Brain Age Express: Math

Genre: Puzzle / Misc.

Players: 1

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Review:

When Nintendo’s Brain Age series of pseudo-educational Puzzle games made the trip to the Nintendo DSi via the DSiWare service, it was split up into three games – Brain Age Express: Math, released in early 2009, Brain Age Express: Arts & Letters, released a few months later that same year, and Brain Age Express: Sudoku, released alongside Arts & Letters. Sadly, after these games were grandfathered into the Nintendo 3DS eShop when the Nintendo 3DS released, Brain Age Express: Sudoku was later quietly pulled from the service. But… hey, at least we still have math problems to solve!

The Brain Age games make a big point to highlight how healthy and important it is for players to “exercise their brains”, using science that is nowadays seen to be dubious at best. But nevertheless many found the series to be enjoyable regardless, and I’m sure there are some players out there who at least got some self-esteem from the idea that this game series made them smarter so… that’s something, I guess?

In removing Sudoku from the package, Brain Age Express: Math excises much of the fun of that package, leaving more of the “edutainment”. However, in place of Sudoku, there is a consolation prize of sorts in the new “Themes” mode, where players can use the camera to take photos acting out specific acting prompts, use the microphone to act out lines in a script, or use the touchscreen to draw pictures they’ve been directed to make. These additions are fun, but clearly more of a toy or distraction than any significant game or educational “training”. Also, it bears mention that the content in Themes mode is the same in both Brain Age Express: Math and Brain Age Express: Arts & Letters, so players looking to get this game to get this content really only need to get one or the other.

As for the rest… well, it’s math problems. This game has all the entertainment value (and likely a comparable educational value) of flash cards. Unfortunately, there’s only a small handful of different types of “training”, and as the Brain Age series is often wont to do, these are parceled out over multiple play sessions, refusing to let players even try them out until they’ve invested a lengthy amount of time in the game.

In addition, the handwriting recognition here is far from perfect, and you’re likely to have an occasional answer fail because the game misread what you wrote. The game tries to fudge this somewhat, erring in favor of reading your writing as the correct answer and delaying its judgment when it looks like you’re writing the wrong answer so you have an opportunity to erase it. Still, this issue still pops up from time to time.

As for the presentation… this is a Brain Age game, which means that once again you’re mostly looking at bland black text on white backgrounds, with maybe an occasional line drawing or color highlight. The once exception, as always, is the polygonal floating head (and hand) of series mascot Dr. Kawashima (modeled after real-life neuroscience professor Ryuta Kawashima, whose theories formed the basis of this series’ premise). Backing all of this is the series’ light, plucky music that suits the game but isn’t likely to inspire anyone.

At a price tag of $8, the lack of content in Brain Age Express: Math is somewhat more tolerable, but the loss of the best part of Brain Age to shrink this game down to fit on the DSiWare shop left it feeling bland and anemic, and even the amusing Themes mode only manages to work as a distraction for so long before players will inevitably find their interest pulled elsewhere.

tl;dr – Brain Age Express: Math takes Brain Age, removes everything but the math problems, and adds back in a fun but disposable “Themes” mode (also present in Brain Age Express: Arts & Letters). You may find some brief amusement here, but mostly this is just the most boring parts of Brain Age, complete with all that series’ flaws. Skip it.

Grade: D+

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