PWB December: Merry & Bright edition

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GameCube emulator stuff with my Gamesir G8. This is a lovely phone controller that feels a lot more premium than the forty quid AliExpress jobbie it is. I'm also still blown away that you can emulate Gamecube and Wii so easily on a budget phone.

Balatro. I'm not sure I get this… You just play poker hands until you can't any more? It doesn't seem to have structure like other roguelikes, unless I'm missing something? There's not much chance to build a deck, and there doesn't seem to be a final boss to work towards. It all just seems a bit pointless.

Skyrim. It's been a a couple years, so time to reinstall this and spend four days modding it. When I finally got everything working, within 10 minutes I'd found a quest I had never seen before. Always surprised by this game.

Black Mesa. I played the mod years ago, but the full game is 4 quid on Steam at the minute so I'm working through this too. You forget just how good Half Life is/was. There's such an amazing sense of place, I feel like I know Black Mesa itself better than most of my real workplaces.

Want

Dragon Age, Astro Bot, more hours in the day to play games.

You can slowly make your way towards a deck in Balatro sort of, like you can get a run where you level up a certain hand like Two Pairs or Three of a Kind so they actually cash out more than what a higher rated hand would and then try to get Jokers and Arcanas that make those easier to get (some can outright override cards in the deck, some can make existing cards give more chips). It's basically all in the combos (or you'll never make the boss blinds), but at the end of the day it is 'Poker' yes.

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When I'm done with Mass Effect, I will finally, finally be starting Baldur's Gate 3. I have high hopes for it, enough that I feel like if I played it when it came out it could have been my GOTY, I just really want to marathon it when I'm off work next week, exciting. D:

Might start Rise of Ronin in a bit, it's basically Nioh mixed with some Tsushima or so I hear, but with more emphasis on deeper combat and everything else apparently less as good.

Final Fantasy XIV on the PS5, the PS4 was practically creaking at the weight of this now, the first thing I noticed when I tried it on PS5 is teleporting and loading between zones is almost instant, woooo.

Genshin Impact on PS5 is absolutely fucking gorgeous and IMO should always be in the conversation for best looking game this generation, that and I'm enjoying it a lot more than Honkai Star Rail right now. D:

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I am probably done with the Pokemon TCG, it's very flashy but the game is just too cut down for me,

Owning a PS5, I almost made it this gen without having to buy this stupid fucking console but I guess XIV just about pushed me over the edge, so I might as well enjoy it. That and I really think maybe the Series S has ran its course for me. The Slim at least, isn't quite as comically big as the regular version. One of those things where I'm glad to own it now but I really didn't wanna' buy it. (Like the Analog Pocket)

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Dragon Age: The Veilguard, still, this time as a dwarf Grey Warden. Making some different choices, but there's one I know I'll have to keep for playthrough 3…

I started Ghost of Tsushima again, and made it slightly farther than I did the first time (still not very far…). I tried putting it in Japanese, but the English lip-sync was distracting, so I switched it back.

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Can't think of anything exciting on the horizon, particularly; I suppose I'd like Horizon Forbidden West to get a decent discount, as I beat the main game on PlayStation Plus, but didn't get to the DLC before they took it off.

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Illness. Our house is an absolute plague pit at the moment, so the sooner everyone stops coughing and feeling sleepy, the better.

After all of ME1, ME2 and killing 300k Batarians in the Arrival DLC to stop a Reaper using the mass relay to slip in…they come in anyway? I guess I should let them explain things…

EDIT: YO THESE SKILL TREES??? ARE WE BACK???

EDIT: I told Kaidan to fuck off YESSSSSSSS, was waiting for that since ME2

I told Kaiden to fuck off in ME 1 by letting him take a thermonuclear warhead directly to the face.

And then you get the joy of watching Ashley go full MAGA.

There should be a mod for ME1 where the bomb needs two crew to detonate it.

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Still on the Metaphor train. Boy, it all goes much faster when you can skip every cutscene and don't have to grind for Virtues. This time through I'm mostly focusing on getting all the Follower ranks maxed out, but I might have time to do the Coliseum and I'm trying to remember to consult Gallica and use the sword to travel around in towns for those achievements. Fully expect I'll need a third playthrough for some other bits and pieces - Gold Beetle exchanges at least, maybe the debates and books.

