There’s nothing quite like being humbled by a game, is there? For people across the land, there’s a thrill in a title that has the tenacity to hobble a player from the beginning and keep them there until they figure out how to succeed and flourish. Though players have had plenty of pain from Silksong, Ghost of Yotei, and Chicken Run: Eggstraction, there’s always room for another total aspect of humiliation to unveil itself before the grand jury. It’s important, as anyone who has spent time in the realm of Dark Souls or Furi, that you need to have a specific level of cohesion and identity to the punishment. It’s why something like I Wanna Be the Guy has its fans, but never really reached widescale acclaim. Therefore, it’s important that the people who pick up Bittersweet Birthday know exactly what they’re getting into.

Our protagonist, who enters into our world nameless, awakens inside a facility where he is being held prisoner for some unknown reason. Upon escape, he is beset upon by a birdlike humanoid, claiming to know him and also seemingly very intent upon killing him. The players have just a couple of mock battles before the real fight to the death begins, and you have to slay this self-proclaimed immortal in order to proceed: there is no opportunity to simply fail and progress. Once you finally slay Rocc, you’re beholden to a horrific headache that leads to some kind of flashback. Your fuzzy memory shows that you knew Rocc, and things begin to unravel as you find yourself stuck in a mental hell of shifting between a life you lost and your current, horrific existence full of questions, pain and confrontation.

The pacing for Bittersweet Birthday is an odd one, and it does take some getting used to. When you become stuck in the memories of the protagonist, you can almost forget what kind of game you’re playing. You get a chance to interact in and around the town where you presumably grew up, and the atmosphere is honestly quite interesting. You engage in a ton of conversations and interactions with characters who seem to develop throughout the game. It’s fascinating as you shift from the perspective of the “main character” to that of the side supporters and antagonists and you begin to see everyone in a different light from multiple angles. The exploration of it all, combined with the surprisingly in depth notes you develop, make the game’s world a fascinating place to explore.

Moreover, the environment and the world as it’s viewed through a fragmented lens compels players to indulge more and more of Bittersweet Birthday’s nonlinear storytelling. Characters and areas will be purposely blocked off, not by physical restraints but by inexplicable gaps in memory. Shifting into the perspective of others will sometimes lend itself to a new revelation, but, more often than not, what you see and know is limited only to what your mind is allowing you to recall. As you get more information about the true nature of our main character, it becomes apparent that the blanks and empty spaces are equally intentional and unintentional, creating a palette that World Eater Games has used to craft something very unique. On that note, I do recommend keeping the CRT effect on for the duration of the game: it adds to the overall atmosphere.

If Bittersweet Birthday were merely a game of discovery from a form of amnesia with a convoluted unveiling of facts and information, it would make for an interesting visual novel/walking simulator, and that would be that. However, the main component (and one of the things that drew me to this game) is the concept of “all killer, no filler.” Every single fight encounter is a boss fight, and so every combat is a fight for your life. You get introduced to the core mechanics early on (light and heavy attack, dodge rolling and “breaking” an enemy), but you gain some further abilities the further you get, including the important Memories that are discovered. We’ll get to the memories in a moment, but you should know that, from a combat standpoint, you learn everything you need to finish the game from the very beginning.

This serves as a sort of double edged sword. On the one hand, if you’re someone who revels in getting their hands dirty and having the full Soulslike experience in their gaming, then congratulations, you’ve hit upon a fantastic representation of that art. I am not exaggerating when I say it took me twenty times before I was finally able to deal with the very first boss, and I nearly rage quit in spite of being a reviewer for the game. The tenacity and precision needed for the highest percentage of success is, frankly, incredible. It’s one thing to not get hit, it’s quite another to dodge out of the way at the very last second in order to refill your stamina bar so you can continue hitting and, well, dodging.

