Big Brain Academy: Brain vs. Brain Review – Cerebral Squat Thrusts

Big Brain Academy: Brain vs. Brain Review

It’s important to keep your brain fit and flexible. You know, to stave off the madness and whatnot. Keep the brain worms at bay. Big Brain Academy: Brain vs Brain is a great way to do just that. Competitive elements aside, this is very much an exercise tool. That doesn’t mean you won’t have fun though! It turns out sharpening your synapses is a pretty good time. So long as you know what you’re getting into, that is.

Brain vs Brain has a decent list of challenges to master, but you can chew through them crazy fast. This leaves you with the task of mastery, which also doesn’t require a ton of time. Once you’ve got a grip on each task, then it’s test time. Oh! You can also compete against the ghosts of players around the world. This latest Big Brain Academy title lends itself to shorter sessions, you see. Like the previous games, this is more about education than entertainment. You hop on, hone the edges a bit, and shut it down for the day. Bite-sized gameplay, leading to greater enjoyment.

A Little Goes A Long Way

Thankfully, said tasks are mostly a blast to play. Each one starts so simply it’s disarming. Soon enough though, you’re feeling frantic, frazzled, and a little overwhelmed. Things like matching shapes and simple math quickly hit the limits of your crude cognitive skills. I thought these were kids games! Which leads to the brilliant bit, in that they are for children. However, these simple games scale up with zero friction. The rising difficulty is perfect for keeping you engaged, even once you’ve wrapped up the practice section.

Certain games are terribly frustrating, but they’re sort of meant to be. Once you see the final score, it reveals your cognitive weak points. The sections I’m the worst at aren’t badly designed, the fault is in my own wiring. There are exceptions, don’t get me wrong. Changing the time on a clock shouldn’t be such a struggle, for example. A couple play sessions with my wife also revealed that reflexes play a big role here. Meaning, your skill as a gamer makes a big difference in your overall cognitive scorecard. These biases aside, Big Brain Academy is a useful analytical tool.

Learn Where Your Strengths Lie

The clock-setting game is truly awful, though. Almost every other game feels perfectly smooth, but that one? Pure hogwash. You get requests to change the time by ten minutes, which single button presses cannot accomplish. This all makes a horrible sort of sense once you start it up, I promise. My only saving grace was other players being slightly worse at it than I was. There’s not much to say about the other games. They feel good, they make sense, and some of them make my brain hurt. Apparently if you make me imagine multiple perspectives, I glitch right out. If nothing else, it encourages you to get better at certain tasks.

Big Brain Academy games ride the line between entertainment and training. You’ll churn through the content being offered in an hour, but that’s by design. A proper playthrough of this game is stretched over several months, with you improving slightly every day. Although I can’t imagine extensive research would teach you anything really new. Even a couple hours with these challenges would be enough to illuminate your weak points. Such is the central tenet here. If you’re looking for a gaming experience, you’ll be disappointed. But if you want to train that brain of yours, that’s a different story. These tools and tasks take on a whole new purpose then, one with practical ends. I’m not sure you’ll enjoy your time with Big Brain Academy: Brain vs Brain. But I’m certain your time playing the game will be well spent.

***A Nintendo Switch code was provided by the publisher***