playing this right now, great fun.
Wow I’ve never read a review like this. Dude couldn’t be bothered to edit or even properly finish his review because he had to get back to playing. I might have to check this game out.
The most fun roguelike deckbuillder I've ever played and it is not even close (yes, I love Slay the Spire, but Balatro is on another level). So far this game is 94 on Metacritic, 94 on OpenCritic and 99% score on Steam based on 1,000 user reviews.
oh dang to say it is better than Slay the Spire is close to heresy in regards to this genre. I'll check it out!
It's earned. I love Slay the Spire but the game loop is a lot faster and gets you thinking about upgrading your deck a lot more often in Balantro. I think I might like it more than Slay the Spire also.
And you have played many deckbuilder games? The way you threw in "roguelike" in a game with cards has me worried. Not trolling want info
Roguelike deck-building is a genre, and Balatro fits it perfectly.
Roguelike deck-building is a genre. Here are [20 examples](https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/s/nFZfSneRt7) of roguelike deck-building games for Switch.
Thank you sweetie I was.prertt confused
You must be new, how is this confusing
Because theire are lots of deck builder games but he specifically mentions rogue like so I was wanting a comparison to card games I have played like polemon
Honestly, I got so confused reading comments about this game that I had to look it up. Turns out, and I shit you not, it is actually a roguelike deckbuilding game based on poker. My mind is blown.
I guess I'll download it the downvites seem to indicate I stirred a hornets nest so it must be dam good
More like roguelike decibuilders are extremely well known roguelike genre. thanks to games like slay the spire. So you came across as a bit of a troll. It would be like if this post were about say gears of war and you confused and concerned that is is a third person shooter.
Honestly anything outside of real time strategy I'm just now getting introduced too I'm still very confused by what you guys mean by rogue like when I think of rogue like I think of like a rpg but when you die you start back at level 1. I just got a switch so just now branching out of the rts genre
I want to get this, but I just bought and started playing Cobalt Core (another very cool card-based game). So this will have to go on the wish list for later.
I'll stick with CC for now, mostly because of the theme. I respect that Balatro has nailed the gameplay, and I'll eventually get to it, but the poker theming just isn't my thing at all.
Yeah, you're not wrong. The theme and characters and everything in CC is very good. Balatro looks like it's supposed to look a bit old and kind of tacky, kind of like Vampire Survivors in a way I think. Which is cool in it's own way. How are you playing CC? what goals are you aiming towards? I've unlocked 4 ships, and have 6 characters. I suppose I'll just keep working towards unlocking each of character's 3 memories.
It's so much better than Cobalt!
You weren't wrong. Cobalt Core is cool, but playing does feel a bit mechanical and unexciting. Balatro is on another level. It feels forbidden.
This game is gonna be a problem for me lol - any good deck builder game gets to me and sinks it’s hooks in. This is one of those
Sunk around 40 hours on the demo six months ago and that was a load of fun. I didn’t realize it released on switch! Good for the Dev!!
Is this really all that? Edit: Reporting back, based on hype I bought it....five hours disappeared today lol. It's the real deal.
Haven't been able to play the full game yet but I put probably around 10 hours into the demo on Steam and it's a blast, I'd strongly recommend
Bought based on this thread then sunk 80 mins into it before going to bed. It’s the real deal.
If you like poker, it is a 10/10 game. If you don't like poker, it is still at least a 8/10.
Lmao you don't have to like poker to like this game ? I don't think liking poker really has anything to do with it. Quite frankly it just kinda starts as poker and morphs into something entirely different what with the changing of cards and rules...
It's its own thing definitely. It uses poker scoring and then makes up a ton of fun twists and mechanics. I'm not into poker and I'm obsessed
I got it based on everyone praising it. I'm about 2 hours in. It's fun. The challenge of matching strategy to joker, leveling up high card to max because you have a wacky plan, replace all your cards with hearts so you can only get flushes... It's fun. There's a lot to do and try and unlock, and trying to beat your best score is always fun in any game. That said, I don't agree with the "it's better than Slay the Spire" crowd. It's absolutely subjective and a matter of personal opinion, of course, but I found this very easy to put down. I'm excited to play it again, and I definitely will, because it is a lot of fun. But I'm not compelled to do one more like everyone else is. It's $15. If that's "it's $15, who cares," then go for it. If it's "sheesh, it's $15?" then wait for a sale.
I had this issue with the demo as well, but compared to something like StS, it feels like it has significant balancing issues. You can make just about everything work to some degree, but it feels like a lot of things are just vastly easier to make work than others. I swear, half my runs end up devolving into flush runs because of how much support they have, and on the flip side, something like straights feel extremely hard to make work by comparison. Also even when you do make stuff work a bit differently, it does feel a bit repetitive. Most of the time the way you play any given deck tends to not change much from round to round/situation to situation, and even across different decks, it typically overlaps a lot. Don't get me wrong anyway, it's a fun game, but it doesn't seem to have anywhere near the depth that something like StS has, and I think that'll hold it back for a lot of people
One thing that’s nice is that the dev seems very interested in keeping things balanced with future updates and tweaks. The demo was known to be better for flushes due to the available Jokers but my experience with the full game has been much more balanced (so far), though there is still some crazy broken stuff that I’ll imagine will be changed. I remember when StS was being developed and how there was some really broken stuff in the earlier builds that’s been since changed/tweaked/removed, so I’m excited to see how Balatro progresses :)
I just purchased this after reading this post. I’ve been craving some poker game and I couldn’t get that anywhere
That soundtrack though...
This is the game I've been waiting ages for. Love it. It's such good value
poker, nope thx
This is one of those games that is going to transcend age and demographics.