Yet you never really progress beyond that first fight, in my opinion. Once you understand that everything is a matter of learning, waiting and needing to die in order to figure out the right way to deal with the phases, a bit of the excitement leaves the air. There’s no opportunity to power level your way up and brutalize the next boss, or discover a legendary weapon that’ll make mincemeat out of the big bad. You’ve just got what you were granted from the drop, and opponents like Rocc, Vega, and Ada will find new ways to get you to use your old tricks. Don’t get me wrong, it’s incredibly well crafted, but it’s not really my bag. I like being able to screw around and grind to get the upper hand, not actually get good. Is it humor or admission of my own lack of talent? It’s both.

The developers, to their credit, seem keenly aware of the game’s curve and, rather than offer a watered down experience for Bittersweet Birthday, they’ve included Memories that you discover through exploration that can tilt the game one way or another. For example, you can and will find Memories that make the bosses harder if that’s your thing, like giving them faster recovery time from being stunned, or making it so you don’t get health refilled between phases. More importantly, you’ve got Memories that shift the fights in your favor, by giving you health from good strikes or the aforementioned stamina refill from perfect dodging. While some of the Memories are definitely more potent than others in help, none of them ever eliminate the difficulty: even with the best help you can find, nothing is going to be easy or handed to you.

But I will say that the difficulty that delayed my review was not boss related, but environmentally related. There are a couple sequences where you need to get from point A to point B without some negative encounter happening, like, oh, getting caught by a giant, spectral rabbit. I was prepared for the game to test me on my techniques in fighting and surviving: I didn’t think I’d need to have razor sharp reflexes to dodge through ghosts and hide in lockers. That really took me out of the fun and intrigue of the game, and I needed to physically step away for a while to get my bearings and try again.

Yet I’m glad I did, because Bittersweet Birthday is a rollercoaster of reveals and almost philosophical presentation. You never, ever expect what’s going to happen next in the plotline until it happens, and that’s both because the story is borderline crazy and the characters have such believable and intense interactions that you’re hooked from the drop. Starting from the middle and simultaneously working your way backwards and forwards gives you such perspective on the events as a whole, and, without spoiling anything, the grand twist of it all delivers at the perfect time. When you include this phenomenally atmospheric soundtrack that carries the player along with tone and verse, it makes for a world where I could see the overarching tale being retold in another medium to reach a wider audience.

You will get frustrated. You will grind your teeth. You will feel your hands shake and that one muscle in your neck will get sore from being tense. But you will persevere, and Bittersweet Birthday will reward you as a result. If you cannot take the stress of it all, trade off with someone who doesn’t mind the fury and take over the controller when you’re given the chance to chat, play mini games, and collect gatchas, because that’s all lovely and good. But when the soundtrack shifts and menace is on the horizon, it’s time to beat your plowshare back into a sword. Get ready, and make a wish. After all, it is your birthday.

 

Graphics: 7.5 Avatars and portraits are clean and have a recognizable style. The number of environments is excellent, and revisiting under different conditions gives plenty of visual variety. Some overuse of dead space doesn’t have intended effect, instead leaving the screen too sparse at times.	Gameplay: 7.0 Conceptually, wonderful. The boss fights are blistering and the actual “cozy” moments are memorable and fun. Execution can be clunky: some aspects of the game require more precision than skill and it may actually come down to hardware affecting your experience. Having said that, Memory system is brilliant and makes the balance more attainable.
Sound: 9.0 Really wide range from the composers with different arcs of melancholy, somber, excited, and relaxing. The music does a mostly great job of storytelling, with one glaring exception about 70% through the game. Otherwise, no notes.	Fun Factor: 7.5 If there was a way to streamline everything and have just the storybeats along with just the boss fights, I would have considered it perfect. But the filler, as good as it is, isn’t always congruent with the remainder of the game. It’s solid, but it just doesn’t quite hit in time with everything else.
Final Verdict: 7.5

Bittersweet Birthday is available now on Steam and itch.io.

Reviewed on PC.

A copy of Bittersweet Birthday was provided by the publisher.