Flash Focus: Vision Training in Minutes a Day / Sight Training Hints (DS)

Video games have served mainly to satisfy our entertainment needs and to provide a fun and interesting way in which we can spend our free time alone or with friends and family. But titles can also serve an educational and practical purpose, as many people use this method to improve the hand-eye coordination of young children.

Nintendo has seen the possibilities of employing games in order to teach people, and, as such, has released a series of educational software and titles, in which they can learn new things and improve their skills through interesting mini-games.

Such is the case with Flash Focus: Vision Training in Minutes a Day, or Sight Training: Enjoy Exercising and Relaxing Your Eyes, as it is known in Europe. Part of the Touch! Generations puzzle video game series developed by Namco Bandai and published by Nintendo for its DS handheld console, the title was released in Japan on May 31, 2007 and reached North American and European shores on October 15 and November 23, respectively, the same year.

Similar to the Brain Training series of video games, it was developed under the supervision of Hisao Ishigaki of the Aichi Institute of Technology from Japan, and features training methods for players to relax their eyes and improve their eyesight. As they accumulate stamps by playing everyday, more and more mini-games are unlocked in this title.

Upon the first start-up of the game, the Eye Age Check is run, during which gamers do several training exercises in order to see just how old their eyes are. After that, they can choose to perform two additional ones, either Core or Sports exercises. The Core ones consist of tests found in the optometrist's office, while Sports consist of strengthening vision through sports games.

HINTS

Getting More Games
Here's a good way (albeit cheap) to unlock more activities in a single day, rather than wait for them to unlock over time. All you have to do is turn the game on, do a given activity, shut the game off, remove the game from the DS, then put the date up one day. Put the game back in the DS, unlock and play the next activity, and repeat the process as needed.

Here's a video of this game: