Evangelion got its own Tamagotchi game, and you can play it in English now

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.

Image: Bandai via Anime Game Translations Team

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.