Bittersweet Birthday Review
Boss-rush adventure Bittersweet Birthday offers a compelling story behind its battles.
Bittersweet Birthday. Credit: World Eater Games / DANGEN Entertainment
Bittersweet Birthday from World Eater Games and DANGEN Entertainment is the product of a successful crowdfunding campaign. The game is a story-driven boss-rush adventure interspersed with narrative exploration segments that can feel too lengthy at times.
You wake up in a facility as an amnesiac. A voice on the intercom promises aid in escape, but you must take care, as you’re being hunted. A strange bird-like being taunts and fights you, but after you defeat him, you awaken in a village elsewhere, and now he’s your brother. What’s going on?
Bittersweet Birthday. Credit: World Eater Games / DANGEN Entertainment
The narrative unfolds through temporal shifts that keep you constantly reorienting, piecing together why unstable pursuers hunt you. Horror bleeds into sci-fi, mystery tangles with dark humor, and when the revelations finally hit, they land hard. Yet the game can't quite maintain this intensity. Exploration segments stretch too long between confrontations, diluting the urgency that makes the mystery compelling.
Every fight is a multi-stage boss encounter requiring souls-like dodging and parrying for success. Victory feels earned because these battles genuinely test your ability to read and react. The issue is that the fights are so spread out that it’s difficult to develop that muscle memory that other Souls-likes cultivate through repetition. The memory system helps by letting you tweak difficulty through collected modifiers, though it feels more like a band-aid than a solution.
Bittersweet Birthday. Credit: World Eater Games / DANGEN Entertainment
The village exploration sections aim for contrast. NPCs offer quests, and minigames provide some variety. These diversions charm but lack substance. At least the pixel art makes wandering pleasant, with environments and character designs that pop with personality.
Bittersweet Birthday never quite finds its rhythm but offers enough emotional resonance to justify the journey. The game is compelling but imperfect.
Bittersweet Birthday is available now on Steam.
Overall Score: 6/10
Played on: Steam Deck
