I’ve said in the past that I don’t really like trophies/achievements in games. I think they’re mostly pointless things that often ask players to do annoyingly difficult things for no other reason than the developer needing to fill out the list. One of my friends though, someone does feel the need to chase down every trophy in the games he plays, often claims that there is something to it. He’s long said that it’s a very satisfying thing and insists I’d get it if I’d just get a difficult platinum trophy myself. So, I set out to platinum Balatro. (This might’ve been a mistake).

I suppose the first question I should answer here is why I chose Balatro for this. Well, I’d been enjoying it for a bit already, and its trophy list looked both short and doable while still being somewhat difficult to complete. It just seemed like a game that would be a good candidate to help me see if my friend’s arguments for trophies. I haven’t actually got the platinum yet, but I do have to say that it has proved his arguments somewhat.

First, there has been some satisfaction to getting these things. If I do something difficult, it is nice to see the game recognize it. Collecting all of the jokers, tags, editions, vouchers, planet cards, tarot cards, and spectral cards was one such achievement. I didn’t have to go all that far out of my way to get it and it didn’t take a ridiculous amount of time to obtain.

Second, going after these trophies has, in fact, caused me to spend more time with the game and enabled me to get better at it than I otherwise would have. I’ve found cool synergies between different jokers, learned tricks for dealing with certain boss blinnds, optimized my early game and have learned more or less how to play most hands and how to buid the deck around them. I’ve even managed some crazy high scores. That, I must say, has been a real positive.

However, like I said, I still don’t have the platinum and I find myself wondering if this is a diminishing returns kind of thing. See the last two trophies I need in Balatro are Completionist+ and Completionist++. The former asks you to clear all 15 decks in Balatro on Gold Stake (the highest difficulty) and is what I’ve spent the past couple weeks working on.

You have to unlock Gold Stake in each deck, and there are 7 other lower difficulties you must win on first in order to get it. That’s at least 8 wins per deck on 15 decks, or 120 wins overall. Each run is going to take any where from 30 to 45 minutes to an hour, so that time is going to add up pretty quick. This is especially considering that you’re not going to win most of your runs in Balatro. So that’s even more time.

The next trophy, Completionist++ asks you to get a gold sticker on all 150 jokers in the game. In other words, win a run on Gold Stake with each joker at least once. That’s…going to take up even more time, and I’m already over 200+ hours in. I know the strats for doing it relatively quickly, but I’m wondering if it’s really satisfaction I’ll be feeling after getting it or just relief that it’s over. I also wonder if I’ll ever want to play Balatro again afterward.

I told my friend I’d get the platinum trophy for this game, so I don’t plan on giving up, but I don’t think I could stand to do this for another game. I get that there are some positives to be had by going for certain trophies now, but I still think that trying to “complete” every game is something that isn’t really worth it. Maybe this is just something I’m not meant to get, perhaps.

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How do you feel about trophies? Do you go for 100% in all your games? What do you like or dislike about the process?

Image from the Steam page