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IGN Review of Flash Focus: Vision Training in Minutes a Day
Adult training is a big market for Nintendo and its Nintendo DS handheld system. After it struck gold with its brain strengthening games Brain Age and Big Brain Academy, it seems that Nintendo won't be content until there's a training program for every part of the body. The latest aim is eyesight in the form its newest release: Flash Focus: Vision Training in Minutes a Day. I can certainly appreciate what Nintendo's trying to do, and certainly partially enjoyed some of the tests that are in this product, but it definitely doesn't give that same sense of accomplishment that the Brain games do.
See, at least Nintendo can give people the impression that they're giving their minds a work-out with some challenges that literally strain the brain. But with Flash Focus, the mini-games here aren't so much an eye trainer as they are a bunch of memorization and quick-reaction timing challenges that could have been in any mini-game compilation. Perhaps that's why Nintendo went to Namco Bandai for Flash Focus - the studio already put something similar out on the system: Point Blank DS. Strip out a lot of the goofy elements and clean up the style to fit the Brain Age crowd, reduce the number of challenges and add a calendar tracking interface and it's kind of the same thing. Well, not quite, but you get the idea.
The game gives you the idea that it'll strengthen your vision through exercises. There's only a short list of challenges at the start, but each day you train you unlock an additional challenge. Half the game is general "what number did we flash on the screen" challenges, which is more memory retention than it is about good vision. Some are more believable "eye" related quizzes, like trying to pick out the proper letter C out of a dozen spread across both screens...pushing you to use your peripheral vision to find it. There are also "sports" related challenges, like a Baseball hitting game where you tap the screen when the ball enters the strike zone. That feels more like a vision test than the Soccer challenge does, where you're required to pass the ball to a teammate by swiping the stylus in the direction of that player. Uh, this is far more hand coordination than eye coordination.
You sort of expect a lot of "eye test" style training modes for a Vision trainer, like ones you'd find scattered around an optometrist's office. Granted there's only so much you can do on a system with screens smaller than your palm, so an Eye Chart to check for 20/20 distance vision is pretty much out. But no optical illusion charts, no color blind quizzes...it's almost like the designers are tiptoeing around the concept of pointing out that bad vision can't be fixed with any amount of exercising, just like rapid fire math questions won't make you smarter. But at least Brain Age made you feel like you were making progress. These "eye tests" really don't do much to convince you that your eyes are getting stronger, and they definitely don't feel like they're coming from some eye expert like Brain Age's mind expert Dr. Kawashima.
I do appreciate a lot of the tricks the game tells you each day on how to exercise your eyes, but most of these exercises don't even use the DS. They're just everyday hints and tips, like trying to read a sign as a bus is moving, or focusing on a part of a magazine and trying to read within your peripheral vision.
The encouragement to keep playing every day can only be maintained for about two weeks of play, and that seems extremely forced since a lot of the game is locked out right at the start. The first day you only have a handful of things to do…and once you're done (which takes, at most, 10 minutes) you can either put the game away for 24 hours before seeing another element open up, or simply advance the clock and unlock everything in about an hour of training. Flash Focus lacks the hook to keep players coming back - Brain Age had Sudoku, Brain Age 2 has Dr. Mario, and this has…well, nothing. There isn't a single challenge that you'd expect to hold attention outside of the quizzes…even the sports games aren't really sports.
©2007-10-15, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved
See, at least Nintendo can give people the impression that they're giving their minds a work-out with some challenges that literally strain the brain. But with Flash Focus, the mini-games here aren't so much an eye trainer as they are a bunch of memorization and quick-reaction timing challenges that could have been in any mini-game compilation. Perhaps that's why Nintendo went to Namco Bandai for Flash Focus - the studio already put something similar out on the system: Point Blank DS. Strip out a lot of the goofy elements and clean up the style to fit the Brain Age crowd, reduce the number of challenges and add a calendar tracking interface and it's kind of the same thing. Well, not quite, but you get the idea.
The game gives you the idea that it'll strengthen your vision through exercises. There's only a short list of challenges at the start, but each day you train you unlock an additional challenge. Half the game is general "what number did we flash on the screen" challenges, which is more memory retention than it is about good vision. Some are more believable "eye" related quizzes, like trying to pick out the proper letter C out of a dozen spread across both screens...pushing you to use your peripheral vision to find it. There are also "sports" related challenges, like a Baseball hitting game where you tap the screen when the ball enters the strike zone. That feels more like a vision test than the Soccer challenge does, where you're required to pass the ball to a teammate by swiping the stylus in the direction of that player. Uh, this is far more hand coordination than eye coordination.
You sort of expect a lot of "eye test" style training modes for a Vision trainer, like ones you'd find scattered around an optometrist's office. Granted there's only so much you can do on a system with screens smaller than your palm, so an Eye Chart to check for 20/20 distance vision is pretty much out. But no optical illusion charts, no color blind quizzes...it's almost like the designers are tiptoeing around the concept of pointing out that bad vision can't be fixed with any amount of exercising, just like rapid fire math questions won't make you smarter. But at least Brain Age made you feel like you were making progress. These "eye tests" really don't do much to convince you that your eyes are getting stronger, and they definitely don't feel like they're coming from some eye expert like Brain Age's mind expert Dr. Kawashima.
I do appreciate a lot of the tricks the game tells you each day on how to exercise your eyes, but most of these exercises don't even use the DS. They're just everyday hints and tips, like trying to read a sign as a bus is moving, or focusing on a part of a magazine and trying to read within your peripheral vision.
The encouragement to keep playing every day can only be maintained for about two weeks of play, and that seems extremely forced since a lot of the game is locked out right at the start. The first day you only have a handful of things to do…and once you're done (which takes, at most, 10 minutes) you can either put the game away for 24 hours before seeing another element open up, or simply advance the clock and unlock everything in about an hour of training. Flash Focus lacks the hook to keep players coming back - Brain Age had Sudoku, Brain Age 2 has Dr. Mario, and this has…well, nothing. There isn't a single challenge that you'd expect to hold attention outside of the quizzes…even the sports games aren't really sports.
©2007-10-15, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved