I had never heard of Balatro prior to its release. From out of nowhere, I was looking at a minuscule indie based on a mere deck of cards getting scores as high as the ones earned by Baldur’s Gate 3 and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. That looked very odd, but also equally enticing. This obscure title could have either been a magnificent hidden gem or an ungodly overrated token indie which would have been fun to write about. I would have had fun with it regardless of the results. I just wasn’t expecting for Balatro to actually be the former, a complete gem of a game. In fact, a masterpiece of an indie. A game so addictive, it should be outlawed by the FDA.

The cards on top of the screen are your Jokers, which are the most important modifiers in Balatro.

Balatro is a brand new take on… poker. Yep, poker. You will look at at this line, and will look at the pictures in this review, and you’ll wonder if I had finally snapped and gone insane. “He can’t be right, he can’t be gushing over something that looks like the Solitaire games my grand-aunt plays on her phone”. Believe me, I am as shocked as you are. It’s not just a poker game. Instead, it takes the core concept of that game (blinds, discarding, its scoring system) and creates something completely new, all thanks to a really smart gameplay loop and roguelike elements.

Well, Balatro already differs itself from poker in the sense you are playing by yourself. It’s almost like poker solitaire. You are given a certain amount of points to be scored in a blind. Each combination (pair, three of a kind, royal flush, etc.) has a base score, in which you also add in the value of each card which was part of that combination. By using some items drawn to resemble planets, you can permanently increase the value of these base multipliers. In order to achieve higher numbers, you can also take advantage of certain Joker cards which can be acquired in between rounds. This is the addictive bit which makes Balatro so addictive.

Arcana consumables can be used to “upgrade” your cards, giving them extra passive abilities.

There are literal hundreds of different Joker cards, with all kinds of effects which can be piled on top of one another. You can get a card which doubles your base score multiplier whenever you reveal a face card (King, Queen, Jack) on your combo hand. There’s a Joker card which randomly adds in extra multiplier factors depending on the round. One of them doubles the value of all Diamond cards on your hand. The fact you can chain these effects makes a simple hand be worth more than 20,000 points, if you plan everything accordingly. You also need to take into account the limited amount of plays and discard opportunities you have per round. This number varies according to the color of the deck you choose at the beginning of each new run.

It might sound complicated, but it isn’t. I learned how to play Balatro in just a few minutes, all thanks to an excellent in-game tutorial. It didn’t take long for me to become completely unable to put the damn thing down. Yep. This simplistic game, which barely take 70MB of your hard drive, with basic (but charming) visuals, some optional CRT post-processing effects, and single (but incredibly catchy, and never repetitive) song in its soundtrack is incredibly deceiving. You are constantly unlocking new decks, Joker cards, and additional consumables the more runs you play. The replay value is off the charts. In terms of gameplay, I really can’t find a complaint. The only things which weren’t just downright pristine about this game were the visuals and sound design, but then again, this is 100% about gameplay. I really didn’t care if Balatro looked like a Windows 95 game.

Sure as hell felt like the god of gambling when I managed to drop a royal flush.

I am not exaggerating when I state that Balatro is a masterpiece of a game, a bonafide achievement in gameplay design. A single developer was able to take the core principles of poker, add in a ton of roguelike elements on top a brand new gameplay loop, and come up with something so addictive it will possibly ruin your productivity at work. This damn thing is basically a virtual drug. It’s so simple, so inviting, and downright impossible to put down. Congratulations, Balatro. You may have ruined my work schedule, but you sure made me smile all day long.

Balatro is available now on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X, PC and Switch.

Reviewed on Intel i7-12700H, 16GB RAM, RTX 3060 6GB.

A copy of Balatro was provided by the publisher.