The training-your-brain genre has encouraged millions of older consumers to snap up a Nintendo DS to sharpen their thinking, but if you’re a parent who wants to encourage your young whippersnappers to get in on the act, then Natsume’s Hi! Hamtaro Ham-Ham Challenge (yes, that’s really what it is called) might be just up your street.

Squared at young children, Hi! Hamtaro Ham-Ham Challenge sees players joining Hamtaro and all of his budies as they practice skills that include memory, word comprehension, and mathematics. An interesting feature is the ability for parents to adjust the difficulty of the game to suit their child, increasing and decreasing the height of the challenge as they see fit.

Getting children to learn is hard enough at the best of times, but we can imagine that a large majority would be a bit more receptive if it was all disguised up in a colourful Nintendo DS game.

Hi! Hamtaro Ham-Ham Challenge is released this summer.