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Arlo loves anything that changes shape, so when a parcel of Bakugan toys arrived and he opened it up to find lots of BakuBalls inside along with the Bakugan Armored Alliance Battle Arena he got pretty excited!
What is Bakugan?
Bakugan started life as an animated TV series about creatures called ‘Bakugan’ and their owners, who do brawls with them. It’s now been turned into a game for kids to play so they can have (safe!) brawls with their friends.
How do you play Bakugan?
There are a couple of ways to play but we’ve stuck with the simplest method so far and it works for us. Arlo is 5 and Athena is 6 and they both got the hang of these rules pretty quickly though Arlo needs help with the adding.
Each player chooses 3 BakuBalls and sets them in place at the edge of the arena, with their corresponding cards in the card slots. The magnetic BakuCores are then placed in the centre of the arena on top of the pattern, making sure at least one side is touching another one. Then the fun starts, at the same time each player rolls their first BakuBall into the area attempting to land on a BakuCore, which will trigger the BakuBall to open and turn into a Bakugan! If just one player’s ball opens they win the round. If both open then then you add together the B number on the card matching the creature and add that to the number on the BaukCore hexagon that it will be attached to by a magnet. The highest number wins. If nobody opens then brawl again. It sounds a bit complicated but the kids picked it up super fast.
The winning BakuBall from each round is displayed open, and the first person to get three open is the Brawl winner!
Can you play without the Battle Arena?
Yes! The arena really adds to the fun of the game but it definitely possible to play without it as you can set the Bakucores up on a table or other flat surface, then as your collection grows can look into getting the Arena. It also folds up for storage when not in use.
As with most collectible series of toys there are a lot to collect, and each is in a different faction, are different shapes and colours and have different scores, which all add the the fun of the game! Of course there are some that are more rare than others.
Arlo actually loves to play with his Bakugan separately from battling with them, as part of imaginary games, rolling them around, finding things that will make them spring open (basically anything metal!) They are actually really impressively put together, as each one curls back up into a ball differently from others – and despite being made of plastic they are sturdy and withstand being thrown around!
I think this is a set of toys that Arlo will be playing with for many years to come, as it’s so versatile. It means we can also buy him more for treats or as stocking fillers.
Bakugan are available as individuals and sets from a wide variety of toy retailers.