Engadget’s Balatro for 2024

No game this year quite captured the imagination of the Engadget crew Balatro I did, and when it came time for each employee to present their ideas Favorite games of 2024Everyone – and I mean everyone – wanted to write about him Balatro. In the end, instead of forcing everyone to fight for the chance to write about their love for the game, we decided to instead ask the team to write their individual opinion. Balatro.

My Steam Deck is a Balatro machine and I love it

for me Steam surface He is a Balatro The device is at this point, and no, I’m not complaining about this. I’ve broken my Steam Deck for many games before Balatro I plan to play a lot more on it in the future, but for now and maybe until I take my last breath, its main function is to generate jokers.

Firstly, Balatro It looks nice on a handheld device. It’s the kind of game you can play passively while watching TV or listening to a podcast, or with intent focus as you try to collect quips, bets, achievements and stickers on your way to Completionist++. The Steam Deck is an ideal platform for this type of game, as it allows players to move between these two states without losing progress, especially with a comfortable PC setup. The portable version of Balatro is rad and the Switch version is peachy, but I started playing on PC, and after 500+ hours, I’m hesitant to start over on any other platform.

I absolutely love lying on the couch Balatroplay it on the computer on my desk, use it as a distraction during long commutes, and to get some hands on before bed. the Balatro The machine – I mean, Steam Deck – enables my obsession in a seamless way.

—Jessica Condit, Senior Reporter

Balatro is a card game you can feel

Balatro It is a game you play mostly in your head. There’s a wide array of modification cards, each with their own effects and consequences, and you work through their permutations as if you were fiddling with an alchemy kit. It’s a game of decisions, all conditional on the decisions you’ve made previously. Some work, most blow up in your face.

That’s what makes Balatro Attractive, but that’s not my favorite thing about it. What I like most is how tangible it is. How digital playing cards is made has any tangible impact at all. It’s the little one tck Shake each card when registered. the Donk When the joker adds to your multiplier, the… Donkeys Speed ​​up and get louder as you build up boosts and restart. the thrrp Of modifying the deck. The short delay when you open a booster pack to build anticipation, and how the pack unravels to emphasize the finality of your decision. The sound of coins clinking when you collect interest or buy something. The fire that ignites and soars around your score when you cross the target with one hand, a dopamine hit within a dopamine hit. The way the air is sucked out of trance music when it inevitably fails.

You are not a character in Balatro. It’s just you, staring at the cards laid out against the swirling colors. However, all of these flourishes go a long way toward drawing you into that vortex, trapping you in it, and giving the video poker-like game a sense of physical place. Balatro It is, among many things, an A-1 example of economical sound design. The easiest way to tone it down is to turn it on mute.

— Jeff Dunn, chief correspondent

The real Balatro was the Joker posters we got along the way

I’m not an achievement hunter, I’m the kind of person who skips uninteresting side quests and rarely replays games after I’ve finished them. The only “platinum” game in my PlayStation collection is the PS4 version risogonAnd I have 100% zero games on Xbox. So why 2024 was the year I became obsessed with Completionist++ Balatro?

I’ve earned the Completionist Steam achievement, which you get by discovering every card in the game, after a month of playing. It took another five months for me to get Completionist+, which is given to those who beat Ante 8 with every deck on Gold difficulty. The only thing left for me is the hardest challenge in the game: Competistent++, which involves getting gold stickers on each Joker by beating Ante 8 on Gold difficulty with every one of them active.

At the time of writing, Completionist++ is still a pipe dream. It’s easy to feel like you’ve mastered the game after beating Completionist+; There are simple joker combinations that can take you beyond Ante 8 with every card deck. Completionist++ strips away your safety nets, forcing you to conquer the game’s toughest levels without relying on proven strategies. While I sometimes miss chasing high scores in my early days BalatroThis challenge gave the game a whole new dynamic for me, as I discovered how to win through pranksters that I had previously considered useless.

If you’ve made your way through all the pitfalls and are wondering what to do next, Completionist++ is a challenge worth setting yourself. Just a word of caution: I played for 460 hours across my PC and Steam Deck, and I only opened 961 of the 1,200 stickers in the game.

—Aaron Sobouris, executive editor

Balatro is a deep and complex game for dirty casuals like me

Some of my friends and co-workers take it Balatro To some wild extremes. Aaron told me that he opened the game and completed about 95 percent of the game; Meanwhile I’m sitting on a paltry 19 percent. Another friend routinely shares quick videos of his rounds where he racks up hundreds of millions of points in a single hand with jokers I can’t understand, while my best hand is just over 3 million.

The good thing, though? This does not discourage people. It’s a feature, not a bug. Balatro It somehow manages to be the kind of game you can spend hundreds of hours in in an all-out pursuit of achievement and mastery. Or you can do what I do and pick it up, play for 30 minutes or an hour a few times a week, and come back to it with plenty to do when you get the itch.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to get to the point where I’m accumulating a billion points in one hand, but my playtime is limited and I usually choose to spend it on the PS5. But one of the great joys Balatro It’s that you can take a bender and play with it for hours, then not go back to it for days or weeks, then pick it up and continue to make progress. You won’t lose any skills or forget your goals. It’s a standard pick-and-play game, and it also hides some amazing depth, something like this that doesn’t appear very often.

—Nathan Ingraham, deputy editor

The Balatro is an almost perfect mobile port

2024 is undoubtedly the year Balatro. He came out of nowhere to fill our heads with dreams of the legendary Flush Fives and Jimbos. But I think what really brought it to the forefront was when it launched on iOS and Android earlier this fall. Not only does the mobile version cost $5 less than the desktop version on Steam (or the console ports), but there are no intrusive ads or additional purchases anywhere in the game. This includes all cross-version cards (such as those containing characters from… The witcher, Cyberpunk 2077 And more) and large Next update Scheduled at the beginning of next year.

Furthermore, there is no fundamental difference in features between the mobile version and the desktop/console version. Granted, this is in large part due to the game being a relatively simple title (at least in terms of graphics). But even so, you’ll be surprised how easy it is to mess up. The game starts almost instantly, and even as you smash the ante while pushing your score into the depths of scientific notation, the system doesn’t falter. Throw in a satisfying interface, support for cloud saves, multiple languages ​​and profiles, plus a high contrast option that’s great for ease of access, and you have an app that works well on almost any device.

In fact, I think foldable devices like the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold and Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 are the perfect devices for hunting the joker. Its large screens seem like a perfect fit for it Balatro Without feeling cramped at all, which sometimes happens on older devices with less spacious displays. Text is generally easy to read (although sometimes less so on smaller devices) and there’s plenty of open space to push things around without them getting in your way. I have a few minor complaints which you can read about in my longer article Balatro Beauty on mobile devicesBut overall I’m confident I’ll get more than my money’s worth for years to come.

—Sam Rutherford, Senior Reporter