"Girlfriend of Steel" is a bishoujo adventure game, originally in
Japanese, from Gainax. It is set in the "Neon Genesis Evangelion"
story line. Fans of Eva can figure out exactly where/when it occurs,
but I'm not going to write this document for them. I'm writing for
the people that may have heard that an English fan translation is
available for this game, and want to know more about how it plays
and what they will see, before they try to download it. I'll
abbreviate the game's name to "GoS" from now on.
This particular version, the fan-translation one, can be played on
any Windows PC in English. You will need to download the distribution
archive file, which will probably be an ".iso". You will need some
sort of CD-ROM "faking" software, such as Daemon Tools, to be able
to mount the .iso file as a virtual CD-ROM drive. When that's done,
let it Autoplay, and it will start up an installer program. I chose
the option to do a complete install to your hard drive. There are
other choices, but this way you don't have to keep the virtual CD-ROM
mounted any longer than necessary. The installer will take a while to
copy over 1500 files using over 600 MB to your hard drive (with full
install option).
There's a walkthrough file generally available on the Internet for
GoS, but it was written by a Spanish person for the original
Japanese version on a Sega Saturn. That version differs from what
you'll be playing, as far as the walkthrough is concerned, only in
that there is no disk swapping and you'll have a better idea of
what's really going on thanks to the translation. I won't provide
the walkthrough here, but you actually don't really need it if
you can get the game going. A few of the details in the walkthrough
are wrong, given what's shown in the translation, but the gist of
it is correct.
The fan translation is pretty good, with only a few typos
noticeable. The use of a squashed font to get some long lines onto
the screen is a good thing when it happens, because I'm sure that
the usual issue of Japanese text being able to convey about twice
that of English in the same number of characters was occurring yet
again. Maybe the Japanese voice and sound effects sounded a bit
better before they were compressed, but I'm grateful that what's
available to us non-Japanese is now only one disc instead of the
original four.
The installer will create a shortcut to the ADV2.EXE executable
for you, plus another shortcut to a program for changing the
background image used in the game, and one for an uninstaller.
Once you start the game, you should be aware of a few quirks that
aren't mentioned in the walkthrough file, and the only reasons that
I bothered to write this at all.
1. If you go look at the virtual CD-ROM, there is a readme file
available. You are more likely to be interested in the contents
of the "Bonus" folder though. There are images for the scanned
manual in Japanese, and a lot of bonus graphics.
2. No matter what size you set the game's window to, by using the
System Options choice, there will be invisible buttons for
"close" at the top left of the window, "minimize" at the top
right, and you can drag the window by clicking on the top of the
window anywhere between the corners and dragging. If you do
this while playing, you can get the popup windows showing the
various game characters to appear in odd places. And these
buttons are disabled once the graphics for the game credits
start to appear.
3. You can only access the game save/load and options menu screens
at the start of play or when the "Look Think Move" buttons are
on the bottom of the window.
4. While the game is doing its thing, such as showing graphics and
playing sounds or voices, you can't do anything. You can't skip
ahead or fast-forward. Annoying to those of us who don't want
to sit through the same stuff over and over, but there's no
choice in this case.
5. If you want to see all 3 endings, then SAVE THE GAME WHEN YOU
SEE A MAP ON THE GAME SCREEN and you have the 3 buttons shown.
This is the last opportunity in the game to save, although
there will be about 25 more minutes of action that you can't
alter, speed up, or interrupt before you get your next choice. And
that choice, which generates the three game endings, doesn't
allow you to save the game when you make it.
6. Once you've played the game and want to uninstall it, you'll
need to have the CD-ROM image (.iso file) available and mounted
so you can use the "Delete" shortcut that the installer created.
On my Windows XP, it messed up and didn't delete this one shortcut
or the folder in the Programs menu, but everything else was
removed properly. So you can remove that folder yourself to clean
up the last vestiges after you dismount the .iso and call this
one done.
Bishoujo content:
Reasonable, but there are only a few females in this title. If you
want hentai, go elsewhere. If you want character development, ditto.
As I'm not too knowledgeable about Eva characters, I'd guess that
they're acting pretty much as expected. That means Asuka is
alternately seductive and insanely jealous, Misato is often
drinking alcohol, and Rei says barely a dozen words a day.
Hentai content:
Only one gratuitous shot of naked Asuka's rear end a few seconds
into the game, and a deliberately quick pan across Mana's supposedly
naked torso when she gets out of the shower in one of the three
endings. Nothing to get anyone too excited, I hope. If you really
want Eva hentai, look up "Human Instrumentality Project".
Review:
Great for Eva fans, who have probably seen this long ago. The
original Japanese release was several years ago, and the fan
translation appeared in 2003. For the rest of us, this isn't really
a bishoujo game, definitely not hentai, and has practically no
replay value. Having to put up with 25 minutes of stuff you've
already seen, each time you want to try a different ending, is
just ridiculous. No complaints about the graphics, except for some
palette garbling when the buttons appear at the bottom of the
game window. Massive kudos to the fan translators.
If you have anything to add to this file, let me know.
Peter Karsanow - bishoujo.helper[AT}sbcglobal{DOT)net
http://www.geocities.com/hentaihelper/p_hgames.htm