There was a Neon Genesis Evangelion Tamagotchi-like video game for the Bandai WonderSwan, and if that sentence makes sense to you, then I have good news: An English-language translation of that game, Neon Genesis Evangelion Shito Ikusei, is now available to download.
The English-language release, dubbed Neon Genesis Evangelion Angel Raising Project, was released this week as a patch available from Romhacking.net. It’s the work of a fan group known as the Anime Game Translations Team, which also put together a full walkthrough FAQ for new players.
Neon Genesis Evangelion Angel Raising Project stars Ryoji Kaji, the NERV special inspector (and Misato’s ex) from Neon Genesis Evangelion, in a Tamagotchi-style game where the player must raise an embryonic Angel named Shito (aka Adam) into one of more than 20 adult forms. There are also adventure game elements; the player can explore Tokyo-3 as Ryoji and interact with characters like Misato, Maya, Shinji, Asuka, and Rei.
Instructions on how to download and install Neon Genesis Evangelion Angel Raising Project are available at Romhacking.net. It’s playable on a WonderSwan emulator, such as Oswan, which is freely available for Windows PC.
If you’ve made it this far but are still thinking, “What the hell is a WonderSwan?” it was a handheld game device released by Bandai in 1999. The Japan-only handheld was developed by Game Boy creator Gunpei Yokoi’s company Koto Laboratory, and originally played black-and-white games only. Bandai later released two models that played games in color, the WonderSwan Color and SwanCrystal.