Kicked off a playthrough of Donkey Kong Land 2 on the Switch's GameBoy service, but I'm struggling pretty badly with it… I clearly don't have the reaction times I used to, but also it's weird how the bigger screen makes it feel like you can see less.

I recently took ownership of the Switch's N64 controller, so I've been trying out a couple of games with that – Majora's Mask, and trying in vain to remember where the hell I'd gotten to in Paper Mario. Having the proper controller makes a big difference, though feels smaller than I remember.

And of course, Timberborn.

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Some time off – weekends just aren't long enough.

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My inability to keep to a sleep schedule. I'm either going to bed stupid later or stupid early, which is not working out in my favour.

Council see a big fucking Reaper attack the Citadel in ME1, then in ME2 they act like it was just a one off and almost pretend the attack never even happened, blaming it on 'Geth technology'. And then Reapers, as in multiple attack a whole fucking planet and they get snotty and say 'SO YOU SAY'. BRUH WE HAVE FOOTAGE

This is really stretching my suspension of disbelief, just written to be antagonistic for the sake of it at this point.

Balatro. I'm not sure I get this… You just play poker hands until you can't any more? It doesn't seem to have structure like other roguelikes, unless I'm missing something? There's not much chance to build a deck, and there doesn't seem to be a final boss to work towards. It all just seems a bit pointless.

Yep. Balatro's popularity is absolutely bonkers. Proper Emperor's New Card Clothes energy.

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I'm really enjoying Road 96. You can often see the joins and tonally it's sometimes all over the place, but it's so confident in what it's trying to do that it really has swept me up. I hope it nails the landing as it's really been one of the best games I've played in recent memory. Hits especially deep at the moment too.

Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo. I'm not quite sure why I'm playing this. The voice acting is very poor and the lead is an absolutely massive dickhead. But…. there's definitely something to it. Imagine a janky Telltale game voiced by Jimmy Carr. Mmm.

Dragon Age GODS (NOT GODS). This really has very enjoyable moment to moment gameplay, but the plot. Dearie me. It's all so fragmented. Delivered in little breathless exposition dumps like having a Dan Brown novel shouted at you by a toddler. The Rambleomatic review (yes, I was amazed he's still going) pretty much echoed my thoughts. I have played it a fair amount though, and I have the attention span of a daddy longlegs these days, so it clearly has something going for it.

Stray Gods I've been "playing" this a bit on Steam Deck. I like it. It's Buffy, crossed with High School Musical.

Oh and quite a few games on the Playdate. Just a lovely device.

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All I want at the moment is to find the person who made the Limited Edition Method cleaner spray (the yellow one) and to kiss him or her on the mouth. I think it might be the nicest smelling thing ever created. I'm going to wear it as a cologne.

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I want Christmas to be over. Not just because of the obvious, but I am so sick of trying to raise money. If you've ever done this in business it's just such a protracted, soulless, ego destroying thing. But we are set to close soon, and I think we've done it. Leading to maybe two more years in Belfast, with more scrutiny as I desperately try to get one of our four medical programs to the end. I can't decide whether to buy a house here - I sort of feel I ought to (as one house here costs the same as a paving slab inside the M25). Seriously, if any of you have friends thinking "I'll never be able to buy a house" and they don't mind terrible accents/a constant threat of violence then come to County Antrim.

America, Russia, France… ever feel like you're living through the "events leading up to" section of a history book.

Council see a big fucking Reaper attack the Citadel in ME1, then in ME2 they act like it was just a one off and almost pretend the attack never even happened, blaming it on 'Geth technology'. And then Reapers, as in multiple attack a whole fucking planet and they get snotty and say 'SO YOU SAY'. BRUH WE HAVE FOOTAGE

That seems…. entirely plausible to me? I mean we’ve just lived through a worldwide pandemic in which millions of people died, and now we have a massive anti-vax movement. People still think Brexit was a pretty neat idea. Mass Effect was quite prescient in the way it depicted people’s capacity for denial, I think, and ME3’s depiction of things completely falling apart is good too.

