A Great Suggestion For Santa

The problem for Santa Claus is that he is an old man who lives at the North Pole. He’s a bit out of touch. I worry that he might not have the internet. So please pass this message on if you run into him. What young boys of six and older want this Christmas is a Bakugan Starter Pack or a Bakugan Battle Pack. It is a really fun game that also helps children improve their mental arithmetic.

Bakugan Battle Brawlers is based upon the hit Japanese cartoon series of the same name. The cartoon quickly became a hit in the States and Canada and Sega Toys and Spin Master soon released a game based upon the TV show. No knowledge of the TV series is necessary to play the game, but of course, in a child’s world a TV tie-in all adds to the excitement of playing the game.

Bakugan is a very playable game that is a combination of marbles and trump cards. Each player has three Bakugan balls and a number of Gate Cards and Ability Cards. At the start of a turn a player lays down a Gate Card on the play area. The player then rolls a Bakugan ball. If the Bakugan ball lands on a metallic Gate Card then the Bakugan ball opens up to reveal a Bakugan Battle Brawler. These Bakugan balls have various personas and various strengths and weaknesses. When a Bakugan opens up it reveals a G-power number. If two player’s Bakugan open up on the same Gate Card then battle commences.

The battle is where math is involved. The Gate Card is turned over. On the Gate Card are extra G-power points for the Bakugan and instructions. These instructions might be that the Bakugan with the lowest score is the winner. It varies. Once the G-power scores of each of the Bakugan is added to the extra G-power on the Gate Card then a winner is declared. The winner is the Bakugan ball with the highest (or sometimes lowest) G-power score. A player can also choose to play an Ability Card to aid his or her Bakugan win a fight. The winner takes the Gate Card. The overall winner is the first player to win 3 Gate Cards.

This is the basis of the game. Of course there are further rules to add extra complexity to the game to maintain the interest of children. Such extras include Traps and Special Gauntlets.

The Starter Pack includes 3 Bakugan balls (each player needs a Pack to play). The Battle Pack has 6 Bakugan Balls. The advantage of the Battle Pack is that it allows children to play with 6 Bakugan balls instead of 3. The winner is still the first player to win 3 Gate Cards.

The Bakugan Balls are fascinating for kids because they pop up to reveal a cool ‘creature’ modeled on the Japanese animation character from the series. There are many Bakugan balls that children can collect and swap.

Here is a list of the core Bakugan ball characters:

Abis Omega
Alpha Percival
Apollonir
Bee Striker
Blade Tigrerra
Brontes
Centipoid
Clayf
Cosmic Ingram
Cycloid
Delta Dragonoid II
Dragonoid
El Condor
Exedra
Falconeer
Fear Ripper
Fortress
Freezer
Frosch
Gargonoid
Gorem
Griffon
Hades
Hammer Gorem
Helios
Hydranoid
Hynoid
Ingram
Juggernoid
Lars Lion
Laserman
Limulus
Manion
Mantris
Mega Brontes
Mega Nemus
Midnight Percival
Monarus
Naga
Nemus
Neo Dragonoid
Oberus
Percival
Pyro Dragonoid
Rattleoid
Ravenoid
Reaper
Robotallion
Saurus
Serpenoid
Shadow Vulcan
Siege
Sirenoid
Skyress
Stinglash
Storm Skyress
Stug
Tentaclear
Terrorclaw
Tigrerra
Tuskor
Ultra Dragonoid
Verias
Viper Helios
Warius
Wavern
Wilda
Wired
Wormquake

Just from a brief perusal of these names a number of things should be evident to the observant parent. Firstly, there are a lot of Bakugan balls to collect. Children love collecting things and they will love to collect Bakugan balls each with their characteristics and attributes (based on the elements). The numerous Bakugan are grouped into 7 main species. My first point is that variety makes playability and adds to the excitement of building a collection. Secondly, the names of the Bakugan Balls borrow heavily from Latin and Greek. Your son will unwittingly improve his English by absorbing many useful prefixes and affixes. The names also tap into world mythology (for example Percival from the Tales of King Arthur and the Quest for the Holy Grail). The appellations also borrow from foreign words (for example ‘Naga’ is Sanskrit for ‘snake’). Without knowing it your son is taking on board the grammar of world myths and ancient languages. Thirdly, just being able to read the names of the characters will aid your child’s grasp of complicated phonetics and phonemes. And fourthly, your child will grasp the Aristotelian notion of classification (e.g. Genus, sub-genus and species) upon which much of the natural sciences is based.

So Santa to summarize for you (because I know you and your elfish helpers are very busy getting ready for Christmas) Bakugan is a great new game that boys 6 years old and up will love to play. Not only is it great to play but it also helps to improve children’s math skills, reading skills and is a fun introduction to some of the archetypal terms and narratives of the world.