The latest in the string of card games that my son has brought home is Bakugan. Really, to call it a card game does it somewhat of an injustice. Bakugan is, well, a different thing altogether.
The Bakugan themselves are little colored spheres, the size of a big aggie, or a giant gobstopper. (Wow, I managed to date myself with two references in a single sentence.) The Bakugan have a little magnet embedded somewhere in the sphere.
The first object of the game (there are several) is to roll your round little Bakugan across the playing area and onto one of the metal “gate” cards. If the magnet contacts the metal, the sphere springs open to reveal a little mechanical monster ready for battle. When each player has a Bakugan on one card, the contest begins in earnest.
The battles consist of comparing the relative point values of the two Bakugan, which can be modified by the particular gate card and/or one or more ability cards. That’s really it. The player with the biggest number wins.
The design of the Bakugan is really quite clever. It is fun to watch them pop open to reveal the creature within. The game itself is secondary to discovering, collecting, and displaying the little spheroids. The pieces run from $4 – $10 each retail, depending on the point values and rarity of the character. There are also traps, which are not spherical and run a little more. You can save a little money by going online. Bakugan are abundant on Ebay.
As a side note, there is also a Bakugan cartoon, which I would not recommend for anyone. It’s choppy,annoying, and little more than a barely-concealed infomercial for the toys. While I’d say ‘yes’ to the game, it is a big ‘no’ to the cartoon in my house.