This should not surprise you; I have been playing Balatro, the poker deck-buidling rogue-like, and it’s very, very good. It’s a marriage of two things that I would have never considered, but makes complete sense now that it exists. Balatro does a lot of things right. It’s a unique angle for the genre (exciting to me personally now that the dice-builder has picked up in popularity), it has a simple but compelling presentation. There are a ton to say, but I’ve been thinking about two specific aspects that I really love about Balatro: The speed in which you can start a new run, and the sounds that accompany them.

The Love of Loss

One of the most important aspects of a good deck-building rogue-like, to me, is how it feels when you lose a run. Balatro handles this really well. For one, the poker theme cushions the blow associated with losing a run. It’s similar to Peglin in that way. Sometimes, when you play pachinko, you get bad luck.

Thems just the breaks.

Sometimes, in poker, you just get dealt a bad hand. You don’t see the cards you need.

Thems just the breaks.

Not like Slay the Spire, where losing a run makes me question every single decision I’ve ever made in my entire life.

Balatro also features the fastest New Run process I’ve encountered so far. No dramatic death animation, no drawn-out score screen. You don’t even have to go back to the Main Menu. Of course, when you fail to meet the round’s chip goal, the game lets you know you’ve lost. It quickly offers you the chance to reset your run. You click “New Run,” it lets you change your deck if you’d like, and you’re right back in.

Quick and Easy

It takes seconds! It feels like I could start and lose 100 Balatro runs in the amount of time it takes to end a game of Slay the Spire and start a new one. It’s possible I’ve done exactly that many new runs, too. In a lot of X-buildling rogue-likes, if I can’t get something good set up in one run, it takes long enough that I’m done with the game. With Balatro, it’s easy to keep resetting until I get a run with substance. That way, even if I end up blowing it, it felt like I had one satisfying run.

The Satisfaction of Sound

Aesthetically, Balatro does a lot with a little. The visuals all work together with intention. The window has a CRT-style filter. Gameplay is backdropped by a gently shifting spiral, like a 90s Windows Media Player visualizer. Your window is adorned with the unsettling clown faces of your various Jokers. When I boot up Balatro, it feels like I’ve just sat down at a haunted video poker machine in a seedy gas station. It rules.

Imagine the scene: I’m 4 cigars deep, and I’ve been sitting at the machine for 5 hours.

I can’t stop thinking about the sound effects, though. I don’t know that I can really describe what makes them so perfect, but every sound effect just works. Part of it is because they are set against simple yet effective background music, a loop that changes from calm when you’re in the shop, to intense as you enter each Blind/Boss Blind. The sounds that play while a hand is being scored are so satisfying. Balatro found the best possible sound for each aspect of the process. The chip, multiplier, and shuffling sound are a three piece ensemble, creating little masterpieces simply by alternating the order in which the sounds occur. Plus, the sound of the physical Blind chip disintegrating, representing your victory over that round, is icing on the audio cake.

It just Feels Good, honestly. The destination (winning a run) is good, but they say it’s about the journey. Balatro’s soundscape makes the journey extremely satisfying, which makes the destination even sweeter.