Plus, as Brian says, Ashley’s MAGA makeover is absolutely uncanny.

Last time I was playing Mass Effect 1 I had Ashley in the team and my wife said, "Who's she? I don't remember seeing her before." I replied, "She turns into a massive racist in 3 so I don't normally bother with her." At which point we walk into a space mall and Ashley says, "I can't tell the aliens from the animals."

So the clues were there.

Yeah, Ash was always a raging space-racist; the only reason I ever spared her instead of Kaiden was because I thought she would be more useful in a fight. I really ought to do a Kaiden run of the trilogy at some point…

Ashley’s far more racist in ME1, she gets toned down a lot in 3 and is much less interesting as a result. She’s just another soldier in a game that has too many soldiers in it anyway.

However even a toned-down Space Racist is a better character than the pointless wet fart that is Kaiden. That guy gets completely ignored then airlocked every single time.

I found Kaidan to be quite a funny character if you play as a female Shepard. When I played it I was having a full-on public affair with Liara, naturally, but Kaidan kept wanting to talk to me about our relationship. He even did a whole speech in a cafe exploring his own incredibly complicated feelings about "us" and what our relationship means. It's like, mate there is no relationship. You're just some Mikel Arteta lookalike that lives on my ship. I never take you on missions. I only talk to you because I habitually talk to everyone inbetween missions as a matter of course. I don't dislike you, and I'm not even particulary bothered that you got pissy and weird when I was resurrected by the space EDL. You're just a bit dull. You might have all these confusing feelings that tie a knot in your stomach, but I don't ever think about you at all, sorry.

He's like those guys who overthink every friendship they have with a woman.

Ashley’s far more racist in ME1, she gets toned down a lot in 3 and is much less interesting as a result.

Presumably they had to tone her down, otherwise there'd be no reason not to have her be part of the Cerberus crew for 2.

I'm really enjoying Road 96. You can often see the joins and tonally it's sometimes all over the place, but it's so confident in what it's trying to do that it really has swept me up. I hope it nails the landing as it's really been one of the best games I've played in recent memory. Hits especially deep at the moment too.

If anyone else is interested, this is currently £4.49 in the Steam Sale.

Realistic or not (I still think Giant lice robots of death is a bit pushing it for 'I do not see it ') my Shepard has had enough, they're not getting another chance if another ME1 finale situation happens…

Actually I'm already finding myself being a bit renegade (bar the obvious, stupid pointless, antagonistic responses) and I feel like it's how my character would be like. Already snapped at Kaidan for giving me the cold shoulder in ME2 (Garrus and Tali were real ones for having my back) and the council for being fucking idiots, after two games of taking the high road with that reporter I knocked her out in 3 because I am not having her shit after seeing Earth being razed to the ground. (Hilarious scene too)

Any old Overwatch/Marvel fans going to check out F2P Marvel Rivals

I might do, though the whole thing looks like it might be a bit hyper kinetic for me, and I don't really like many of the character designs.

A couple of Plays for this month:

Assassin's Creed: Mirage. Boring and repetitive. The whole of Baghdad looks the same and there's no variety in the game at all, everything is either "go here and look round this area" or "go here and kill this guy". I've no idea who anybody is, every character's in the game for ten minutes before being killed then you're off to the next one. Guards run twice as fast as you do and chase you for no reason, for some reason the ones with little pointy hats are near unkillable (I'll have to see if this works in real life). It's a short game but it still outstays its welcome and I'm only finishing it out of stubbornness.

The Lord of the Rings Online. I'm nearly at the end of Moria and it's been an amazing experience. They've got it just right - Khazad-dûm feels both impossibly huge and oppressively claustrophobic, and somehow the 2007-era graphics engine makes it seem all the more spectacular.

Part of me desperately wishes I could get into LotRO, but I bounced off it so hard every time… The other part of me is glad I don't have that time sink.

Casuals are ruining Gar's favourite series by calling for an end to the 100 hour runtime!

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Kotor 2 - Finally made it to the stage where this feels like it's getting good. Remembered the opening section on the mining station, but had completely forgotten you got locked into the next planet for so long. I've finally left that when you first can to do to the planet surface and it's already much better.

