Balatro’s Taught Me To Be Open To Recommendations

Posted by By our-little-miss-is-home December 30, 2024 5 Views 7 Min Read
Balatro's Taught Me To Be Open To Recommendations

Summary

  • It’s hard for me to not take suggestions as personal slights, but it’s something I need to work on.
  • Balatro is great.
  • I want to play more Balatro.

As you’d expect from a website that primarily covers video games, TheGamer’s work chats are filled to the brim with recommendations to check out games, as well as to watch movies or listen to music. We’ve got whole Slack channels devoted to books, highlighting indie games to check out, and even the food we’re eating. And, for the most part, I ignore them.

Not because I’m indifferent, but due to the fact recommendations have always filled me with dread. After biting the bullet and discovering one of my games of the year months after everyone told me to play it, I’m now reassessing if I should be more open to suggestions in the new year.

Don’t Tell Me What To Do

Kiryu with a pocket circuit car in Yakuza Kiwami.

Yakuza is one of the series I’ve long avoided because I felt like I was expected to play it.

I’ve always hated suggestions. The importance doesn’t matter; it could be a life-altering decision of choosing my degree or what job I applied for, to something as small as ‘hey Joe, you should watch this YouTube video’, and every fibre of my being will pull against it. What, to everyone else, looks like an obnoxious hipster habit to me feels more like a struggle to maintain my own autonomy and keep hold of my already through-the-floor self-esteem.

The Metaphor: ReFantazio Protagonist with Gallica and his followers in front of the Mausoleum.

One day, I might play Metaphor: ReFantazio.

The mental gymnastics I leap through are absurd. If someone else has had to suggest I do something, they must obviously be judging me, because I’m an abject failure with no taste. So I reject it and ignore it, putting off playing a game or watching a movie until long after everyone else has stopped caring. After 30 years, it’s become so deeply ingrained in my identity that I don’t even recognise when I’m falling down this hole until it’s too late.

There are so many shows and movies I’ve not seen because it feels like someone else expected me to. So many raised eyebrows as I admit I’ve not played this game or watched that movie, despite it being a cultural cornerstone for so many. Recently, I’ve slowly come to the realisation that the only person missing out is me.

This is why I hate award shows, too. The thought of a panel considered experts decreeing the best of the best is just repulsive, even though it shouldn’t be.

No More Being A Clown

Balatro meme

It was Balatro that finally broke the camel’s back. All the way through this year, friends and colleagues at TheGamer have been singing its praises, going on about how good and compelling it is. I love roguelikes, and I love card games, so it should’ve been a slam dunk for me, and I should’ve been there hyping it right alongside everyone else.

But I didn’t. Just like how I ignored Marvel Snap and Pokemon TCG Pocket when they were all work would talk about, I ignored Balatro. It wasn’t worth paying attention to because I hadn’t found it. I couldn’t possibly have just had a game skip past me. Everyone else is wrong. The game is bad. Who cares?

This is also a very unfair way of responding to people whose opinions I value and respect. I shouldn’t be taking their insights as personal jabs against me.

It wasn’t until Features Lead Jade King was talking about Balatro with some other people that I finally decided to give it a go. Being an outsider to the conversation took the pressure off trying it out. A week later, and I’d sunk over 30 hours into it and was putting it down as my Game of the Year.

Time To Be More Open-Minded

balatro-screenshots-4.jpg

Every run feels fresh, with the interplay of Joker cards and other modifiers turning what is, ultimately, a fancy skinner box into one of the best roguelike games in years. Balatro is absolutely incredible, and my own bizarre rebellion against other people influencing me almost made me miss it completely.

And so, my resolution for 2025 is to make a good-faith effort to take suggestions on board. I’m not going to mute our game recommendation channel this year, and I might even actually attempt to try out some of the games thrown out by my friends. I’m going to remind myself that not knowing a video game before other people isn’t a personal failing, and taking advice doesn’t make me a poopy idiot boy.

Using a Chariot Tarot Card to enhance a Blue Seal 3 of Hearts in Balatro.

This is the gentlest, most risk-free way I can think of tackling one of my biggest personality flaws. Unpicking 30 years of demand avoidance habits is going to be difficult. Sometimes I might just not like a game, but finding flaws just to cover up my own insecurity at not being the ultimate tastemaker shouldn’t be the way I approach media anymore. Heck, maybe I’ll even watch next year’s TGAs and actually give a damn about the awards.

Maybe that last one is a bit too ambitious. Let’s start with asking my friends what I should play next.

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