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Flash Focus: Vision Training in Minutes a Day (JP), known in Europe and Austrailia as Sight Training: Enjoy Exercising and Relaxing Your Eyes[1], is a puzzle game released for the Nintendo DS video game released in 2007 and 2008.

The game is considered as a spiritual successor to Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day! in that, it involves short sessions that are intended to improve your daily activities

Gameplay[]

In "Eye Age Check," players do several training exercises which are split into two groups: the "Core Training" and the "Sports Training."

The "Sports Training" involves strengthening experience through sports games like; table tennis, basketball, and baseball. For instance, in baseball, players tap the screen when the baseball enters the strike zone.

Core Training[]

  • Puzzle Match
  • Use C Order
  • Numbers Counting
  • Matching Game
  • C Tap
  • Spot Count
  • Draw C
  • Number Adding
  • Spot Draw
  • Spot Tap

Sports Training[]

  • Volleyball Power
  • Bowling
  • Shooting
  • Hockey
  • Golf
  • Tennis
  • Billiards
  • Swimming
  • Archery
  • Canoeing

Development[]

Flash Focus was first shown at E3 2007, where Nintendo showed off two mini-games.

The game was developed with the help of Hisao Ishigaki, a professor in the field of sports medicine who specializes in vision research, and has helped developed computer-assisted vision training programs for professional athletes.

Ishigaki states that there are two types of eyesight, the typical check at the doctor's office and visual ability, where the eye does things such as identify several objects at once. There are five types of visual ability:

  1. Dynamic visual acuity – Seeing moving objects
  2. Momentary vision – Process a lot of information at once
  3. Eye movement – Be able to move eyes around fast
  4. Peripheral vision – See in a wide range
  5. Hand-eye coordination – See with the eye and accurately move with the hands

Reception[]

Reviews[]

In 2007, Flash Focus had an aggregate rating of 61% on GameRankings, based on 25 reviews. Reviewers were not impressed with the training exercises. Jeff Gerstmann said that the games were "a little too easy to be fun for long" and were not as empowering as Brain Age. Craig Harris said that the games could have been in any mini-game collection and thought that at least one of the games was more hand-eye coordination than actual vision training. Gamespy simply said that there just wasn't that much to do and that the game only allows the player to record a performance in the exercises once a day.

Both Gamespy and IGN said that the lack of an extra game (such as Sudoku or Dr. Mario in the Brain Age games) was a drawback of the title. In the end, Gerstmann concluded that the bargain price ($US 20) was just right for this set of games, and recommended it as a fun alternative to other training games. GameSpy mostly said the same thing, recommending it to gamers who like to put their brains to the test.[7] Harris, however, said that Nintendo needed to do "a lot better" and that the game didn't have enough to make it a "full Nintendo product." At the Games Convention in Germany in August 2007, Flash Focus was nominated by a jury as one of the three "Best of Nintendo DS" games presented at that conference. The jury later picked the game as the best one, citing that it was "great fun."

Sales[]

On July 9, 2008, the game had sold 881,126 copies in Japan. It received a "Platinum" sales award from the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA), indicating sales of at least 300,000 copies in the United Kingdom.

External links[]

References[]

  1. Wii Brasil: Flash Focus ganha nome official Europe. [1] - September 26, 2007

External links[]

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