Dr Kawashima's Brain Training: How Old Is Your Brain? (Nintendo DS) | 
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| From: Nintendo
Category: Video Games
List Price: £19.99
Buy New: £9.01
You Save: £10.98 (55%)
New (40) Used (19) from £9.01
Rating:  104 reviews
Platform: Nintendo Ds
Genre: Action Games
Rating: To Be Announced
ESRB: Everyone
Media: Video Game
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Batteries Included: No
Age: 3 - 18 years
Shipping Weight (lbs): 3
Dimensions (in): 5.4 x 4.9 x 0.7
MPN: ntr p ande
Model: 45496737122
UPC: 045496737122
EAN: 0045496737122
ASIN: B000EGELP0
Release Date: June 9, 2006
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Give your gray matter the workout that it needs to stay sharp, focused and young. Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day is inspired by a book that was written by Professor Ryuta Kawashima, a prominent Japanese neurologist. His theories revolve around keeping brains young by performing mental activities quickly.When users first start a new game, they will be given a Brain Age Check that determines the age of their brains. Each day, they can compete for the high score in any activities that they have unlocked. They also can check the age of their brains once per day. The more training they do, the more activities they will unlock. Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day is designed to be played in small chunks over a long period of time and can hold data from a year of activity. Features: Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day is a series of mini-games designed to give brains a workout. Activities include performing simple math problems, counting people going in and out of a house, drawing pictures on the touch screen and reading classic literature out loud.When users start a new game, they will take a series of tests and get a score that shows how old their brains are. This number is called the "Brain Age." As they use the software over a series weeks and months, their mental acuity will improve and the Brain Age will drop, indicating a younger, healthier brain. Progress is charted in graph form. Users can keep up to four save files on one game card. Sharing a game allows them to compare their results with those of family and friends. Users also can send a demo version of Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day to friends or compete with up to 16 players in a battle to see who can solve math problems the fastest.
Amazon.co.uk Review
In a nutshell:
The portable phenomenon that has taken Japan by storm finally hits the UK. Part puzzle game, part self improvement tool this is the only game that's both lots of fun and good for you - and that's before you even start on Sudoku!The lowdown:
Nothing about this game is ordinary, from the price to the way you hold the DS while playing it (vertically, as if you were reading a book). The basic idea is that you play through a series of puzzles each day, for about 10 minutes, and at the end of each session the "age" of your brain is calculated. The puzzles themselves range from simple maths questions to spot the difference, memorisation and comprehension. All of the answers are inputted either by drawing the answer on the touchscreen or speaking it into the DS's in-built microphone. There's also a multiplayer mode for up to 15 people where you can try and compete to record the youngest brain age. Most exciting moment:
A brand new addition to the game, not included in the Japanese version, is a special DS version of Sudoku. This works great on the DS's touch screen and is worth the already low price of admission on its own. Since you ask:
A sister title to Brain Training, named Big Brain Academy, is due for release in July and offers to "weigh" your brain and improve specific skills such as memorisation and analysis. A direct sequel to Brain Training has also been released in Japan but is not yet scheduled for released in the UK. The bottom line:
The only game that really is for the whole family - from kids to OAPs.
Harrison Dent
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| Customer Reviews:
 Great idea, poorly executed = massive disappointment June 30, 2007
Stealth Reviewer (Birmingham, UK)
47 out of 57 found this review helpful
This was exactly the sort of game I wanted to try when I bought my DS Lite - in fact this game was probably one of the main reasons I did buy it, so when I got my DS Lite this was the first game I bought to go with it.
At first it seemed a great decision - I really enjoyed the exercises and it was great calculating my brain age and trying to get it to improve.
However once you get onto the games which require handwriting recognition, the whole concept falls flat. The game simply fails to recognise far too many things you write, even simple numbers it will often confuse what to me look like obvious and clearly-written numbers into something else.
At first this didn't seem much of a problem but it actually seemed to get worse as time went on. Eventually you end up with a load of "incorrect" answers which you actually got right, but the game took as being something else.
So the results are meaningless and you can't really track your progress because the results are skewed by the handwriting recognition getting it wrong all the time. It just gets so frustrating you want to throw it out of the window.
