We all need to exercise the mind. Since the Kids from the house to our elders, passing through those who are halfway there. The first great achievement of Big Brain Academy: Battle of Wits is its ability to connect with everyone, which is not easy at all. The second milestone is that your masterful way of making your joyous mental gymnastics be hilarious, earning additional points when it is exercised in company. The third, moreover, is his way of promote that we play a little bit every day. Or not so little.
The academy of Big Brain Academy It reopens its doors and picks up the lesson right where it left off almost 15 years ago on Wii. Retaining its carefree spirit and universal character, but adding new competitive aspects to its formula. Positioning itself with great success, everything is said, just halfway between the well-known Brain Training and the delusional WarioWare while always retaining its own identity. Accommodating the spirit of the Touch Generations from Nintendo to Switch features.
Elements that make Big Brain Academy on an absolutely recommended game if you have four Joy Cons at home. Perfect for sharing afternoons with family and nights with friends. Of course, as we will see, you can also improvise games on the fly with two players and sharing the Switch Lite screen. And the way he does it is a genius.
And is that the ultimate goal of Big Brain Academy: Battle of Wits It goes beyond measuring our intelligence, but rather promoting that we make use of five specific traits (Acuity, Perception, Memory, Analysis and Calculation) through challenges express in which we will not feel penalized for failing, but we are constantly encouraged to solve correctly and, in the process, be a little better than in the previous game. Either on the basis of the stimulus of small rewards or through the inevitable pique of its multiplayer, which is revalidated as one of the star features of this installment.
A set of elements that together position this Battle of wits nintendera in a exercise plan for the mind with their respective duties, exams and follow-up. Of course, a plan that is a pleasure to sign up for. Their activities, far from being tedious or routine, always end up being synonymous with entertainment and even laughter at four controls. Even if you are color blind and at a clear disadvantage with your rivals. I tell you from my own experience.
Exercise for your mind and fun for everyone
The mental gymnastics proposal of Big Brain Academy It is understood the first time, even if you’ve never played a video game before. Halfway between mini-challenges, logic puzzles and party games, the player is welcomed and takes center stage in an academy dedicated to cultivating the concept of “brain vigor”. Said like that it sounds ostentatious, of course, but at its core it is a way of quantifying our daily performance. More than a note, in this academy our cerebral vigor is a reference.
On Battle of wits A distinction is made as soon as you enter the two main activities: The academy and the Party mode. A total success, since if we want to have fun between four of us we can go directly to the mini-games and organize different types of games without going through the ticket office or having to create new profiles. Although, logically, we can also import our games in progress.
Although both the Academy and the Party mode can be considered equally important and careful, the truth is that, as players, it is almost inevitable that we end up spending more time in the first one. Not only to practice, which too, but because what we can call the Big Brain Academy program manages to be a claim in itself.
Once we are welcomed and we create our own student profile (We can create a lot) we will enter a room that will give us access to the three main modes plus a fourth unlockable. Two of them, by the way, are old acquaintances of the saga:
- The exam is a series of five tests that represent each of the categories that are reinforced in Big Brain Academy. Challenges that will evaluate our Brain Vigor and, already put, will reward us with some advice for the next game.
- The review, on the other hand, it serves to reinforce some of the categories or simply entertain us with some type of specific test. Something like a direct access to each activity.
Based on our performance, which is measured according to successes, our reflexes and the time it takes to answer, we will create and shape our student profile. In this aspect, Big Brain Academy He always rewards our progress through small rewards, but he is also right by always adjusting the games and their development to our progress.
What’s more, there is even an option -which we can activate at any time- called Infant Help, which prevents the exercises from being too difficult. Although this aid is designed to open the doors of the academy to young children, it is also a resource that can always be accessed by anyone who is easily outmatched or is just having a bad day and is in the mood for fun and entertainment.
That said, the difficulty level tends to go constantly in crescendo during the development of each and every one of the tests in progress. And it knows how to adapt to your profile. Big Brain Academy knows how to be challenging and when it is time to be, acclimating his games so that each and every one of the activities has truly unlimited replayability and promoting that we strive to obtain a better result than in the previous game.
That is to say, Big Brain Academy successfully dodges that the player becomes frustrated or bored of repeating the same tests after a few days, and achieves this by integrating a wide variety of challenges with lots of variable components and always adapting his brain vigor with tests whose simplicity are only surpassed by their fun.
