Bakugan Battle Brawlers

Review by Lobsta Johnson for Bakugan Battle Brawlers Rating: My kids love the Bakugan spheres…it’s a kind-of mashup of the classic game of Marbles and some of the new anime-based games like Pokemon or Yu-Gi-OH! The “live” game is cool because the engineering behind the spheres is really cool. Roll them onto a metal card and a magnetic switch activates, popping open the thing to reveal a robotic character. Some of them are really intricate and amazing; my kids have played with them for a year or more now and still not a single malfunction.

Anyway, one downside to the “real” Bakugan game is that all that engineering comes at a price; I figured the video game would allow us to buy one thing and all the collectables would be included in the game, and so far I was right.

Basically there are a couple of modes of interest…story line (where you have to defeat an increasing level of computer opponents in order to see the whole story unfold), and arena (where you can just play the game against the computer or against up to 3 other friends).

My 6 year old can play it, though it took a little practice to be able to grasp the sphere and throw it accurately. Steering it is something new that you couldn’t do in a “live” game and it’s pretty cool. The game otherwise plays just like the “real” game except there is a skill-based element at the very end of the battle that allows you to boost your models’s GP a bit to break a tie (or win a close match). It really helps to be able to read. A 6 year old can noodle around by himself/herself, but an adult will have to help navigate the storyline. An 8 year old could probably figure it all out, and a 10 year old or older should have no problem. My 4 year old likes to watch, but just isn’t ready to put it all together.

My one complaint is that the instruction manual is VERY basic. You basically have to figure out how to do things like edit your deck, swap out your Bakugan, and even how to set the game up so you can play against a friend instead of a computer opponent. This seems to be a trend in videogaming these days…give you the structure and force you to figure out the rest as “part of the fun”. It is, kind of, but it’s also a bit frustrating at times.

Anyway, we’ve had the game for 2 days and we’ve played the heck out of it. It’s a lot of fun and something I can do with my kids and everyone has a good time.

I think it’s essential that you’ve either watched the Tee Vee show or played the actual game before. Getting dumped into this universe cold will simply lead to confusion.

Review by D. M. Daniels for Bakugan Battle Brawlers Rating: My daughter had this to say about the game: “This game has awesome graphics and is tons of fun, but if you’re a girl it gets a bit rude. There is no such thing as a female avatar that you can create so in other words unless the female fans out there want to play as males you can’t play the story part of the game which is the whole point.”

Review by Ariel Benzakein for Bakugan Battle Brawlers Rating: My 10 year old son is crazy about Bakugan, and he loves this game. He did beat the main/story mode game pretty fast, but he still enjoys battling.