Brain Age 2 Review
By: Khushrenada
2 is better than 1. Review Score: 8.5
For over a year now, North Americans have had the chance to train their brains with Brain Age. Because of the success of Brain Age, Nintendo now brings us Brain Age 2 Although it is just being released in North America, Brain Age 2 has been out in Japan since before North America received the first Brain Age game and has sold over 4 million copies in Japan alone, surpassing the sales of the first Brain Age. Following the sales charts in Japan always made me wonder, is Brain Age 2 that much better than the original? (From here on, the first Brain Age will be referred to as Brain Age 1.) With Brain Age 2 now here, I was finally able to find out.
The first thing I noticed was that most of the problems with the first game are remedied in the sequel. Let’s face it, Brain Age 1 has a problem with understanding the word Blue. For Brain Age 2, the stroop test has become a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors in which you are shown a fist making one of those signs and you must answer what will win or what lose to that sign depending on the instructions given. It doesn’t sound too complicated but I have definitely had moments where my mind suddenly went blank and or I would just forget how to win or lose. Fortunately, there are no real issues this time concerning voice recognition. Although there were a couple occasions where the game misunderstood me, it was more a result of not saying the words loud enough and mumbling them.
Another change that I prefer is Number Memory. In Brain Age 1, there is an activity called Word Memory that required you to memorize as many words as you can in two minutes and then write however many words you could remember in the next two minutes. The handwriting recognition drove me nuts. I could hardly ever get a K to work. Other letters like B and M also seemed to have trouble getting recognized. Worse, if it recognized one letter wrong, you had to erase everything and try writing out the word again. Thus, by the time you finally got the game to recognize the word, you had little time left for other words or you forgot a lot of the other words you memorized. For Brain Age 2, Number Memory has taken the place of Word Memory. Number Memory puts the numbers 1 – 25 in different places on a 5 by 5 grid. Then after two minutes memorizing the numbers and their locations, you are given a blank grid and have two minutes to write the numbers in their correct positions on the grid. Because the game has always seemed to recognize numbers much better than letters, the memory game is much more improved. It may not seem like much to you but it always frustrated me that I couldn’t get the results I should have because of the handwriting software.
That doesn’t mean that there are no games that require you to write letters. There are two that require you to spell words, Word Scramble and Word Sprint. (Calendar Count will also require you to write out a day of the week but you generally just have to write the first or second letter of the day.) In both of these games, however, if the game inputs a different letter than what you are trying to write, you can now simply erase that one letter or backspace it if you will. This makes things easier so that you don’t have to rewrite a word and helps keep your time low. Besides that improvement, the writing software does seem to recognize letters better than Brain Age 1. It often helps to write in lowercase letters rather than uppercase as well.
Other improvements over Brain Age 1 are the removal of games where you had to read a literary text fast or count from 1 – 120 fast. Those games really had no way of knowing if the person was honest and just came off as pointless since there was no way to verify the results nor did it feel like you were actually being tested. A couple activities have been tweaked a bit. In Brain Age 1, there is an activity called Head Count, which had the player track how many people entered a house. In Brain Age 2, it is called Memory Sprint and requires the player to keep track of where a runner finishes in a race while he passes people and is passed himself. Instead of writing down the answer to 20 calculations, Brain Age 2 has Sign Finder which requires the player to provide the missing sign in the calculations.
The best difference between Brain Age 2 and Brain Age 1 would be the variety of activities. Brain Age 2 has 10 daily activities compared to the 9 daily activities in Brain Age 1. It may not seem like there is more being offered but remember, Brain Age 1 had Calculations x 20, Calculations x 100, and Voice Calculations which were all pretty much the same activity or one third of the activities offered. Not to mention, Brain Age 2 comes with 4 multiplayer activities and a Dr. Mario puzzle game called Virus Buster with Dr. Kawashima in place of Dr. Mario. (If Dr. Kawashima appears in Smash Brothers Brawl, I wonder if he will have a clone. Dr. Dr. Kawashima.) All of this makes Brain Age 2, a better game than the original.
