THERE is a reason that card games are still popular despite them being centuries old.
Something about having the perfect hand to pull off your strategy is so hypnotising and has kept us reinventing ways to play cards for hundreds of years.
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Poker has been around for about 200 years, and there are dozens of styles and ways to play.
Balatro seems like one of those indie hits that just emerged from the ether and ended up taking the gaming industry by storm.
However, like other games in this category – think Vampire Survivors – it’s the twist on a known and simple concept that has made it so popular.
When you start your first run, it seems simple enough, with the perfect balance that introduces you into each new system slowly.
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And there are lots of interconnecting systems here to get used to, which could be overwhelming.
In each game, you create a Poker hand using five cards from your hand of eight.
The better your hand, the higher your score, and you only have a limited number of hands to reach your target score.
The difficulty comes in how you build your deck, and as you access more cards, there are more possible combinations for big point bonuses.
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Jokers are the best cards in the game, and will add huge multipliers to your hand for a cost.
But this is just the first layer of Balatro’s many systems that have seen players achieve scores so high they turn into equations.
The fact that you can build hands and decks that are capable of reaching these heights just show how well designed the game is.
All of the cards available are part of a standard 52-card deck, but it’s these extra systems that make Balatro so complex, satisfying, and simply fun.
If you want to read more gaming reviews, check out our Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons remake review.
Written by Georgina Young on behalf of GLHF.
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