Recent reviews by EIGENER COMPILER

This game has taught me something important.

Life is a game of cards and sometimes you draw a really ♥♥♥♥♥♥ hand. The best thing you can do is play it as good as you can and then someday you will get good cards and everything will get easier and you will find joy.

Not recommended because i personally didn't like it; Doesn't mean it's bad or a bad purchase for you. I played up until the bird boss outside of the wall. The start was kinda fun; I thought this would be just like terarria but top down and in a way i was right. The game has a similar progression loop as terraria but tbh it just got kinda boring.
You don't really get any interesting upgrades other than gear that does just the same things with bigger numbers. After playing for 10 hours and watching some youtube content of the late game i feel like i've seen everything this game has to offer.

Absolutely—here's a highly convincing pitch for Balatro that you can use to hook your friend:

Dude, you need to play Balatro. It's insanely addictive in the best way. Imagine the satisfying deckbuilding of Slay the Spire, the poker mechanics you already know, and the endless dopamine hits of roguelike synergy-building—all fused into one perfectly-tuned game.

It starts simple: you play poker hands. But then it gets wild. You start stacking jokers with unique effects, unlocking planet cards to evolve your hand types, and pulling off absolutely busted combos that turn a single pair into millions of chips. Every run feels different, and every win feels like you broke the game in a way no one else ever has.

It’s poker, but with chaos magic.

There's no grind, no filler. Just you, a deck of cards, and a slippery slope of escalation that turns “let me try one run” into "oh god it’s 3AM." The game respects your time, rewards experimentation, and has that "one more run" pull that never gets old.

And the best part? No microtransactions. No bloat. Just pure, distilled game design perfection. If you like clever games that constantly reward creative thinking, Balatro is a no-brainer.

Trust me. One run, and you’ll get it.

Want a shorter version for a quick message or a more humorous one?

No thank you iron mommy, that was perfect!

wow

It has potential and a neat aesthetic and some nice Gameplay ideas, but other than that it has a long way to go.


Sound design:
The ambient sound design needs a rework. In some areas (like the florecent lights in level 1 after you go down the slide) are so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ loud. It feels like all Ambient noise sources are competing with eachother at the same volume. Another thing that is really immersion breaking are the rain sounds. The standard Rain Sound in the first level is really high in pitch and just sounds out of place when you're mostly walking around in big outdoor areas. On the Other hand Rain sounds don't change when you walk under a roof or inside a house or on a steel pipe. Usually rain sounds sound different when you're standing next to a window in a house (potato farmer in lvl 1). Just tone down the sounds, in Areas with a lot of noise sources, choose some less jarring sounds and adapt rain sounds to the area.

Aesthetics:
Full Hit or Miss with a 40% Hit ratio. Some areas make me stop and look at them for minutes because they perfectly capture that post-apocalyptic, post-soviet, Cyberpunk aesthetic that the game is going for. But more often than not this illusion is broken by differently scaled textures next to each other (car tunnel in first level) Completely undetailed empty areas (mostly rooftops and walkways) and some really jarring texture choices used for very long repeating Areas. Even smaller areas tend to feel really empty.
The lighting could use toning down in some areas, Especial in that one Radio tower area where you have to scale the tower next to a Building that's lighting you up like a flashbang the entire time. Speaking Of lighting...

Gameplay:
The Stealth is just really not transparent. Sometimes im standing in a visually dark area but am supposedly visible to enemies and the other way around. And the levels really don't lend themselves to stealth either since they usually have very little cover and are rather large.
The enemy AI is abysmal. I once shot a single enemy in a rather large area and EVERY single enemy located me and started rushing that position. Then the enemies just kept staring at the body when i hid behind some stairs. Stuff like this really doesn't make me want to interact with the stealth mechanics of this game, even tho i really think the inventory and reloading system lends itself to a slower methodical playstyle. Instead i just stock up on guns and charge through every area. This feels kinda awkward with the more stealth based mechanics, especially when you're used to FPS' with good run and gun mechanics. The guns feel great to use for the type of game this is trying to be.
One thing i kinda don't like but respect as a design choice is that the inventory is cleared every time you enter a new level. On one hand this is really good because you get to work your way up to more powerful gear every single level (which i like). On the other hand it feels kinda unrewarding when you find a really good weapon or cool Weapon mods like Scopes since you can only use them for a fraction of the level until it's cleared. Thank god this doesn't count for enhancements tho.

Summary:
I cannot recommend this game. The bad implementation of Stealth, bad AI, level design that rarely lends itself to stealth, jarring aesthetic and sound design choices make this unplayable in it's current state. This is bad even for an Early access Title. Usually most early access games have a working core system with enough polish to make it an enjoyable experience, usually only missing some chapters of the game. This game after the first few levels feels like it needs a MASSIVE overhaul in many core aspects of the game which imo i don't expect to happen. I really don't get how everyone is hyping up this game so much. Are you going through the game with tomato slices on your eyes!!!!

Very fun! It's a fun game in the styl of pokemon, with a loot of needed quality of live features and gamplay mechanics that make the game very pleasent to play trhough compared to some DS-era pokemon titles.
Grinding really isn't an issue if you pick the right Mons and take all the trainer battles. There are also items that share a portion of the XP your main Mon gets in the fight, without subtracting it from the mains XP gain, that alone makes it super nice to play through

Negative to counterbalance. Overall a good game. THe world is pretty and the atmosphere is great. The mechanics themselves are great while exploring and fighting in the world. What sucks are the bossfights. They get a moveset and then the AI just picks the move they're going to make completely randomly. This is fine, maybe a little lazy for the first few bosses but as soon as you get to the scavanger boss it's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ infuriating because he has moves that are either hard to tell apart or incredibly fast like a shotgun blast. Sometimes he just hits you out of the gate with it while you dont even have cover. Really infuriating. You could fix this by making this specific boss have better telegraphing for these moves or make him cycle through the moves in a set order.
Anyways i beat the boss and the faux-final boss and went to the spirit realm and i continued playing up until you have to fight a bunch of enemies of one type. Incredibly lazy and inconsistent. I just couldn't be arsed to finish this part so i dropped it

Very fun, well executed modern spin on quake/clan arena. It's still in EA but there are basically daily patches with bug fixes and new features, sometimes content

cringe dialouge

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