Old Football and football management games - I mentioned before on here I started playing these and putting them on my YouTube channel. This was actually a form of therapy and still is, but yesterday I hit 500 subscribers. So am now in the process of joining the official "YouTube Partner" programme. If I ever make it to 1000 subscribers I can then start compromising my morals all for tiny amounts of ad revenue.

Aliens: Colonial Marines & other random Xbox 360 titles - On Saturdays my guys watch Strictly Come Dancing in the living room. I used to do my YouTube videos in the cellar then but it's too noisy to record when my kid is dancing and screaming right above my head. So recently I set one of the later models of Xbox 360 they did up in our bedroom on a TV at the back of the room, and now try to play a different 360 game every weekend. Trying to recreate the "weekend rental" vibe almost. I had never played Colonial Marines somehow but am a bit fan of it despite how basic and simple it is.

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The Blue Xbox 360 model they sold very late into it's life. It's apparently a bit quieter and just looks very nice.

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Weather. Once again back to leaking roof check. It's at least the different end of the house this time but it's unlikely to get looked at til February.

Casuals are ruining Gar's favourite series by calling for an end to the 100 hour runtime!

I don't mind the shorter runtime at all (Valhalla was crazy bloated) and I like the return to the older style of games too. The problem is they've made it shorter by taking out almost all the side activities, leading to a very one note and repetitive game. It's an old-school Assassin's Creed game that's not as good as any of the games it uses as its inspiration, which is a shame. It's filler content.

Marvel Rival's is fun but it doesn't have the immediate appeal of Overwatch because it's a lot harder imo, and it isn't an FPS. Like, I don't even get how tanking works in this game, all your defensive CDs last like 2 seconds and they are slow as fuck. And like Overwatch it comes down to teamwork, and if people don't understand what they're doing you'll have a bad time.

I put about an hour into Marvel Rivals this evening, and I'm liking it quite a lot. I've not played Overwatch 2 a ton recently, but I wouldn't say there's a huge gulf in terms of difficulty - this is just new.

I've mainly been playing Storm and Moon Knight so far, with a couple of mid-round dips into Scarlet Witch and Mantis. Everyone in the roster seems to play really differently, though (even aside from the Duelist/Vanguard/Strategist meta-classes), and it makes a big change when someone picks your Team-Up character.

It's very hard to avoid the Overwatch comparisons, though, isn't it? Almost every character, my first response was, "Oh, this is their [Widowmaker/Moira/76/etc.] ", even if most of the characters are kind of a mix of kit.

Storm, in particular, I like - she can fly freely around the levels, shooting lightning and boosting nearby allies like a not-shit Lucio. Her ult is fun, too, especially when the entire enemy team bunches up next to the payload for a final push… 😈

Nothing made me laugh quite as hard as using Jeff the Shark's Ult to swallow the entire enemy team and spit them off the side of the level.

I've mainly been playing Storm and Moon Knight so far, with a couple of mid-round dips into Scarlet Witch and Mantis. Everyone in the roster seems to play really differently, though (even aside from the Duelist/Vanguard/Strategist meta-classes), and it makes a big change when someone picks your Team-Up character.

So far I've gravitated towards Cloak & Dagger and Jeff the Shark because…they're the only roles I understand how to play in theory, not in terms of 'this is what a good C&G should be doing' but I know to heal my team whereas the Vanguards confused me, probably precisely because of Overwatch. It's like, Hulk seems to be designed to jump in and disrupt like Winston but his defense doesn't seem nearly as good, Magneto's bubbles seem to last like 1 second so I really don't see what the point is because I immediately thought 'Zarya' but who is able to take advantage of that…with a Scarlet Witch in the team he feels like a totally different beast though. :D

I want at least one character in every role though, my brain tells me that Groot might be super useful but my heart thinks Cap' is REALLY fun to play so I'll look up some pointers on how to play these people but that aside, I love the Cloak and Dagger mechanic and I'd love to be the guy saving people's asses out there.

33 characters that are also varied in-role as you say is interesting though, once I actually understand how the game plays and what a real engagement is supposed to look like I can see me playing this as often as I did early season Overwatch (God I miss Ana launch OW days)

Fuck Hawkeye.

