There have been at least three Bakugan video games.
Tropes specific to the first game (Bakugan Battle Brawlers):
- Artificial Stupidity: Prevalent in the Wii version (and possibly the other console versions), to the point where some people intentionally "skip" the AI throws so that they can land on a card for a change. The DS version has much better AI in this respect.
- Repeat after me: Dan is a handicap. It is likely you'll lose the first tag-team tournament solely because the idiot with Pyrus attribute (which has a disadvantage on the battlefield in question) doesn't make use of what he has. At least he always balances out the battles you're in by assisting you every time.
- If you're in a one-on-one brawl with someone and have already won two Gate Cards, it's likely that you'll already have a Bakugan standing on one of the remaining Gate Cards on the field since the player always goes first. The AI doesn't change their thinking at all in a situation like this, which means that there's every chance that they may set a new Gate Card and land their Bakugan on it instead of the one yours is already standing on, effectively handing you a free win via Double Stand.
- Cap: You can only upgrade a Bakugan 9 times. Additionally, each of the 5 stats caps at 5. The maximum base G-Power of a Bakugan can only be obtained by ignoring all the other stats.
- Clear My Name: Leonidas (insert no 300 jokes) gets accused of a lot of things early on due to his late appearance (relative to every other Bakugan) and coincidentally appearing a few days before Drago gets curbstomped by Vladitor. One of these includes an accusation of underhanded tactics against both Leonidas and his owner, you.
- Dark Is Not Evil: You have the option of starting with a set of Darkus Bakugan at the start of the game, which sets Leonidas to be a Darkus Bakugan. It doesn't affect the story one bit.
- Light Is Not Good: You also can have a Haos (light) Leonidas that initially wants the destruction of all Bakugan. Incidentally, the in-game card artwork indicates that Haos Leonidas is canon, since you cannot have more than one Leonidas. Ever.
- Duel Boss: The final boss fight is exclusively between Leonidas and Vladitor. It still plays out like a normal brawl, but only one Gate Card can be on the field at a time, and the only available Bakugan are Leonidas for you and Vladitor for Marduk.
- Gang Up on the Human: In a 4-player free-for-all on the console version, the AI always helps whoever has the lowest G-Power level. Even if that means helping someone who has 2 Gate Cards. On the DS version, the AI behaves more sensibly, always aiding the person with the least amount of Gate Cards.
- Hello, [Insert Name Here]: You're just referred to as "Kid" or "That Guy" or other vague nouns.
- Hero with Bad Publicity: You get a lot of crap early on for taking in Leonidas, a latecomer that nobody really trusts due to his appearance lining up with Drago's battle with another recently arriving Bakugan. Only Dan sticks up for you throughout most of this.
- Interface Screw: The Confusion and Mirror Hyper Ability Cards on the console versions. Mirror reverses the controls for steering the Bakugan. Confusion distorts the screen itself. Both also screw up the AI's steering.
- Luck-Based Mission: "Fickle Finger of Fate" randomly changes the rate that the Bakugan generates G-Power in a battle.
- Our Dragons Are Different: Leonidas
◊, need we say more? - Sealed Evil in a Can: Vladitor, who is only able to escape his imprisonment when the events that caused the Bakugan to appear on Earth in the first place transpire. Leonidas eventually surfaces from the Doom Dimension, but only shortly before Vladitor and Marduk appear and start knocking out all of the Bakugan players.
- Virtual Paper Doll: You can choose from 5-6 styles for any part of the body, and from 6 colors for each one. That is the extent of it in this game.
Tropes specific to the second game Battle Trainer:
- Cap: Bakugan can only be trained up to level 12.
- Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: There are six elements; Pyrus (Fire), Aquos (Water), Ventus (Wind), Haos (Light), Darkus (Darkness, obviously) and Subterra (Earth). Each one has a weakness and a strength.
- Evil Laugh: Viper and Aurock.
- Louis Cypher: Dr. Trecov is actually Vector in disguise.
Tropes specific to the third game (Defenders of the Core):
- Adapted Out: If the player actually came from the same universe as the first game, then Leonidas' absence can be considered this given that in this game, you have Dan's Maxus Drago as your starting Bakugan partner instead.
- Artificial Stupidity: All AI opponents seem more interested in attacking the environment around you than you or your tower.
- Bad Future: The player is thrown into one were the Vexos won and are moving onto Earth.
- Big Bad: Spectra. Zenoheld is present, but Spectra decides to seize the power of the core for himself.
- Right Man in the Wrong Place: The player was simply a rookie Brawler who just happened to be thrown into a Bad Future where the Brawlers are defeated and powerless and they're the only one who can brawl. Thus, the task of saving the world falls on them.
- Rule of Cool: Gate Cards? Ability Cards? Who cares! We have giant monster fights!
- Schizophrenic Difficulty: The mission before the final boss is one of the most infuriating things ever put in a video game. You expect a really hard final battle. Well guess what? The boss can spend the entire fight hitting a rock as you kill it.
- Spanner in the Works: The Vexos' plan would've been pretty effective, if the player from another world hadn't ended up being completely immune to it.
- The Starscream: Spectra ultimately chooses to steal the power of the core for himself instead of for the Vexos.