Big Brain Academy: Battle of wits, even better in company
The above aspects completely follow the formula and what was seen in the previous deliveries of Big Brain AcademyHowever, Nintendo has not limited itself to exporting the idea to Nintendo Switch: it has accommodated almost all the possibilities of its console through its very successful multiplayer options. Long the other highlight of the experience at the height of the tests themselves.
In fact, a multiplayer alternative has even been integrated within the Academy itself: the new mode Phantom battle, which presides over the main menu, loads Profiles of other players based on their Brain Vigor, so that we compete asynchronously with players from all over the world and without a language barrier.
The premise of Phantom battle It’s simple: upon entering, a succession of player profiles is loaded that will challenge us in specific categories. We will have to overcome them in the same tests obtaining 100 points of cerebral vigor or the maximum amount of these before the time runs out. Once the Battle of the Brains, we continue with the next duels or we can return to the activities of the Academy or multiplayer.
Now, where the Party Game nuance of Big Brain Academy: Battle of Wits It is in Party mode. The other great addition to the game and the perfect competitive experience to enjoy and have a laugh with friends and family.
As we discussed, Nintendo has masterfully accommodated Big Brain Academy a Switch. On the one hand, giving us the alternative to using the console screen or the traditional buttons. What’s more, some tests will ask us specifically which of the systems we want to use to stipulate the results. But it is Party mode where the console really shines two in one:
- From the start, we are given the option of playing two people on the same console sharing a screen. An alternative designed with Nintendo Switch Lite in mind and that accommodates the image and the challenges to be played with the console resting on a surface.
- On the other, a mode for up to four players perfect for playing on television and in which we can choose guest profiles and manually adjust the difficulty level of each player. A genius that opens the door for children and adults to play and compete in relative equality of conditions.
The other great success of the party mode is that we can create custom games from the categories or improvise them entirely through a spinning system the wheel. Logically, it is this second option that ends up being more fun, although it is also logical that many players want to avoid certain tests. Big Brain Academy succeeds by accommodating all gamer profiles.
There are elements that have been left by the way compared to the Wii version, such as the possibility of playing classic tests such as the Mazomatic with motion controls, but in the end the gameplay and the choice of tests has been developed so that everything is just as enjoyable on a laptop, with a controller or with a loose Joy Con.
All in all, I have to confess that a filter for the color blind would not have hurt at all to certain tests of memory and acuity. Those of us who have trouble distinguishing colors are at a disadvantage in multiplayer, but luckily we can always adjust the difficulty of our profile and balance the matter. What can we do?
VidaExtra’s opinion
Big Brain Academy It is much more than the umpteenth puzzle and logic game: it is an activity that successfully combines exercise and fun. A game that will make you turn on the console for five minutes a day. Not only because of the habit of exercising your mind, but because of his way of to breathe healthy and happy competitiveness from Phantom Battle or multiplayer. Also inviting you to surpass the mark of your previous game.
Maybe, Big Brain Academy does not position itself as your favorite Switch game, but it does not aspire to or need it. He does not want to be your next obsession, but is comfortable encouraging you to take a test a day. Promoting you to improvise games on the go on a laptop.
An educational game with puzzles perfect for playing lying on the couch, but it also shines with its own light on the television and on four controllers when playing with friends, with the little ones in the house and even with those who are not a big fan of video games, but love fun and challenges in company. One of those experiences that make the Nintendo Switch preside over Saturday afternoons in company.
The multiplayer rounds out the value of a simple logic and puzzle game whose Party Game aspirations are more than justified and which achieves something unusual: in addition to the very milestone of the ability to exercise seated, that taking exams in company ends up being hilarious.
Big Brain Academy: Battle of Wits
Big Brain Academy: Battle of Wits
Platforms | Nintendo switch |
---|---|
Multiplayer | Yes |
Developer | Nintendo |
Company | Nintendo |
Launching | December 3, 2021 |
The best
- Very simple and fun challenges, perfect for all ages
- The way to approach multiplayer from all angles is fantastic
- Ghost Battle mode is the perfect alternative to online multiplayer
Worst
- If you are color blind you will be at a disadvantage in multiplayer, although you can play all the challenges