Available almost everywhere for less than €15, Balatro is a card game that spices up the rules of poker. Its simple principle and its management of randomness prefigure a successful experience.
Attention, Balatro has all the cards in hand to succeed. If you hang out on social networks, you have undoubtedly seen Internet users sharing short clips showing this video game in action, accompanied by laudatory comments. Available since February 20 on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch and PC, Balatro is a card game following the rogue-like genre (in which titles like Hades And Vampire Survivors). It is inspired by the rules of poker, which it spices up with a deckbuilding component.
As in poker, the objective is to win the bet with one (it’s better) or several hands. Pair, double pair, three of a kind, four of a kind, straight… The means of scoring points are the same as in the original game. Except that Balatro allows you to spice up the experience with a whole bunch of bonuses that allow you to increase your score exponentially, in order to beat increasingly large bets. At first, it’s simple. Then, you have to be cunning to win, knowing that there is necessarily an element of randomness.
Long live the jokers in Balatro
At each part of Balatro, you have a limited number of hands and discard piles to pocket the bet. The money earned provides the opportunity to purchase special cards. There are jokers, which can increase the multiplier, sometimes with certain constraints or even an element of luck. There are also assets, which can transform your cards to make them more powerful or standardize your deck. We then understand that we will have to design a pack of synergistic cards to climb the increasingly demanding ranks.
For example, we can go all-in with hands made up only of suits. There are still rules to respect: thus, by default, you cannot have more than five jokers on you at the same time (spoiler: it is possible to have more). Balatro is a game where you have to cheat, but it’s up to the player to do it correctly. All with the same notion of balance between risks and rewards, specific to the world of poker (the famous “high risk, high reward” formula). Yes, you will often lose because you did not draw the right card. But you’re just as likely to ride the game after building an unbeatable strategy.
Dressed in a deliberately broke atmosphere with a CRT rendering (as if we were in an old casino far from Las Vegas and its giant sphere), Balatro is a game of defeats and triumphs, with games that come together quickly. You will even have to beat bosses, which are associated with a penalty (example: each card played = $1 less in your account). Poker fans will no doubt see this as blasphemy against their passion. Others will spend hours refining their strategy, without needing to put a single euro on the table and with this addictive feeling of being able to break the rules quite easily.
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