Well, Dr. Ryuta Kawashima is back, making people feel as stupid as ever.  Only, he's doing it in a way that isn't as fun as his previous Brain Ages.  Brain Age Concentration Training's main course is called Devilish Training, and they are comprised of a series of exercises that train your working memory.  The only problem is, my memoryr raally sucks.  In the previous Brain Ages, those exercises were something that I was consistently getting better at.  That isn't entirely the case with Concentration Training.

One of the excercises is called Devilish Calculations, and it works simularly to Calculations X 20 in that you're given a string of simple calculations to solve.  The twist is that you're supposed to write the answer from the previous calculation.  Not only do you have to do math, but you need to remember previous answers.  The difficulty actually ramps up as the higher levels make you remember answers from further back, in 2, 3, 4 and 5 stages.  I have started to improve a bit at this game, but then I screw up and go down a level.  It's rather frustrating.

The other memory games that I've unlocked so far is Devilish Pairs, which is like the old game of Memory, Devilish Mice which has you memorizing hidden mice as they're being shuffled around, Devilish Shapes which works like Calculations but with weird random shapes instead, and Devilish Cubes which has you memorizing the disappearing locations of randomly placed cubes.  Oh, and there's Devilish Reading, which is broken.  It requires that you read the sentence out loud, into the 3DS's mic, but alas, my mic doesn't work that well!  I have to hold the 3DS right to my mouth and speak in a LOUD voice for it to register.  I'm supposed to be memorizing the underlined words in each sentence, but I can't because I'm too focused trying to get the damn game to register my voice!  So, I cheat by tapping the mic with the stylus and just remembering the underlined words as they appear.  Yeah, I know it's cheating, but the fu cking game doesn't work!

Oh yeah, and just like the other two Brain Ages, there are handwriting recognition problems.  You really have to have expert penmenship at times, or the game will not recognize what you wrote, or accept an incorrect answer.  When you're trying to concentrate, having the game buzz you because it misread your answer is a great way to jolt you out of your focus.  

The game also has some supplemental activities such as the classic Calculations X 20 and Word Attack, which has you remembering words that flash on screen for just a second, and there are Brain Training activities such as Klondike and Block Head.  I like Block Head, because it's an actual puzzle game.  You hop across a layout of blocks with different values and compete against Kawashima to get the highest score.  There's also Relaxation Mode, but I've only unlocked one game so far, which is called Blob Blast.  It has you clearing out different kinds of blobs with bombs, and it's actually rather addicting.  The one omission I've noticed the most, though, is Sudoku.  I'm hoping it's in the game, and that I just need to unlock it.  Annoying that it's not there at the start, though.

Almost forgot to mention, Dr. Ryuta Kawashima now talks to you.  He also gives these mini seminars about how the brain functions and why it's important to train our memories and keep our brains active.  I do enjoy the presentation of the game, but I just wish the game itself was more fun instead of seeming so relentlessly difficult.  Also, the game doesn't even give you a brain age anymore.  You're given a training grade, which starts you out as F, and improves depending on how far you get in each Devilish Training activity.  It also plasters your grade on your Mii like some scarlet letter.  Yeah, didn't enjoy seeing my Mii prance around with a big F on its chest... Anyways, I'm sad to say that I cannot recommend this game to fans of the previous Brain Ages.  It just isn't the same.