Learn with Pokémon: Typing Adventure (Nintendo DS)

I purchased this game after trialling it at the Pokemon Summer Tour - I was initially skeptical of how well an educational Pokemon game would work, but it turns out this game is immensly satisfying to play.Levels start out relatively easy, teaching you to type single letters and numbers. Quickly though, the difficulty starts to pick up, especially as you start to aim for gold stars. Even a season typist such as myself struggles to achieve those perfect scores, despite having been typing for the past 15 years or so of my life!!! The typing levels are hugely satisfying, which audible chimes and speech output informing you on your performance and progress. Graphics are colourful, sound is excellent (the game talks to you!) and overall this is a high quality piece of software, and not the cheap cash in I feared it would be.The real star of the show here though is the bundled keyboard, which is worth the price of entry alone. It is, in typical Nintendo fashion, extremely well built and sturdy. Certainly, it will survive daily trips to uni, I hope! They keys have good travel, feel great, are well spaced and don't feel too small - overall a very comfortable piece of kit to use. It sounds very nice, too! The standout feature, however, is the fact that this keyboard connects to the DS via a bluetooth receiver in the game card. What this also means, though, is that the keyboard can therefore be connected to a wide variety of other bluetooth ready devices. In fact, I am typing this review using the keyboard connected to my Nexus 7!!! Simply by holding the Fn key whilst powering the keyboard on, the Nexus 7 is able to quickly detect it and pair with it, after entering a code. Once connected, it works like a charm, and has been very handy for making lecture notes and typing documents on.The keyboard alone makes this product worth the price, but the included Typing Adventure game is an enjoyable original game in its own right.5/5

I'm not going to bother reviewing the game, it is as you'd pretty much expect. A very basic typing tutor which is Pokemon themed. Stages where you type single letters to deal with obstacles, and words to 'capture' the research on Pokemon. It's basically a very kiddy version of Typing of the Dead. I guess the least I can say about it is that for a typing tutor, at least it's a good one.Where this shines is for its keyboard, and very handy stand. The keyboard is a brilliant compact bluetooth keyboard. Typing responsiveness is great, and it's easy enough to touchtype with, even if the keys are small. I, rather ironically use it with my PS3 (which even recognises it as a Nintendo Keyboard), where there's no issues in compatibility.7The kit also includes a stand... obviously meant for a DS console (especially as it acts as a DS case for a loose game when not in use). But I am planning on using this for my phone. The bluetooth keyboard is also compatible with Android and Apple phones.Right now, it's under £10 on Amazon. A bargain for something so high quality!

I bought Pokemon Typing Adventure simply because I'd heard it had a great Bluetooth keyboard at a cheap price, but I was very pleasantly surprised by the quality of the entire package. There's not a lot to be said for the game itself; it's quite dry and not very varied, and there could probably be more detailed instruction. However as a coach to encourage practice it's perfectly capable. Nintendo has built a great bundle around it by including a first-rate Bluetooth keyboard and a small folding stand for the DS.You don't expect a normally-priced DS game package to come with a really great keyboard. Nintendo could've cut a lot of corners here and still met their objective of providing a typing tutor, for example by including a cheap membrane keyboard with letters, numbers, space and shift. That's not Nintendo's style however. The keyboard has almost a full range of almost-full-sized characters and modifier keys, with solid laptop-style key action, a full range of travel and comfortable spacing. The body of the keyboard is solidly constructed, and there are even a conveniently placed on-off switch and large grippy pads on the base stop it skidding around in use.I've seen keyboards costing £30 on their own that don't come close to this level of build quality, and frankly this is overkill for a DS typing tutor game. That's where the best feature comes into play: it's a proper Bluetooth keyboard that will work with most devices. I imagine that the idea is that you can learn to type on this keyboard and keep using it with your actual computer, phone, or tablet; conversely you could pair your existing Bluetooth keyboard to the game and practice typing on that instead. The upshot is that for an already-competent typist it's worth buying the game just to have the keyboard around.Its only drawbacks in general use are that it'll only pair up with one device at a time, and that more obscure keys are omitted. You have to use Fn and the numbers to access function keys, for example, which means you can't use F11 or F12, or the convenient shortcuts assigned to those keys in iOS. (Furthermore on iOS, Page Up is mapped to Ctrl+Up rather than Fn+Up, and so on.) However these are common issues in compact Bluetooth keyboards and it's worth accepting the trade-off for the superior build quality.Rounding out the bundle, the folding Nintendo DS stand in the set has grippy feet and a small grippy tray for the console. It works very well and folds away easily, and even has a storage slot for the game cartridge inside. Depending on what device you use, this could easily be pressed into service as a smartphone or even tablet stand for use with the keyboard. Nintendo being Nintendo, everything is even very nicely arranged in the box.For £30 this was an impressive bundle. At its current asking price, it's a steal, whether you want it to dabble in touch typing, or just want a nice keyboard.

the game is short but fun for a beginner touch typist, i would recommend