Scoring 65% or less correctly will send you back to the previous level, and scoring in between those percentages will have you repeat the level.īy the way, if Devilish Calculations sounded excruciating to you, well, congratulations on your perceptiveness, because it is. 20-some of these calculations will be thrown at you, and if you score 85% or higher, the difficulty increases both in speed and in how far back you have to remember. And the answer to the next calculation will be 3 (5 -2)… and on you go. So the answer to 9 – 9 is 8 (since 2 calculations ago you were given 1 + 7). Your task is to use the stylus to write down the answer to the problem that you were given – 2 calculations ago. First up will be 1 + 7, second will be 5 – 2, third will be 9 – 9.
#REVIEW OF THEBRAIN 9 SERIES#
First up is Devilish Calculations, and the concept is simple: the game will give you a series of simple math problems. The Devilish Training games really are devilish. The impression I got was that this limitation was due to Kawashima’s research showing positive effects being negated by over-playing these games, but even if that’s the case, it also had the side effect of making my Brain Age sessions one of the highlights of my day – especially once you start getting the desire to push your performance to the max.
So once five minutes pass in a particular game, that’s it – you’re finished for the day, your results are placed on a chart, and you either move on to the next game – or, if you’ve finished all the games you want to play for the day… well, go do something else. This is where the ‘daring’ aspect of Brain Age comes in: not only do you have to unlock the various mini-games in Brain Age through either good performance or successive days of play, but most of these games only allow you to play them for a maximum of five minutes per day. Once you get the scientific rundown, you’re introduced to the core of Brain Age’s battery of self-help minigames: the Devilish Training series. Kawashima’s delivery both in the introduction and throughout the game is surprisingly pleasant – he just has a nice, relaxing voice and he communicates his ideas clearly and with grace. The game starts you off with the Dr Kawashima’s disembodied head floating about, giving you a basic rundown of his background and neurological theories, making him come off as a kind of polite Japanese Max Headroom. The short version is, I won’t be passing judgment on the implied mental benefits of Brain Age, and to Nintendo’s credit, they do a decent job of presenting Kawashima’s work more as ‘thought-provoking possibility’ and less as the bluff of ‘what science shows is true.’ Both sides tend to point out methodology flaws and loopholes with each other’s work, and really, trying to figure out who has the better case is probably a mental exercise in and of itself.
The fact is, neuroscience – certainly neuroscience of this sort – is still in the exploratory stages, and scientists whose research suggest the possibility of benefits when playing games like Brain Age are balanced out by scientists whose research suggests otherwise. But if you listen closely, you’re going to notice that all of those links are non-committal: Brain Age may lead to a sharper memory, it is possible that diligently playing the game will yield results that benefit your daily life… in other words, they’re not selling promises here, but they’re informing you about possibilities, and with good reason. If you play Brain Age, you’re going to hear a lot of claims about the possible links between the mini-games you’ll play in the title and potential increases in mental capabilities – concentration, focus, working memory and so on. Despite Nintendo’s insistence that Brain Age is simply a game, they’ve clearly decided to treat the title more as a legitimate tool for sharpening your cognitive abilities, and the result is a truly unique (if still relatively simple) 3DS title.īefore I go on, I want to tackle the controversial “science” end of this product. Ryuta Kawashima, the brains (ha ha) behind this particular title.
#REVIEW OF THEBRAIN 9 SKIN#
Well, color me impressed – Nintendo managed to take a straightforward concept and get daring with it, and I mean beyond slapping some red skin and devil horns on Dr. You know, the basic gist is pretty easy to read – here are some puzzles, here’s an explanation that amounts to ‘doing puzzles helps train your mind to solve complex tasks – like doing puzzles!’, along with a few extra features such as online score comparisons, performance tracking… fun, solid but ultimately not exactly daring stuff. When I got tapped to review Brain Age: Concentration Training (hereafter Brain Age), I really thought it was going to be a very straightforward affair.
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