Review: Brain Age 2

I am one of the few people I know personally that played the original Brain Age almost everyday. I really liked the first game, and played it far beyond my goal of reaching a brain age of 20 (/brag). However, like every game, the novelty wore off me and I eventually stopped playing it. As the release date for Brain Age 2 was nearing I got excited, a chance for more training and in only minutes a day! Yet, when I got the game I was met with an underwhelming sense of deja vu.

Putting the cart into your DS Lite and booting the game it's almost impossible to tell the difference between Brain Age and Brain Age 2. The layout is identical, right down to Dr. Kawashima's disembodied head floating on the right screen. It's not until you set up your first profile that the game differentiates until it's successor when Dr. Kawashima has you perform a creative task. It varies from player to player, but my first was to connect the dots within a box however I wanted. Dr. Kawashima applauded my efforts at making a cute bug face, and then showed me the DS he created. This was my favourite part of Brain Age, and Brain Age 2 has taken the in-between tasks to a whole new level. As I played it more I was told to create acrostic poems and draw pictures that would be shared with everyone else's profile. The enhanced in-betweens, combined with more casual chatter by Kawashima is what I think sets the game apart from it's prequel.

When you get into the actual training it really doesn't feel different than the original. Sure, the games are different; playing piano, counting change, follow the racing man, but it feels undeniably identical. They tried to spice things up a little, the math questions are a little different; subtracting sequentially, figure out the operation, but it's too similar to feel different. This is the game's greatest flaw.

Before long I found myself skipping training or not testing myself at all. It felt like I was still playing Brain Age and thus I felt done with it. Although the game is praised for it's intense replay value I really don't believe that true. If you have grown weary of the original, Brain Age 2 will not last long in your short pile. This atop the remaining technical issues that plagued Brain Age (poor voice/writing recognition) just make it tiresome and frustrating.

If you really enjoyed Brain Age to the effect you are still playing it, or have never player a brain training game, then Brain Age 2 will be an excellent extension and for $20 it's a steal. However, if you've played the original and grew tired of it and are hoping the sequel will revitalize your interest in the series, forget about it unless you've got a Queen Elizabeth II burning a hole in your pocket.