Shinseiki Evangelion: Shito Ikusei

Shinseiki Evangelion: Shito Ikusei is one of the strangest games ever made based on the famous anime series, and at the same time exactly the kind of title that could only have appeared on a Japanese handheld console at the end of the nineties. The player doesn't take on the role of a pilot, but instead raises an Angel, a being the series presents as humanity's enemy. The game works as a raising simulation. The charge is fed, trained, rested, and depending on how the player treats it, its traits and appearance change. Over time it matures into one of many possible forms, and it then faces off in battles against the opponents the anime places on the opposing side.

The whole idea rests on the fact that the outcome is not guaranteed. Different combinations of care lead to different creatures, so the game encourages replaying and experimenting. The daily routine is short and undemanding, making it ideal company for a few minutes a day, but that's exactly why it requires patience and interest in slow progress. Technically it's a modest game that relies on static screens, simple menus, and expressive portraits. The WonderSwan's monochrome display doesn't get in the way at all, since the atmosphere is built more from a spare, cold visual style and music borrowing from the source material's mood palette.

From a period perspective, this was a typical product of Bandai's licensing policy, banking on fans buying anything bearing the logo of a beloved series. But the game offered something of its own. Flipping the perspective and letting the player raise the enemy is an idea that today's licensed productions would hardly stumble upon. Today Shito Ikusei is mainly of interest as a curiosity and evidence of how freely big franchises were handled in Japan. Without knowledge of Japanese it is, however, hard to access, since all the caretaking takes place in text menus. Fans of the source material will nonetheless find in it a distinctive artifact from an era when an enormous amount of merchandise revolved around the series, and every attempt at a game adaptation could look completely different.