Was there ever a bigger surprise success in gaming history than Brain Age? The immensely popular edutainment title debuted with 43,000 sales in its opening month, and while it's a decent debut for this time of game, it certainly wasn't representative of how it would continue to sell. When all was said and done, Brain Age became the 4th best selling title on the Nintendo DS, selling just over 19 million (with an M) copies. It sold better than every Pokemon, Animal Crossing, and Zelda on the DS, which is a monumental feat. But it makes sense in retrospect; the DS was absurdly popular at the time, and in some parent's eyes, Brain Age was the perfect gift for their gifted™ kid to ensure they had the least amount of fun as possible while still technically playing a game. That's not really Brain Age's fault, of course, but it's hard to overlook that there isn't really a game here.
Pretty much all the brain training techniques contained in this game-sudoku, basic math, reading, etc.-are things that can be accomplished without use of this game, or a Nintendo DS in general. Its popularity at the time can't be understated, but the minigames offered here weren't anything special at the time, and the game is completely obsolete now. There's no real reason to come back to this game specifically, unless you have a specific attachment to Dr. Kawashima's low-poly floating head. Mechanically it works mostly fine, although voice and handwriting recognition issues are not uncommon. But there's nothing really wrong with this game, it just doesn't really serve a purpose. There's no doubt that Brain Age has a fair amount of charm, a trait that's common in retro software, but not enough to justify playing it today. It's a neat time capsule to an era that wasn't dominated by smartphones, but anything you'd get out of this game, especially in the modern day...well, you'd be better served finding it somewhere else. Gomen nasai, Kawashima-san.
Pretty much all the brain training techniques contained in this game-sudoku, basic math, reading, etc.-are things that can be accomplished without use of this game, or a Nintendo DS in general. Its popularity at the time can't be understated, but the minigames offered here weren't anything special at the time, and the game is completely obsolete now. There's no real reason to come back to this game specifically, unless you have a specific attachment to Dr. Kawashima's low-poly floating head. Mechanically it works mostly fine, although voice and handwriting recognition issues are not uncommon. But there's nothing really wrong with this game, it just doesn't really serve a purpose. There's no doubt that Brain Age has a fair amount of charm, a trait that's common in retro software, but not enough to justify playing it today. It's a neat time capsule to an era that wasn't dominated by smartphones, but anything you'd get out of this game, especially in the modern day...well, you'd be better served finding it somewhere else. Gomen nasai, Kawashima-san.
for the time this was like the coolest thing ever therefore it is still the coolest thing ever
tythazirlik
I got this game from my grandfather in grade school several years ago. This game made me insecure about my intelligence and I also didn't enjoy doing math so I just stopped playing it lol. Using the DS like a notebook was pretty cool, though.
Anyone else's parents make them play this?
Clever idea that was influential to the revival of handheld puzzle games (if you like Professor Layton, you can thank this game for letting Nintendo know to make more puzzle games). Brain Age is fine - it does what it’s set out to do successfully, but I wouldn’t be surprised if many of us have bad memories of it with our parents forcing us to play something educational.
Additionally, I was a big cry baby as a kid and the floating realistic head that got upset at you for not doing well freaked me THE FUCK out. I preferred Brain Academy a lot more as a kid because of this lol.
Clever idea that was influential to the revival of handheld puzzle games (if you like Professor Layton, you can thank this game for letting Nintendo know to make more puzzle games). Brain Age is fine - it does what it’s set out to do successfully, but I wouldn’t be surprised if many of us have bad memories of it with our parents forcing us to play something educational.
Additionally, I was a big cry baby as a kid and the floating realistic head that got upset at you for not doing well freaked me THE FUCK out. I preferred Brain Academy a lot more as a kid because of this lol.
The DS cartridge has a 2010 save file of a woman called Ellie whos brain "age" was 80 and I thought she died
Oh man... I remember that we had this game, and everyone but me made a big deal out of it... Should still play it again though sometime, when I get the chance to.
jailbroke my 3DS with this game lol
all of the speed-based challenges are just a test of how much you trust kawashima to correctly guess which number you scribbled out. hope he hasn't forgotten what an 8 looks like!
9/10 fr
I don't even know if I'd classify this as a game but for what it is and is supposed to do, I think it works. So, uh cool.
I'd buy another one of these for Switch in a heartbeat. I guess it was my first exposure to DAILIES and even if the scientific benefits were bogus, it was a fun excuse to do math.
You're either a smart fella or a fart smella.
Actually pretty fun and good brain exercises
EWWW MATH YUCKY
People say this game doesn't actually work on brain training but idk my arithmetic is still pretty fast.
solitare fucked me up ngl
This game basically became the template for a thousand trashy smartphone apps and a billion obnoxious video ads, but when it was just a Nintendo DS game it was a fun way to start the day for months on end.
Complete pseudoscience that at least has Sudoku.
I feel like I let Dr. Kawashima down because I became uninterested with this game after a few weeks. He was sad when I deleted my profile. Sorry buddy. It's not on you.
The game said I have a brain age of a 70 year old
Ew... math
Gonna give this to my parents so their brain doesn’t turn into mush.
Twas a good time as a young lad. They're fun for what they are.
I mean, it does what it promises to do, even if it's not much. I even learned to do sudokus and do fast, short calculations with this so I guess it had a good impact on me as a kid?
a time killer but it has sudoku on it
bro i am so fuckfding smart
random fun things:
- holding the ds sideways is weird but neat
- nice ui and sound design
- soundtrack goes hard
- polygonal japanese dude encouraging me
- i actually understand how to do the sudoku puzzles now
the best part was when it compared my drawings to my old save file and seeing that my 8 y/o self put in zero effort and drew smiley faces and butts instead of the prompts
- holding the ds sideways is weird but neat
- nice ui and sound design
- soundtrack goes hard
- polygonal japanese dude encouraging me
- i actually understand how to do the sudoku puzzles now
the best part was when it compared my drawings to my old save file and seeing that my 8 y/o self put in zero effort and drew smiley faces and butts instead of the prompts
Neat little educational experience.
This game felt so innovative back in the day. I remember being blown away by the Japanese dude's geometric face. Touch screens were still pretty new back then so it was awesome to see the game actually know what I was writing down.