Dr. Kawashima sure knows how to get my brain going, and his latest installment of Brain Age 2: More training in minutes a day! is no exception. Much like the first Brain Age, this game is designed to keep your brain young and sharp with a whole new slew of options and mini games to play each and every day so you never go dull.

Compared to the first Brain Age, this installment has 17 new exercises, 100 more sudoku puzzles and after a while, you can even unlock a Dr. Mario clone called Virus Buster. The game gives each DS cartridge up to four save files for family fun and can wirelessly allow up to 16 players in one of four game modes. As you progress through the game you unlock more fun activities, so the game never gets old, and it’s good for you too!

The controls are simple and effective, ranging from voice activated commands to writing an answer using your stylus. You begin by answering some questions about yourself and completing a number of tasks to generate your very own brain age. The younger your brain’s age is, the sharper and quicker it’s supposed to be at processing information and solving problems. As you practice and exercise your mind every day using this title, you will be able to track your advancement and eventually retest yourself to hopefully achieve a lower, more realistic score.

Since the last installment, many of the technical issues were acknowledged and fixed, some of the more tedious cranial workouts have been replaced with more enjoyable updates and the horrible voice recognition from the last installment has been replaced with a much easier to use rock-paper-scissors game.

The menu and presentation to the game itself, down to the actual professor’s face have pretty much stayed the same since last game. The animations and graphics consist mostly of words, numbers and stick figures, along with some new twists in terms of the stereo speakers and other DS features such as an exercise where multiple words are being spoken vocally at the same time and you must write each word out separately.

This game, which in the end is more of an application than anything, is meant to be played in little chunks, for a few minutes a day, ideally in the morning. It also offers little examples of how to keep your mind sharp throughout the day. As such, this game should never really ‘end’ as it is more of a daily exercise then a game with a plot or storyline.

In the end, Brain Age 2 feels more like an expansion of the first title with added features and new activities, most noticeably being the online competitive aspect. If you find the original title getting a little stale, this is the perfect game to pick up for the expanding and honing of one’s mind. Also available in French!

Graphics: 3.0 / 5.0
Gameplay 4.0 / 5.0
Sound 4.0 / 5.0
Replay value 4.5 / 5.0






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