Balatro

Balatro is a great card game for beginners and veterans of the genre alike. At a cool $9.99 with hundreds of unique Jokers and other cards to collect, dozens of challenging runs to complete and further challenges, this is one of those rare forever games that's more than worth picking up.

From its knowing mock 16-bit art style to the perfectly metered sound effects and music, Balatro is rarely less than utterly compelling and playing on a touchscreen is, if anything, slightly more intuitive than using a mouse or controller.

It’s a great roguelike twist on Poker, where each run can be taken to the extreme with lots of different multipliers. My only personal gripe with this otherwise unique and fun gameplay experience is that after putting four hours into it, I found the core gameplay a bit repetitive - despite the massive variety in deck combinations. But others still love the game after 100s of hours - it all depends on what you enjoy.

If you've reached the end here and are wondering what my score has to do with these words, I guess I can break it down here: Although Balatro looks great and is clearly very well designed, I do in fact wish there were some more options to make this mobile version friendlier for the small screen. There are other games that do Balatro's thing with enough of the same kind of flair while also adapting better, and if I'm going out of my way to play the mobile version, that is more important to me. Outside of the hype surrounding this game--which will fade--it shakes out to feeling like another great game to add to a pile of similarly great games.

A deck-building poker roguelike of endlessly satisfying proportions, Balatro is the sort of fun that threatens to derail whole weekend plans.

Balatro is excellent all around. The concept is simple, and while the various card types seem overly complicated, the game remains easy to understand no matter how many rules there are. It's utterly enjoyable to the point where you'll keep coming back no matter how many times you lose to a boss with a ridiculous modifier. For anyone who likes card games, Balatro is a must-have.