A new Splatoon 2 stage has been revealed that’s exclusive to Splatfests. The new stage, Shifty Station (or Mystery Zone in Japanese) makes its debut on the 5th August in the first Splatfest along with 2 other randomly-picked stages. Shifty Station will appear only at Splatfests and will take on a new form each time.
Welcome! In this feature, we’re going to look at the history of the Brain Training series to celebrate the release of Dr Kawashima’s Devilish Brain Training: Can You Stay Focused?
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? What are you looking at, Dr Kawashima?!
Called Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day! in the States, the first title in the series was released in May 2005 in Japan and June 2006 in the UK for the Nintendo DS. The gap between the Japanese and European releases is a recurring theme throughout the series. The game is designed to be played for a small amount each day, rather like the Animal Crossing series. The main mode is called Brain Age Check, where you have to complete a number of challenges in order for Dr Kawashima to work out ‘how old’ you brain is, with an optimal score of 20. The game makes clever use of the microphone, where it is the star of the Speed Counting minigame, testing how fast you can count to 120. Other minigames include Word Memory, testing how many of 30 four-letter words you can remember after 2 minutes, and Calculations X 20, which sees the user completing 20 simple calculations as fast as possible. This minigame includes another unique input method of handwriting recognition. The game was received fairly well with a 77/100 on Metacritic. Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training acheived a lifetime sales figure of 19,100,000. The game later received a Wii U Virtual Console release in 2015.
The sequel to Brain Training was released in December 2005 in Japan and June 2007 in the UK. One of the best additions to this game was the minigame Virus Buster, a simplified version of Dr. Mario. As well as this new game, every single minigame in Brain Age Check is brand-new. In Rock, Paper, Scissors, a symbol shows up on the screen and the player must speak out loud the winning choice as fast as possible. In Serial Substraction, a large number is shown and the player must continually subtract a smaller number. In High Number the player must pick out the highest number out of the ones shown on the screen. Number Memory presents a 5×5 grid of the numbers 1 to 25 in a random order. After 2 minutes, the player must reproduce the entire grid from memory. In Symbol Match, a key is shown linking the numbers 0 to 9 with symbols like £, < and &. A number is shown and the player must write the corresponding symbol. Brain Training 2 acheived a score of 77/100 on Metacritic, with a lifetime sales figure of 14,880,000.
A series of 3 compliations of Brain Training games was released under the title of A Little Bit Of… . The series consisted of Maths, Arts & Letters and Sudoku, releasing in June, October and August 2009 respectively in the UK. They were released on the DSi Shop.
When making a Mii, Dr Kawashima was quite offended about the smoothness of their skin.
The fourth installment of the series, Devilish Brain Training, is the first title to have been released on the Nintendo 3DS. It was released in July 2012 in Japan, but poor old Europe was left behind, with the UK version releasing a whopping 5 years later in July 2017!
This addition to the series focuses primarily on concentration and avoiding the distractions of the outside world. This time, the game is only meant to be played for 5 minutes a day, so don’t get this game for a full gaming experience. The main minigame in the collection is called Devilish Calculations. You have to answer simple sums, but in a delayed manner. You have to answer the question that appeared 2 to 4 questions ago while constantly adding new ones, bearing a very strong resemblance to the Two Ronnies sketch “Mastermind“. The game comes with a dynamic difficulty, so it always presents the right difficulty for to you.
Dr Kawashima’s Devilish Brain Training is available to buy from Amazon UK for £17.29.
A new update coming tomorrow (3am BST) will add a new weapon to the game, the Dualie Squelchers. The weapon sees the Dual Squelcher from the original Splatoon returning as a pair of Dualies. It comes loaded with the Point Sensor sub weapon and the Tenta Missiles special. After the Dualies roll, they temporarily combine to become the original Dual Squelcher.
Hello! Welcome to Nintendo News Roundup. In this monthly feature, we’re going to be discussing the topics relevant to Nintendo fans. So, without further ado, let’s-a-go!
Nintendo’s upcoming paid service, Nintendo Switch Online, released its mobile app this month for iOS and Android users. The app launched alongside Splatoon 2, showcasing Splatnet 2. Splatnet 2 lets you see your battle stats for your past 50 games, telling you how much turf you inked, how many splats you got and even the gear of your opponents!
Although the app has many useful features for Splatoon 2, some features have been heavily criticised by users, the biggest problem being voice chat. The app is the sole location of the voice chat feature, so if you don’t have a mobile device you won’t be able to get in on the action. The app has to be open at all times for voice chat to work. Hopefully Nintendo will release an update in the future. The full Nintendo Switch Online service will release in 2018, with a one-year subscription costing €19.99 (about £17.99).
Less than 2 days after the game’s launch, the first of many Splatoon 2 updates was released. The free content update contained a new weapon, the Inkbrush. This weapon is in the roller category, with a small ink spread but a high running speed and large flicks of ink. All updates for Splatoon 2 will be free, and the game will receive updates for a year, with Splatfests lasting for 2 years.
The theme of the first full Splatoon 2 Splatfest has been announced, taking place from 5/07 – 6/07 – are you Team Mayo or Team Ketchup? This Splatfest sees the first ever use of red ink, which Nintendo did not allow in the original Splatoon due to its similarity to blood. Let us know who you think will win!
A new update for Minecraft: Nintendo Switch Edition has been released, and it’s a good one! As well as adding a host of new features, the resolution of docked mode has been upgraded from 720p to a Full-HD 1080p. Splitscreen multiplayer lag has also been eliminated! A full changelog for the update, including feature additions and bug fixes, can be found here.