EDIT - What the fuck ARE Venom and Adam Warlock, I am not a good player by any means but I don't see why you would ever choose Venom as the Vanguard over Hulk, and Adam's skill list read as follows: 2 stackable instant heals, another heal overtime/damage mit that he attaches to allies/himself, when he dies he can ghost away and revive on the spot, if he plays with the GOTG characters he will revive them when they die, his ult is a revive also lol

I've seen Venom and/or Hulk in most of my games, but I've not tried any of the Vanguard out yet, so I don't know what their deal is, really. Can't recall having seen Adam Warlock. It's early days, so I suspect people are gravitating towards their favourite characters from comics/movies, rather than studying the meta much.

Every single team in every single match has a Jeff, though.

Jeff is easiest healer to play imo and his ult is absolutely hilarious but he's so straightforward it's hard to go for him over the others, especially when you see the damage output they also have, like Mantis can buff as well as heal and her headshot damage is nasty.

I'm not an Indy person, he's good and I like the films but I wasn't going to get the game but it sounds fucking amazing, like GOTY tier good. There are way too many games I want right now though, I want Path of Exile 2 and Neo Fantasian too :/ (I love video games)

Jeff is easiest healer to play imo

I mean, he's got a one-star difficulty rating so it's i the devs' o, too.

I'm still not sold on the first-person perspective for Indy, but all the buzz has been pretty positive. Not having an Xbox, though, I'd be waiting until "Spring 2025" for it either way, so we'll see where opinion settles

This is going to sound like I'm moaning about 'Post ME1 ME' again but I'm enjoying Mass Effect 3 so far, but I'm pretty stunned that they thought the 'eavesdrop, fetch quest, return to citadel' was a good mechanic to put in the game. The journal is already awful in ME3 but a quick stroll through the Citadel will make it auto fill with endless 'X wants Y' or 'Found Y on Planet Z, return to X' 'sidequests'. That and they once again modified planet scanning but for War Assets and a very irritating Reaper mechanic where getting caught is simply a very cheap feeling black screen game over, reality is you'll scan a lot and just run away again and again, whole thing feels very 'what are we even doing here man' to me.

Combat is so hilariously broken but I don't mind when it's this fun (side note, do NOT play Infiltrator in ME2 if you want to actually have fun beyond the frst few levels). Skill trees, distinct feeling guns again (even got more pew pew back), my build even lets me disregard cover alost entirely, close enough, welcome back ME1 combat. So regardless of how bad Andromeda may or may not be if the combat is even better there I think I'll give it a shot one day (I'm not playing four ME games in a row)

EDIT: Just did Tuchanka, I'm a bit sad that one of the best character moments/series scene full stop is locked behind a renegade action ("I MADE A MISTAKE") but nonetheless, I was moved. Probably best character for me.

Peni is probably my new favourite character she's actually way more fun than Venom overall because I can do more dynamic shit and I don't have to hope a healer sees me swing (and the swing arc is so wide it can be hard to use and not hit anything) up to the sky and divebomb the enemy. I can just lay my spider egg and just spam mines and they will literally just run into them and I will web them and kill them. (current most satisfying thing is webbing an Iron Fist and him getting ganked by us, no rampage for you, you monster)

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Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga 3DS as always with these games I love them at first and lose interest somewhere in the second half. I just hit that point again. I might find a guide though and see if I can speed through to the end this time.

Ratchet & Clank A Crack in Time I wanted something bright and cheery to play and with my PS3 plugged in, I remembered the other day how much I enjoyed this ~15 years ago. So I then spent two days trying to find the fucking disc. Yesterday I did indeed find the fucking disc and I have now played a couple levels. It's good! But then that's not a surprise. It still looks pretty although the lack of lighting effects and detritus is noticeable.

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Right now the only thing I'm coveting is the annual bundle of Traveller RPG books. I already have thousands of pages of Traveller pdfs, but I don't have these ones… Sadly, despite their bargain price…

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People who work in tech being made redundant in December. Case in point: Mrs Bloodaxe.

The Citadel DLC for Mass Effect 3 is the best Mass Effect DLC

Considering I love the whole Mass Effect trilogy, I really should have played the citadel by now.

