Prof. Miyamoto’s Soroban & Flash Anzan

Genre: Educational

Players: 1

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Review:

WARNING: THIS GAME HEAVILY PUSHES MICROTRANSACTIONS

Prof. Miyamoto’s Soroban & Flash Anzan (from here on for the sake of simplicity referred to as just Prof. Miyamoto) is a free-to-play Educational Game released on Nintendo Switch in 2023. In this game, players are shown a series of numbers that they are expected to add up. Yeah, that’s it. This game is basically just a videogame version of flash cards.

It’s actually even worse than that, as the game doesn’t actually tell the player that they’re expected to be adding these numbers, and what little language here is horribly mis-translated. For example, instead of an Enter button or an equals button, you have a “Fix” button. What?

As if this wasn’t bad enough, we have to get to the monetization. In order to play this game, players must purchase time-limited “tickets”, essentially renting out their use of the game (with a free 3-day ticket to start with, like a trial period). You know, a game you could play just as well with a friend and a calculator. All of this is joined by cartoonish artwork and a juvenile soundtrack (though the game is silent during actual “testing”).

Trying to make a videogame out of simple flash cards is bad enough, but doing so poorly with a horrible localization is making things even worse, and then forcing players to rent access to this game just makes one wonder why anyone would spend money on this garbage. Take my advice: don’t.

tl;dr – Prof. Miyamoto’s Soroban & Flash Anzan is a free-to-play Educational Game where players are shown a series of numbers and required to add them, like flash cards. The game doesn’t tell you it wants you to do this, and the game’s horrible localization makes things even more confusing… then, just to make the whole thing even more repulsive, the game monetizes things by forcing players to rent out time with it. Do yourself a favor – just go and play with a calculator instead – it will have exactly the same educational and entertainment value (if not more), and you won’t have to keep paying money to use it.

Grade: D-

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This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2023 Game Awards:

Winner:

Worst Monetization / Scam – The only thing saving this from being one of the sleaziest attempts at monetization of all time is that it’s so absurdly inept. This combines my hatred with targeting predatory monetization at children with an absolutely ridiculous “ticket” system that aims to charge you each time you want to play this purportedly educational game. Thankfully, anyone can see right through this game’s scheme, since it’s posing as free-to-play, and it becomes immediately clear upon playing the game that it’s so terrible even the price of “free” isn’t worth it. The thing is, just because it failed this time doesn’t mean it won’t be seen by someone more confident who will find a way to make it work next time…

Runner-Up: The “Who asked for this!?” Award

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