Girlfriend of Steel takes place somewhere in the middle of the anime series, as sort of a side story. You play as the boy-with-a-thousand-problems, Shinji Ikari, who is also the pilot of the bio-mechanical robot, Evangelion Unit-01. The game opens up at night, with Shinji and Asuka witnessing a small group of huge unidentified robots zooming past their apartment building, then quickly cuts to the next day, to keep the events of the previous night open to speculation. At school the next morning, a new transfer student by the name of Mana Kirishima arrives, and immedietely takes a liking to Shinji, who surprisingly responds rather well to her. What starts out as an innocent love-story, turns into something much more complicated, and as can only be expected from Gainax, ends with a big climax that leaves you unsure whether to feel happy or sad, until the end song plays and the credits roll.

Along the way, you interact with just about everyone Shinji's come into contact with so far in the series, in scenes that feel like they'd fit right into the anime. The newcomer to the Evangelion universe, Mana, might come off just a little annoying at first, but ends up being a very likable character as well. You'll find yourself cheering for her, and yes, even Shinji, as you progress through the story. There are a few interesting twists as well, for instance, Asuka is more compasionate towards Shinji and even shows a bit of jealousy towards Mana, but nothing feels out of character. Expect everything from Shinji's habit of sitting in silent thought, to Asuka striving to always be at the center of everyone's attention. I really have to say, the feel of Girlfriend of Steel is that of an episode of the series turned feature-length movie. The story and presentation of the game is just dead on.

Upon completion of the game, which took a little over two hours, one thing that really surprised me was that how little "game" there actually was; compared to others of this type anyway. Normally, you're presented with several actions that affect which direction you proceed in the story, then do varying amounts of reading until you're faced with the next set of choices. While Girlfriend of Steel does follow this format, it is actually an extremely linear game. You're able to explore certain areas, and make some decisions, but ultimately, this is all just an illusion to make you feel like you're moving the story along. The game portions, or "action" sequences as I like to call them, are not as plentiful as I had expected, but are really simple to control and straight foward.

During the action sequences, you can take one of three actions. Look, Talk or Think, and Move. There's no limit to the actions you can take, so don't expect to be punished for making a "wrong" choice. The first two are several lines of thoughts or speech that cycle through each other when you click them. Move allows you to move around the area you're in, by giving you a set of choices of where to move next, like, "Go to Hallway", "Go to Library." Again, these sequences really serve no purpose other than to make you feel like you're moving the story along. Maybe you can find extra interactions with a little effort, but these never seem to affect the story. The upper half of your screen is a window where images are displayed. When characters talk, smaller windows, with the character displaying the appropriate emotion pops up along the middle of the screen. At the bottom, all the text is displayed.

The images were beautifully drawn, and could easily pass for screen caps from the anime, except for the black lines on the characters, which have sort of a rough, non-anti-aliased look. Take a look at the screenshots, and hopefully you'll see what I mean. Being that this game was made in 1997, it wasn't something I dwelled much on. A majority of the images are motionless pictures, while parts that call for movement usually have a few frames of animation to give the images a bit more life. Something else I really took note of was that alot of the camera angles were similar in style to the series. It really felt like I was watching an episode of the anime with alot less animation, which surprisingly kind of impressed me.

Another thing that kept the feeling of the anime going was the sound, which is nearly flawless. Every single line of speech in the game is voiced over by the original cast of the anime, who are of course, professional voice actors (Mana was done by Megumi Hayashibara a.k.a. Rei). It really helps draw you into the story, but I also have to assume this is what makes the game so linear. They didn't want to stretch their time and effort for scenes you may never see, but it's a fair enough trade-off. The ambient sounds are also worth mentioning. From the familiar hum of the Evangelion's cockpit, to walking down the city street, these little touches really help immerse you further into the game.

Finally, the music is the exact same music you hear in the series, but MIDI-fied. This is really the only flaw I can think of, as far as the sound goes, but again, this game was released in 1997, and the new sound formats (MP3, OGG, etc.) hadn't exactly caught on at the time. Also, the end song, (which is not MIDI, but an actual song) is also very beautiful, and really captures the mood of the story. All in all, the sound is definately another one of Girlfriend of Steel's strong points.

Yet Girlfriend of Steel is really not something I would recommend to people who aren't fans of the Evangelion series. If you were willing to give the anime a try first, I'd suggest doing that before diving into this game. There lies basically the biggest flaw to Girlfriend of Steel: It was made for the existing fans of the series. Gainax knew this, and indeed, they made something that fans of this anime will enjoy, provided they have the patience to sit through what is basically more of an interactive movie, than a game.

Where Girlfriend of Steel really impressed me was how true it stayed to the anime. The characters acted as they would, the "feel" of the imagery was right-on, the music and sound was taken straight from the anime. Let's not forget that Girlfriend of Steel is also voiced by the anime's original cast. Despite this, they've gone and created a story, who's strength wasn't exactly in originality, but in execution, with the Evangelion feel, that really drew me in. I'm really glad I took the chance to re-visit the Evangelion universe.

-Shinji[tEs]
10/10/04