I don't play PC games, but I did just grab Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria for free from Epic's daily giveaways, because I think Gar told me to.

No… wait. This isn't the online MMO, is it? Gah.

Baldur's Gate 3 is already everything I wanted it to be so far, not that this breaks the limit of creativity or anything but when I couldn't reach an enemy and so threw a nearby corpse at it to kill it I smiled a bit. Can't wait to see what other shit I can do. I'm glad I played so many Bioware games before hand too because I can directly compare them.

Interesting. I thought Githyanki sounded familiar so I checked and Dak'kon from Planescape: Torment was actually a githzerai and apparently Laezhel would have tried to kill him basically on sight

Yeah, the Gith have a Whole Thing™.

I know she's got an abrasive personality but she's pretty entertaining so far, like an angry, racist pear. Her and Shadowheart (whose voice I love) have some tension going and with the reputation this game has I should probably be concerned…

Also today I managed to find both Zelda Oracle of Ages/Oracle of Seasons to add to my physical GBA/GBC collection. Also two games I wanna' play at some point the only question is which first? I heard one is puzzle orientated and one is combat orientated but beyond that I have no idea if they're basically identical like Pokemon games. You would expect controlling time to be vastly different to controlling seasons right?

They're completely different games - different maps, different dungeons, different characters. Seasons is the more combat-orientated, but they both have their fair share of puzzles. Doesn't matter which order you play them in, BUT

Spoiler - click to showwhen you finish one, you get a password. Put that password into the other one when you start and then, when you finish it, you can get the 'true' end section that covers both games, since they're kind of one story even though they're not.

Yeah that sounds cool as fuck, I dunno' how but it seems Capcom make pretty damn good Zelda games apparently, gonna' need to hunt down Minish Cap at some point too

Minish Cap is the best. I never managed to complete the Kinstone sidequest in it though…

I know Balatro isn't as popular over here but I finally beat a game yesterday, didn't get too far into Endless Mode but I ended up unlocking a new deck and about 5 new Jokers. Spare Trousers carried me. Part of me prefers this to Hades as roguelikes go tbh.

I like Balatro a lot. I'll admit, I'm able to turn it on and off fairly easily, so it's not as addictive (addictive, dammit… don't be 'ing' me!) to me as the reviews would suggest. But having it on mobile definitely makes it super accessible whenever I feel like it.

What am I missing with the deckbuilding aspect? There doesn't seem to be much opportunity to add or remove cards, so I always feel like I'm garnishing a full deck rather than crafting my own.

In Slay the Spire you start with, what, ten cards? And get constant chances to remove, add and upgrade. By starting with 52 in Balatro, the deck is so bloated from the get-go that I never really make a mark on it.

What am I missing with the deckbuilding aspect? There doesn't seem to be much opportunity to add or remove cards, so I always feel like I'm garnishing a full deck rather than crafting my own.

In Slay the Spire you start with, what, ten cards? And get constant chances to remove, add and upgrade. By starting with 52 in Balatro, the deck is so bloated from the get-go that I never really make a mark on it.

Sounds to me like you've totally overlooked Tarot cards? They can destroy cards completely, turn cards of one suit into another, replace one card with a duplicate of another, create special cards that can add massive bonuses (more chips, multipliers, extra gold) and so on. They're vital… like, you can turn a deck of 52 regular cards into one that's entire face cards, all diamonds, reduced to 30 so you're guaranteed better odds of getting the hands you're upgrading with planet cards and so on. It's a key mechanic, it's how you build synergy with the hand-enhancing multipliers and specific Jokers… so, for instance, get the Joker that gives odd-numbered cards a bonus, you then wipe out all the even cards. Suit-specific decks can be tricky though if you come up against a boss blind that renders it useless…

tl;dr - Balatro is very much about making a move early and sticking to it. If you dither and leave it too late, your deck ends up being too general to hit big scores quickly. You need to have a plan in the works by the third ante, really.

No I've come across those, but as far as I can tell they generally only affect one card at a time? So you might play a whole ante plus boss, and as a reward you delete the 7 of Diamonds. The pace just seems glacial.

This is clearly my problem, because Balatro is every game developer's favourite game. I just don't see it.