Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training for Nintendo Switch

What it all boils down to is a charming and very Nintendo way to activate your prefrontal cortex (or so the educated floating head keeps telling me). Brain Training is just... brain training. If you decide to give it a shot, you might find yourself motivated to better yourself and drawn in by the friendly and approachable presentation. If you’re of an inclination to want to keep your mind active, I can happily say that this is a lot more interesting than any mobile app I’ve ever tried. If you want a traditional video game though, if you want to play a few hours a day, if you want graphics or story or unique gameplay mechanics, none of that’s here. But that’s fine because that’s not what this is.

Quick, fun, entertaining and now multiplayer, Dr Kawashima's Brain Training is a good entry in the franchise. The cons are some really new elements and not being full compatible with Nintendo Switch Lite.

Brain Training for Nintendo Switch is undoubtedly the most substantial embodiment of Brain Training among those developed in that of Kyoto so far.

Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training for Nintendo Switch certainly isn’t as good as its predecessors. With its letter and number recognition problems and the Switch’s controllers not detecting arm movements accurately, there are some minigames that players will definitely be put off by. But its unique new additions that utilise the Switch’s IR camera are a real joy to play – and more than anything, even if it’s not perfect, it’s just lovely to have Dr. Kawashima on the Switch at last.

This brain trainer will keep you occupied for a couple of weeks thanks to the many, many missions. Unfortunately there isn't anything new to experience even though it's fun to learn with the game. Switch Lite owners may want to hold off on buying this one since they can't play that much due to the limitations of the Switch Lite.

Dr. Kawashima’s Brain Training for Nintendo Switch – besides being quite the mouthful – is a welcome return for the series and a great fit for the console. Sure it’s a rather predictable experience but it’s one that in spite of its few hiccups manages to challenge and entertain in equal measures.

Dr. Kawashima’s Brain Training is an update of the old formula but lacks variety in its content.

Brain Training doesn’t impress as strongly as before, however, its several hundred puzzles are still interesting. It’s both a game and an exercise machine, the best one it its niche. [Issue#243, p.49]

This game is exactly what you'd expect: an hommage to the Nintendo DS classic with a few new features. Most of it is still great, but the infrared is technically lacking.

Unique touches like the IR games and two-player competitions give this Brain Training a fresh edge, despite how similar it is to the 2006 original. But in 2020 there's nothing here — aside from those two aspects — that couldn't be done on smartphones, and that's probably where Nintendo should have put it.

Dr. Kawashima fits for short gaming sessions based on memory games and it's always fun to track your progress. But, the whole game isn't as new as we would have hoped and it lacks precision.

Solid brain-training with varying entertainment factor and small problems in terms of input recognition as well as online connectivity.

Dr Kawashima's Brain Training for Switch doesn't feel suited to Nintendo's latest portable, with the awkward use of the stylus and flimsy handwriting recognition sapping the joy from sharpening your smarts. There's still plenty of fun to be hand with the brain-teasing puzzles, but limited content ensures this is a far cry from the Nintendo DS original.

Everything about this game is very familiar. It is not something very exciting. We do appreciate the new training and the original way of adding the infrared of the Joy-Cons to the mix.

It's difficult to determine who Brain Training's audience is. The casual audience who would have happily bought a cheap DS for the original won't buy the far more expensive Switch, and existing Switch owners can find a slew of other brain games that may not be better, but are certainly cheaper. What's here is entertaining enough, but you're likely to have lost interest within a month; if ever there was a series that Nintendo should have turned into a mobile game instead, it's this one.

Quotation forthcoming.

Dr Kawashima's Brain Training for Nintendo Switch is a missed opportunity to throw together a comprehensive package of mini-games from past entries on a hugely successful console. There are appealing factors such as the fact that sudoku and a number of puzzles can now be done on the Nintendo Switch, along with its budget price point. However, with the janky accessibility issues for Switch Lite users, and clumsy handwriting recognition skills for the maths calculations, it is hard to say it improves upon its predecessors.