I’m surprised this isn’t a mobile app
Ignorance is bliss. I’m perfectly happy not knowing how old my brain is, thank you very much. But maybe you’re curious, or you’re just in the mood for a pleasant little mental warmup.Dr. Kawashima’s Brain Trainingis back this week – in certain markets, at least – with a new game for Nintendo Switch.
Following a Japanese release,Dr. Kawashima’s Brain Training for Nintendo Switchis also available today inEuropeandAustralia. The physical edition includes a chunky stylus; otherwise, if you’re cool with the eShop version(the file size is 318MB), you’re able to just use your finger for touch-screen-based exercises.
What’s new for this game?Brain Training for Nintendo Switchuses the Joy-Con’s IR motion camera to track your fingers. One example: Rock, Paper, Scissors. Other challenges include Finger Calculations, Speed Counting, Word Memory, Word Scramble, Low to High, and Sudoku (with 100 puzzles).
There are also two-player activities. Birdwatching is a race to guess the correct amount of birds first, Box Counting flashes a group of boxes on-screen and challenges you to spit out a quick guess, and Flag Raising is a memory game in which you physically act out a sequence of maneuvers with your Joy-Con.
My absolute favoritePokémon Stadiummini-game was always Streaming Stampede – that’s the counting one – so these head-to-head exercises sound like my kinda jam.
In Europe,Dr. Kawashima’s Brain Training for Nintendo Switchcosts£29.99 physically and £24.29 digitally, with support for English, German, French, Spanish, Dutch, Italian, and Japanese. Nintendo is also selling theofficial Switch stylusseparately for £6.99, but again, it’s not required to play.
As for a potential North American launch, Nintendo of America hasn’t had anything to say aboutBrain Training, orBrain Age, or even big brains. Our last experience with this series wasBrain Ageon Wii U.