The game does come with a seperate manual explaining how to write characters in such a way that the game will understand you better, but this means learning a whole new way of writing which doesn't feel natural and slows you right down - and since all the exercises test you on how fast you complete them as well as how many right answers you get, this just makes the results wrong in a different way, because you're writing far more slowly than you normally would. The handwriting recongition still isn't perfect even if you follow their instructions.
Given that the vast majority of the games rely on handwriting recognition (or voice recognition, which is better but still not 100% reliable) the results are meaningless the games just too frustrating to be fun.
A brilliant idea, but the technology just isn't up to it and leaves for a disappointing game.
 Dr Kawashima's Brain Training fun but could be better! August 13, 2006
68Dastardly (Manchester, UK)
43 out of 47 found this review helpful
Dr Kawashima's Brain Training has been give good priase on a number of reviews so I bought a copy. It provided immediate family fun through the practice exercises, which built over the following days to healthy competition to improve our brain scores through the various mathimatical, voice and other exercises.
THE GOOD
Easy to play with stylus.
Good mix of exercises, which expands through winning stamps each day.
I find it better to play Sudoko on the DS rather than in the newspaper.
Track your progress of improvements and you may even learn something.
THE BAD / IMPROVEMENT OPPORTUNITY
Voice recognition is variable and bad when trying to recognise "blue".
Put a slight variation on certain 'written' strokes and they are taken as different letters / numbers than you intended, which sometimes results in a wrong answer.
Resulting in playing the game with bad voice recognition and bad handwriting recognition and you get frustrated when you are told you have a brain age of X, which is a decade or two higher than you knew it would be if the game recognised your answers, arghh.
SUMMARY
Worth buying / playing but be prepared to learn what the game will accept as voice / text inputs and bear with low brain scores until you master what inputs the game will accept.
Gets a little tedious September 6, 2006
Ahmed E Cohen (Cheddarshire)
35 out of 37 found this review helpful
This is fun for about 3 or 4 weeks. Then it gets to be tedious on account of:
1. Dr Kawashima repeating his little "jokes" and tips ad nauseum.
2. As stated by previous reviewers, there is difficulty in the device recognising the word "Blue" or sometimes "Four" which skews the results. Instead of "Four" I shouted another similar sounding four letter word which it took to be Four and marked it as correct! It gets to be extremely annoying.
3. Limited number of tests.
4. In the word memory game, despite you remembering words correctly, it very frustratingly, more often than not, refuses to recognise your handwritten answers and you run out of time - resulting in more skewed results.
5. The Hard Version of the Head Count is nigh impossible.
6. After a certain amount of time, you can choose which tests you want for the Brain Age test and this allows you to get a younger brain age. This looks deliberate to me and makes you think you are doing really well.
After using this for a few weeks, I am doubtful as to how beneficial it really is. Too many little annoyances to send your blood pressure up.
Unless any followup was radically different and worked better, I certainly wouldn't bother with it.
Really good January 30, 2007
N. Briscoe (UK)
32 out of 32 found this review helpful
I got this a few weeks back and can honestly say I never thought Id enjoy doing sums and stuff but I really do. Its fun to try and beat your own scores and make new records. The suduko bit is great aswell (I only learnt suduko when I got this, have never bothered before). The only annoying bit is that sometimes the microphone doesnt pick your voice up properly in the bit where you have to say the colours of the words- this lead to my brain age being about 53!!!
Apart from that though, its really good. And I have speeded up loads in answering the sums since I got it. You get to draw pictures aswell which is quite fun.
Addictive, accessible and great value November 15, 2007
i wrote this (Bucks)
30 out of 31 found this review helpful
A very addictive experience and one that anybody who can read and count will enjoy. It's less unique now then it was a year ago because of the glut of similar titles inspired by it's success. But the original Brain Training still stands tall as one of the best games on the market today.
Through short daily activities and personal performance statistics Brain Training soon has you hooked. As you improve you unlock new games which give more variety to play.
The game really comes alive with 2 or more players. There's no wifi multiplayer, but players have their own files in the game which automatically compares performance stats and pictures. Perfect for a competitive family!
My only criticism is that you can get bored with the games after a month or so. But having said that, most full price games I've bought have only hooked me for about a month and loose a bit of sparkle after that so at the budget price that Brain Training retails for you can't really loose.
This is one of the only games that has instantly grabbed everyone I've have ever shown it to, right across the age range. Every family with a DS in the house should get a copy and this game is one of the reasons to own a DS in the first place.
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