hello gamers. in this post, we are gonna get into the beginning of the fan translation of the 2008 DS version of Neon Genesis Evangelion: Ayanami Raising Project, a life sim in the lineage of Gainax's earlier Princess Maker games. we'll get started with the game, meet Rei, & talk a little about why this is so cursed. I'm just gonna assume anyone reading this is familiar with Eva in general so no explanation of the general story or characters from the anime.
ok so! once you boot this game up & see the amazing intro video, you get to a menu with pretty regular options.
I immediately went to check out the extras & found there was a quiz... & selecting this is how I learned the translation is incomplete. oops!
I tried guessing but uh damn. from the answer choices, I can tell it's something about different weapons the Eva can use but it takes me most of the timer to figure out that much & I definitely can't read the vast majority of words in the question.
anyway, time to start for real. the game starts with the player character, a rando NERV officer, getting called to meet Ritsuko. she tells us that we have been chosen by Magi for a task.
she asks us if we have a teaching certificate, which we don't, but that seems to not matter as she still assigns us to be Rei's new guardian/teacher. this game is starting slightly before the beginning of the TV anime, & my character does not know who Rei is. right now, he just seems kinda depressed & wants to do something different. relatable!
Ritsuko takes us to see Gendo Ikari & we meet Rei. it's uhhhh bad from the start
so. in case you had not seen this coming, this where I need to say that while this game is not a dating sim per se, there are potential romance routes. I will not be pursuing them for reasons that should be obvious, but let me lay it out. I am playing as an adult man who is an officer in an organization assigned to be a guardian for a character who is effectively & socially a 14-year old girl. while it's possible some of the creepiness is enhanced by this amateur fan translation (though also possible creepiness has been reduced! I do not know the translator or their goals), this game does seem to really dangle romance as a goal here. doing some research ahead of time, you can apparently even marry her. very cool Gainax!!
it's worth noting probably that all of the limited number of English short guides & forum threads & stuff seem to be very pro-Rei romance, or at the least completely uncritical of it. I've certainly not done a full survey of the full Evangelion fanbase in the English-speaking world, but it does seem sadly true based on what I have seen that Gainax played into what a decent number of fans wanted here. that sucks! like I said, I will be avoiding all of this but it is in both the game & parts of the fandom.
ok so, we gotta keep playing. I'm asked to input my name by writing it in Japanese using the stylus. I could only get it to recognize hiragana & it was very fiddly so it took about 5 minutes but I will be playing a man named Baka Shinji.
the newly-christened Baka makes sure to think some more gross things about Rei as we head to her apartment before heading home himself. (fortunately we don't live together like Misato & Shinji do, I guess he's commuting?) I've already played a bit more of the game & fortunately have not come across too much more of this once the real game starts (there was one trip to the beach where Baka was like "ooh what kind of swimsuit will she wear") but I'm sure I'll find more in the future. very fun!
I'll close things here for now since this is long, but will be back to post gameplay tomorrow!