Evangelion 64 was developed by BEC, a company formed as a joint venture between Bandai and Human Entertainment, and supervised by Gainax.

Neon Genesis Evangelion is based on the anime of the same name, taking place in 2015, where 50% of Earth's population has been wiped out by a catastrophe known as the Second Impact.

The organization Nerv assigns three teenage pilots—Shinji Ikari, Rei Ayanami, and Asuka Langley Soryu—to pilot a cyborg named the Evangelion to destroy alien beings known as the Angels before they eradicate the rest of the human race.

[2][3] Additionally, a temporary shield called an "AT Field" can be generated to defend against attacks, an ability shared with the Angels.

[9] The Neon Genesis Evangelion anime was a hugely popular series after its release in Japan making video game adaptions inevitable.

[13] Evangelion 64 was announced in October 1998 and demonstrated at the Tokyo Game Show the same month, where it generated the longest player lines at the tradeshow.

[13] Bandai's North American division considered releasing Evangelion 64 in the United States if it deemed its gameplay suitable for Western audiences.

[4] Nick O'Shea, a reviewer for Hyper, described the game as "interactive anime" with limited moves in combat and battles that often were reduced to "button mashing".

[18] Nutt showed admiration towards the voice acting and graphics for being "surprisingly well represented" by the Nintendo 64's limited capabilities.

[27] Bruno Sol of Superjuegos also commended the title for faithfully reproducing most of the events from the anime series and the film Death & Rebirth.

[23] Daniel Quesada of Hobby Consolas felt it was a good adaption of the series with well-designed graphics, and more interesting than the majority of Evangelion video games.

[24] Others were more critical, such as USgamer, which called the game mediocre and suggested Evangelion fans should play Super Robot Wars V instead.

Despite this, Crimmins was critical of the game's handling of its source material, particularly removing the anime's unsettling and psychologically dampening tone in favor of one that was more lighthearted.