Mashing the keyboard with Typing of the Date

(tags game, keyboard, love simulation, date, Dreamcast)

I was going to type up the story leading up to playing this game, but I'm tired of typing (and I'll save it for another post). Let's just say that Typing of The Date (タイピング OF THE デート: Dreamcast T-14307M) by Hudson is an interesting mix of love simulation and typing practice. I can't say much about the game since I only played 30 minutes of it, but I did enjoy it and plan on continuing it. Most of the game consists of a conversation with your girl, but you can pick among three responses of varying lengths. It looks like this:

(Sample conversation, my trans:)

Ayumi: Me too, I don't have a boyfriend, you know.
I sure would like to go and have fun with a boyfriend during my summer vacation.

Player (response 1): You only think of having fun, don't you?
Player (response 2): That means you're looking for a boyfriend?
Player (response 3): Umm, yeah.

At first, I thought the best answer was the longest answer. But perhaps the other answers make sense in other ways. At least I cleared the first "date". It takes about 15-20 minutes long to finish a level, and there are other types of mini-games, not just conversation typing.

Unfortunately, since Japanese can be romanized in many different ways, I was worried that the way that I am used typing was not supported. For example "し" can be typed either by "shi" or "si". I'm used to the former, but the game defaulted to the latter. Luckily I looked around the key config and there are 4 full pages of configurations. Here's the first page:

I am surprised I can't customize anymore, but this should be good enough for now.

As far as my own typing skills are concerned, I don't need touch typing help, but I wouldn't say I'm the model touch typist. Perhaps I get an average 60 words per minute in English. I almost never need to look at the keyboard anymore. I rarely use the right shift key. I can use both Japanese and US English keyboards (qwerty) with minimal transition time. The only big differences between them are the placement of punctuation characters. Typing Japanese earns my bread, so obviously I don't have difficulty here. I don't own any PC based touch typing games, except an old version of Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing (version 8 circa 1996? PC version). I do think I have the Typing of the Dead somewhere around here.

That pink Hello Kitty Dreamcast keyboard is alright. I'm used to Dell keyboards, for reference. But for some reason, this used keyboard's "y" key is too firm and hard to press. Perhaps the previous owner abused it. It's getting annoying so I'm going to try my other keyboards. I wonder if you can connect a regular PS/2 or USB keyboard to the Dreamcast?

I'll be reviewing this game a little bit more, so look for a follow up post later.