The Sudoku puzzles are also back and the same interface from Brain Age 1 is used here for which I am thankful. I absolutely love it and the only change I wish was that there was some background music for the puzzles instead of silence. One of the reasons why I recommend the Brain Age games to friends is because of these Sudoko puzzles. They are that expertly done.
The only areas where Brain Age 2 doesn’t surpass the original would be in graphics and sound. The interface and style is pretty much the same as the original and the music and sound effects seem unchanged also. Of course, there are a few new sounds added for the new activities, most notably Piano Player, but for the most part, you’ve heard it all before. And on the subject of Piano Player, I can’t help but feel that the activity would have been better with the DS held in the normal position. After all, when playing the piano, you normally have your notes above with your keys below you, not side to side. There is also a danger of repetition in some games. I noticed a few time a word getting used again in Word Blend and Word Scramble. Of course, this happened in Brain Age 1 with phrases in the Syllable Count game getting used over and over. It doesn’t ruin the game but, if you have a good memory, it will reduce the challenge of those activities. Finally, although multiplayer is offered, there are only 4 activities that you can play. You’re still better off getting 3 other people to use the same cartridge with you for more fun. Still, these flaws are minor and are not going to affect most players.
To sum up, even with the same interface and style, Brain Age 2 is still a superior game to Brain Age 1. It has a greater variety of activities, better writing and voice recognition, it removes the flaws of Brain Age 1 and comes with new Sudoku puzzles, 4 multiplayer activities and a Dr. Mario game. Of course, the value of this software is still going to depend on whether you can enjoy activities like these. Those who can’t see the fun in unscrambling words or memorizing numbers probably won’t find themselves suddenly having a better time with this game. But if you’re like me and view the Brain Age games as arcade games where the objective is to just get the highest score and shave down on your time, Brain Age 2 is a blast. If you don’t have a Brain Age game but want to try one, Brain Age 2 is your choice. If you have the original, you should get Brain Age 2 also due to the improvements made.
Summary:
Pros:
+ Fixes the problems of the original
+ Has a greater variety of activities
+ Over another 100 sudoku puzzles
+ Virus Buster (Dr. Mario) bonus game
+ Makes excellent use of the capabilities of the DS
+ More than worth the retail price
Cons:
- No major differences from the original
- Sound, style and interface seem the same as the original
- Could have used a greater variety for Multiplayer
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Graphics: 6.0
While everything runs smoothly, the graphics are very simple and textbook or road sign styles aren’t the most exciting looks. You can only do so much with letters and numbers.
Sound: 6.0
The music is very simple and forgettable. Only Piano Player really needs or has music. Sound Effects are mainly all you hear during the activities. Most of the sound is repeated from Brain Age 1.
Control: 9.5
Voice recognition, touch screen, and handwriting all work well and are much improved over the original. The game is still fast to respond to right answers and slow to respond for wrong answers giving you the extra second needed to correct yourself.
Gameplay: 8.5
Much broader range of activities and improvements over the original Brain Age gives the game more depth. Being designed for quick play every day means the activities can be over pretty fast. Extras like multiplayer and Virus Buster ad more fun to the experience.
Lastability: 9.0
There is much to do. Whether it be trying to achieve your optimum Brain Age, set a new record for an activity, solve Sudoku puzzles, pass time with a Dr. Mario puzzler, play multiplayer with some friends or just keep logging in every day to keep the mind sharp and chart your progress, Brain Age can definitely last awhile. It just depends what you want to get out of it.
Final Score (Not an Average): 8.5
Like Brain Age 1, Brain Age 2 makes great use of the many capabilities for the DS. It uses the microphone, both screens and the touchpad all very well. An excellent example of the type of gaming experience the DS can create. It is more refined than the original but isn’t that fundamentally different from the original. If someone doesn’t like Brain Age, this game won’t change their mind. For everyone else, it is worth checking out.
Topic: My Application Review: Brain Age 2. (Read 4898 times)
