Apparently, Bakugan is a very popular Japanese anime TV series which involves cartoon characters fighting using various forms of G-Power and cards. Equally the game which I certainly had not heard of before now is very similar. But if the TV show is anything like the game then …thankfully I haven’t heard of it! 

 

The game revolves around two cards being placed on a field. You then select an overpowered ball to turn into a character, select its power and lob it onto a card. Then the AI goes and does the same thing and misses, always. You play again; get a double ‘Bakugan’ on a card, which transforms into a third card and then the AI plays. He then gets his ‘Bakugan’ onto the card, you fire yours and then the fight begins. As you may have gathered it is all a little pointless, since the bottom line is you have spent 5 minutes throwing 2 balls onto a square grid. So surely now that we have the opponents raring to go, the game really begins. Well…

 

Strictly speaking yes, but unfortunately you have to do a bit of pointless button mashing. First off you press the X button to charge your character, and then you press up on the D-Pad, followed by X again to initiate the power. Then you press A and start the game. There are now two possibilities of the game you play. Either you waggle the thumb sticks up and down, or you batter the left and right triggers continually. If you have more points than you opponent, you have basically won. If not, you actually need to play the game. Then you get sent to the main menu and do the same thing again.

 

 

There are two career modes. First is The Park, which is a bit like Quick Play, and second is Tournament, which is like Park except you get no choice over your opponent. Every single environment I swear is the same. Even the opponents look and sound the same, it is very freaky. You always have three red enemies to use against your opponent, but you can purchase more for Bakugan points. You can also buy new clothes for yourself, but its only little minor things which make no difference to the game. 

 

This game offers one of the most boring and repetitive gameplay experiences known to man, although for what it’s trying to do at least the game works very well. The framerate is constantly stable throughout the whole of the game and all its fights. There is a bit of loading but all of it is very short and sweet. The characters voices are very bouncy, like a cartoon series you expect, while the character models are surprisingly detailed. However, the script is a flaw. After about half an hour you suddenly realise everything is being repeated a million times in each match. While it’s good for match continuity, it does get very annoying very quickly.

 

And that’s about it. If you are a fan of a deadly repetitive not-so-much fighting game, knock yourself out with this title. But otherwise, it is only a must have if you have every other game on the market today and need to buy something.