House of the Dead 2 is one of the most famous, and most successful, arcade cabinet games of all time. Not only that, it's been credited along with Resident Evil for spearheading the resurgence of zombies in media that occurred in the late 90s. But for all its success, I don’t think anyone could have anticipated the spinoff title that would emerge just a year later: The Typing of the Dead.
The game stays shockingly close to the original, with the main change being replacing shooting bullets at enemies with typing increasingly difficult words and phrases, with each keystroke representing a bullet. You’re still on rails, still following the same story, but instead of a gun you have a Sega with a giant battery strapped on your back. It's a bizarre game, and you can’t deny the novelty - but is it actually a fun game to play? Or does it’s legacy and value lie in its strangeness alone?
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On this episode, we discuss:
Just how bad is Typing of the Dead’s storytelling and voice acting? Does bad voice acting have any intrinsic value, or are we lucky to have the professional voice acting of the present?
Is there any value to dynamic difficulty whatsoever, or is it always going to be worse than having selectable and set difficulty options?
How much of the enjoyment of Typing of the Dead can be attributed to the aesthetics and feel of blowing apart zombies with each keystroke?
We answer these questions and many more on the 83rd episode of the Retro Spectives Podcast!
Intro Music: KieLoBot - Tanzen K
Outro Music: Rockit Maxx - One point to another
Typing of the Dead OST: Tetsua Kawauchi
Next fortnight we’re taking on the giant of the ARPG scene: Diablo 2! We’ll be joined by special guest Shane of the Retro Hangover Podcast to evaluate if it can possibly be worth your time to go back and play one of the most famous Blizzard titles ever made. Check them out for some great discussion of retro video games!
Is Typing of the Dead the only good typing game in existence? What do you think of the original Light Gun games that its based off? Should James feel ashamed for no longer using a mechanical keyboard? Come let us know what you think on our community discord server!
