Bakugan is a strategy and role playing game for boys aged 8 to 11, though there are boys and girls playing this at much younger and older ages.  Bakugan comes from the Japanese words “baku” meaning to explode, and “gan” which means sphere.  A bakugan is a transforming sphere action figure.

Players begin with a minimum of 3 Bakugan battle brawlers which look like large plastic marbles, and three metal playing cards, of which, one is a special ability card.  When a Bakugan battle brawler is rolled over one of the metal cards it transforms into a Bakugan warrior.  On the back of each card is some statistics that the players use to keep track of battle points.

As I mentioned, each player must start with a minimum of three Bakugan battle brawlers and the opponents must have an equal amount of warriors.  This is good because it takes away any disadvantage for a player that only has a few Bakugan and competes against a player that has hundreds of Bakugan in his collection.  Both players are evenly matched.  This is important for kids that choose to join in Bakugan tournament leagues.

Bakugan is similar to games like Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh! with the addition of an action figure.  There are literally hundreds of Bakugan battle brawlers and at very nice price points.  Like the two card games mentioned, when your child tires of their Bakugan action figures they have the option of trading which can save on buying new ones.

As you can imagine, there is an assortment of accessories that go with the Bakugan battle brawlers, such as carriers and battle arenas, battle launchers and protective card sleeves.  We started collecting these toys last year and are no where near having a complete collection.

 I sometimes buy brawlers in bulk on Ebay and find great deals on accessories from both Ebay and Amazon.com.  We thought that maybe our little guy would lose interest in a few weeks of playing but a year later and he is still asking for more.  These toys are incredibly engaging and we often find the entire family sitting around the battle arena on the living room floor having a blast.