Brain Age is something everyone ended up playing, or at least knowing about, in the age of the DS. it was EVERYWHERE. if you didn't know what Brain Age was, you probably were either lying or didn't exist. it was peak casual DS game, and they even made a sequel to it on the same console. but come the launch of the DS' successor, the 3DS, and there's no Brain Age to be found. i guess Nintendo wanted to focus on a more core audience for the launch of this system. (i mean, that's what i thought, and then i remembered Nintendogs + Cats was a launch title, so oops i guess) and yet, only a year later in 2012, we got a surprise in the form of Brain Age: Concentration Training.

yeah yeah, i know, i used the European boxart and title for the review, even though i played the North American version. listen, which looks more interesting?

exactly. i swear, the american marketing team for every videogame knows the scientific formula to make the worst boxart of all time. actually, what's interesting is that despite the game releasing in North America in 2012, it took all the way until July of 2017 for both Europe and Australia to get it. let me repeat that, JULY OF 2017. that was well after the release of the Nintendo Switch!! i would say this is like a Pikmin 2 New Play Control situation, but at least that was only three years! did they really have to ponder on the viability of releasing Brain Age on 3DS in Europe and Australia for five whole years? anyways, you might be asking, "hey Mot, why is that handsome devil Dr. Ryuta Kawashima looking awfully devilish in that European boxart? did he make some Faustian deal to gain infinite wisdom about the brain and how it functions? good question! unfortunately, that isn't the case, though i wouldn't doubt it for this guy. no, this is to show that this game is gonna challenge your brain a lot more than the original Brain Age did. so much so, in fact, some might even say that the training in this game is... Devilish.

now, i should mention, i've never actually played the DS Brain Age games. i want to, but i just haven't gotten around to it yet. so this is my first ever Brain Age experience first hand. and how did it go? well, like i said in that last paragraph, BACT is way harder than the originals. in those, you'd solve math problems, do some brain teasers, things like that. in BACT, the very first thing you do in the game is a little something called Devilish Calculations.

Devilish Calculations goes like this. you're given a math problem, and you must remember the solution to that problem. then, you're given a second math problem, and you have to write the answer you memorized for the first one. it's all about memorization, and that's just for 1-Back. after that you get into 2-Back, which is the same except you have to write the answer for the problem two questions back. this was quite the wakeup call for me, i'm pretty good at math, but i usually have a piece of paper to write my thought process down on. as soon as i get into mental math, it's way more of a struggle for me. keeping numbers in my head is just really hard personally, and the way Devilish Calculations asked me to do that was just... REALLY hard. the furthest i could ever get was Fast 2-Back, because as soon as i got into 3-Back i'd just fumble over and over again. for 2-Back, however, i was able to keep myself in a rhythm pretty well. it's just that as soon as i got out of that rhythm, everything fell apart and i'd have to skip a few questions to get back in the groove. with all that said, Devilish Calculations is a great introduction to the way that BACT makes you think, and while it's tough as nails, it really pushes you to your limits.

before we get into the next training exercise, i wanna talk about the man himself, Ryuta Kawashima. i don't know about the original Brain Ages, but at least in this one the dude's really charming. i think this is the first time he's ever been voice acted in-game, and while they had to get a different guy to voice him for the English version, i think Gary Christianson's performance really sells his attitude and personality. the guy really does care about knowledge, and the softspoken tone of Christianson perfectly showcases that. i found myself listening really intently to whatever he had to say, or saying "sorry, Dr. K..." whenever i went down a level. i know that's like, kinda dumb, but whatever.

the next Devilish Exercise is Devilish Pairs, and... this is admittedly kind of a downgrade from Devilish Calculations. it's just memory. flip over a card, memorize the number, and match all the pairs without making a mistake. the higher the level, the more cards are introduced. i found this one a little boring honestly, it wasn't nearly as engaging as DCs for me. after that, however, is Devilish Mice, and this is another good one. you're given a 4x3 grid of squares, and several mice are placed randomly inside. the rest are cats. the squares are then hidden, and the contents are shuffled around. you have to keep track of where the mouse is moved to, then uncover it. it's pretty simple, but i liked this one a lot. as the levels get higher, the amount of mice increases, and i thought this would make it easier. i mean, the less cats there are, the higher chance you'll have to pick a mouse, right? but then i realized that you have to actually keep track of the mice, because if you miss just one, you lose the whole problem. no partial credit here. this one's tough, but i like it.

for our next intermission, i wanna talk about Dr. K's Brain Seminars. these are a really cute addition, and it's just a little cutscene where Dr. K explains some of how his training works, what it trains, and what it helps you work on. i really like all of the cute extra animations they put into this, he's always doing something fun. according to what i've seen of the DS Brain Ages, BACT has a little more personality put into it, and i really like that. there's also Brain News, and for this one Dr. K gets a little suit- er, collar and tie. i like these two additions, and while i do have the option to skip them, i never do. they're too cute and charming.

