Bakugan Battle Brawlers

Rating Everyone Genre action Publisher Activision External Links

Imagine that there were more Bakugan than what landed on Earth.  Imagine if there were another planet where Bakugan hailed from.  Imagine if two very powerful Bakugan made their way to Earth in hopes of ultimate conquest.  Imagine if another force were destined to destroy all Bakugan everywhere.  That, in a nutshell, is the premise behind Bakugan Battle Brawlers for the DS.  Your character comes into possession of a mysterious Bakugan from the planet Vestroia, who begins to draw the attention of the other Bakugan players.  Much fear and inquisition surrounds this new Bakugan, as well as his rival who appears shortly after.

My nephew is into Bakugan, so I figured that this is something he would like.  However, I’m confident that even he would find this to be too simple.  I have yet to find an inkling of real challenge or strategy.  All of the mini-games that determine victory will go to the player with the fastest reflexes, not necessarily the best creature and card combination.  And considering the target market audience, you can see the potential for trouble.  How many young pre-teens and teens, in this day and age, WON’T have the ability to turn a DS stylus into a blur of motion?  In short, playing Bakugan expecting a challenge is like giving a bicycle to Lance Armstrong and expecting him to have to learn how to ride it.

Bakugan Battle Brawlers is another victim in a long line of victims.  We’re looking at a fantastic concept with poor execution.  However, I’m not saying that the designers were completely clueless, either.  Their main oversight came in the lack of strategy.  The computer players don’t get any more unpredictable, you can buy up your Bakugan to astronomical levels with a few battles, and the stylus battles do not promote any actual improvement on the player’s part.

There’s a semi-decent story involved, but even that comes to a climax too quickly (no puns intended, you bunch of sickos.)  You have a mysterious Bakugan who finds his way toward the lonely new Bakugan player.  However, the player doesn’t realize that this Bakugan is ready to conquer the living world.  Conquer the world, right?  You’d think that’d be a mindset that could only be overcome with years of reconditioning.  Your player’s new Bakugan begins to have a change of heart after about 90 minutes of actual game play.  While that may be a psychologist’s dream, it’s a gamer’s nightmare.

Bakugan Battle Brawlers is a game that should be returned en masse and improved.  Once re-released, I’m positive that it would make a huge selling at Christmas and perhaps earn a few more devoted fans’ trust.  I think this title will end up being ridiculed as one of the worst in the series and, unfortunately, the title that most newbies to Bakugan will pick up FIRST.