I come away from TUNIC feeling a bit sour that it wasn't exactly what I was hoping it would be. Or what I expected it to be based on the opinions of others. The combat and world exploration just don't do it for me, but they are held up by some really enjoyable puzzle-solving and the incredible use of the in-game instruction booklet.

For being a game so many compared to Zelda 1, it shines its brightest when it wants the player to do one of the activities that personally helped me the most during Zelda 1: taking actual notes with pen and paper.

(more in-depth review on my neocities)

I was predisposed to love this game. I've been playing poker for a long time now and love the excitement of putting together a winning hand with just enough finesse and more than a little luck. The big advantage of Balatro is rather than having to rely upon sussing out your human opponents' inner thoughts and bluffs, you can just get mad when the game throws an absurd Boss Blind at you. Get mad, and then, hopefully, get planning.

Even when I'm not playing Balatro, I'm thinking about Balatro. Thinking about my favorite Jokers and which ones would possibly pair up in a way that would lead me to victory, thinking about how much I hated certain Boss Blinds, thinking about the pain of discarding over and over only to never hit that exact hand I wanted... The game has a real way of getting in my head.

It took me a lot of attempts to get my first victory, but it was so worth it. I look forward to picking this up again and again to try to unlock Challenge Mode and fill out the collections.