Average User Rating: 80% (118 Reviews)
1 / 5	Great idea, poorly executed = massive disappointment Stealth Reviewer (Birmingham, UK) - 30 June 2007 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. ... Read Full Review »
3 / 5	Dr Kawashima's Brain Training fun but could be better! 68Dastardly (Manchester, UK) - 13 August 2006 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. ... Read Full Review »
4 / 5	Really good N. Briscoe (UK) - 30 January 2007 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.... Read Full Review »
3 / 5	Gets a little tedious Ahmed E Cohen (Cheddarshire) - 6 September 2006 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.... Read Full Review »
4 / 5	Addictive, accessible and great value i wrote this "i did" (Bucks) - 15 November 2007 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.... Read Full Review »