Pokemon | Battle & Get! Pokemon Typing DS

There have been pretty strange Pokemon spin-off games during the franchise's more than a decade of existence, but Battle & Get! Pokemon Typing DS is perhaps the strangest of them all, as it involves...typing.


Conceived as a way to teach Japanese kids to type in English, Battle & Get! Pokemon Typing DS is primarily a typing tutor where you capture Pokemon by typing their name. Since it's a chore to actually type on the Nintendo DS touchscreen, the developers actually included a Bluetooth keyboard with the game, making this one of the DS games with the largest packaging ever.


But that keyboard! It's a full-functioning wireless keyboard that's a beauty to look at, and is very Apple-like in its minimalist design. And since it's also Bluetooth-enabled, it will work will other Bluetooth devices as well. While typing on it using the tiny DS screen might look silly, that keyboard alone makes the purchase of this game worthwhile.


Unfortunately, Battle & Get! Pokemon Typing DS remains exclusive to Japan. It was released last April 2011, where it topped the games sales charts and continued to sell over 100,000 copies. The game was originally bundled with a white keyboard, but the Pokemon Company will be releasing an even cooler-looking black keyboard that will be out this month in Japan.

Sigh...Japan always gets nice things.