Devilish Reading is our next exercise, and this one's weird. you have to read a paragraph outloud, memorize certain underlined words, and then you're asked to write them out at the end. yeah, notice how i said "read outloud." the 3DS actually picks up your voice for this one, and i'm not really sure how it works. what i do know is that i don't like Devilish Reading very much. not because it's boring or uninteresting, i just don't really like the aspect of having to read the sentences outloud. you also have to write the words out instead of picking from a multiple choice set or typing them with a keyboard, which leads to some situations where the game picks up a letter i didn't mean to write, and counts it as incorrect even though i knew the answer. that's another thing with Brain Age, the writing system. it makes you write out pretty much all your answers to anything, which is pretty cool and works fine for the most part, but sometimes it's a little touchy. (we'll talk more about this later, trust me.)

next up is Devilish Shapes, and it's fairly similar to Devilish Calculations. it's the same concept, except instead of memorizing answers to math problems, you're instead memorizing shapes. i'm a little better at this one than most others, just because i'm a super visual person and can keep images in my headspace a lot better than numbers or words. i've gotten pretty alright at this one, though similar to DCs once you get to those higher levels you'll need to get into a rhythm, otherwise you're just gonna fumble hard.

Devilish Blocks is interesting. you're shown a set of blocks, and one is singled out. you need to memorize it, and select it when prompted. as the levels get higher, you have to do more sets at a time, and i didn't really like it at first. they'd put blocks really close to each other to trip you up, and i couldn't figure out how to get around that. then, at a certain point, i tried to think of a way to get myself to single out the exact block i needed to in my mind, and came up with this. if there were a group of blocks that were really close together, i'd call them a "clump" in my head. if none of the blocks in the clump were singled out, i'd memorize the set by just saying where the block was. (left, right, center, bottom, top, etc) but if a block in the clump was singled out, i'd memorize it by saying "clump," then the direction it was at in the clump. (clump left, clump right, clump top, etc) i know this is a really longwinded explanation, but it's to demonstrate that these exercises challenge you to think in new and different ways, and i really like that about BACT.

the next thing i wanna talk about is Relaxation Mode. now, as of right now i haven't unlocked everything in BACT. i know, reviewing a game before doing everything there is to do is kind of taboo, but i just... REALLY wanna talk about this game. it's been on my mind for a couple weeks and i just don't have the patience to do everything yet. (maybe i'll come back and revise this review once i do get everything...) but that's besides the point. all of this is to say, i only have the first mode in Relaxation Mode unlocked, and that's Blob Blast. but here's the thing, when i started Blob Blast up, i instantly had one thought.

"hey, this is just Wario's Woods but with a touchscreen!!

that's right, i'm a Wario's Woods nut. i got hooked on the game through Animal Crossing's NES games, and it's probably one of my favorite puzzle games, besides Wetrix or Puyo. it's a ton of fun, and Scott The Woz just doesn't know what he's talking about. and like i said, Blob Blast is pretty much just Wario's Woods, except you're using a touchscreen instead of manually moving pieces around with Toad. the music is even a remix of the Wario's Woods theme, which made me SO happy when i realized that. it's always really cool to see one of my favorite NES games acknowledged, and it's in such a weird spot too! WW finally gets some recognition, in Brain Age Concentration Training of all places!

the last Devilish Training mode i have unlocked as of right now is Devilish Cups, and it's... alright. it's your classic shell game, except instead of just needing to memorize the location of one cup, instead you need to keep track of all the cups and select them in a particular order. each cup has a numbered ball under it, and after they get shuffled around you need to pick them in numerical order. simple as that. i dunno, i've never been great at keeping track of multiple things like this, which is probably why i had such a hard time with both this game and Devilish Mice. now, i still don't know what the last mode in Devilish Training is, so maybe once i unlock it i'll make a revision to this review.

alright, we're almost done. to wrap things up, i wanna go over Supplemental Training and Brain Training. ST is, as far as i can tell, most of the game modes from the first Brain Age. there's Calculations x20, Word Attack, By The Numbers, etc. of the ones i've unlocked so far, Word Attack is my favorite and definitely the one i'm the best at. you're shown a word on screen for a brief moment, then you're asked to write it out. i think i'm pretty good at spelling, so i have a fun time with this one. the main challenge is getting the recognition system to pick up the actual letter you want to write. sometimes i'll write lowercase "e" and it'll pick it up as an o, so i have to erase it and write a full uppercase E instead. but once you get into the rhythm of writing out the letters, it's fun to blast through the word as fast as you can. Brain Training, on the other hand, is more of your classic brain games, stuff like Solitaire. so far i only have the first three modes unlocked, and i've got something to say about all three. first up is Block Head, a really fun and creative puzzle game where your main goal is to outsmart an AI. it's really engaging, the way it makes you predict what the AI is gonna do, since its programming is set in hard rules instead of determining things randomly. i would absolutely play a standalone game that's just Block Head puzzles. second is Solitaire, and i think i've already said enough words about that game for one lifetime. the last mode i have unlocked for now is Piano Player, and this one's weird. it's like... almost a rhythm game? there's some scrolling sheet music on the top screen, and you have to play the notes as you're prompted with the keys on the bottom screen. it's kind of hard since the keys are so thin and you have to look down to see the letter you're tapping, but i've never been all that great musically so maybe that's just a me problem.

so that's Brain Age: Concentration Training. i'll admit, going into this game i didn't expect to get that much out of it. i just remembered seeing the devilish form of Dr. K as a kid and i wanted to know the context behind it. and now, only two weeks later, i've made doing my brain training part of my daily routine. the game's surprisingly fun, devilishly challenging, and packed with both content and personality. it holds up astonishingly well for being one of those "casual" DS games, and i absolutely recommend you at least check it out for a little bit.