Bittersweet Birthday for Windows

Retrieve your memories

Bittersweet Birthday is a free action-adventure video game wherein you have to escape a mysterious facility. Developed by World Eater Games, this 2D pixelated indie game features difficult real-time combat mechanics combined with bullet hell elements. It feels like a nostalgic RPG, with its vibrant graphics and visual novel-like dialogue scenes. This version is just a demo but can take over an hour to complete.

Solve the mystery of the facility

Bittersweet Birthday starts with you waking up inside a recently-rundown facility with no memories at all. You’re greeted by a voice named Ada, who says that they’re currently locked up inside one of the control rooms to protect themselves from the people currently hunting them. You’re also a prime target and Ada suggests that the two of you team up to escape. You’ll have to find them, however, and survive encounters against strange enemies.

This game offers a punishing bullet-hell combat system that requires you to pay close attention to your opponents’ attacks. Similar to Enter the Gungeon and the Touhou Project games, you have to evade attacks that continuously fire for a set amount of time. You yourself can only do close combat so you need to survive waves of attacks and counter whenever the enemy briefly stops for their next move. 

The story switches between the present time and flashbacks of forgotten memories. Surprisingly, you’ll spend a good amount of time in the flashbacks, exploring the past when your life was still peaceful. You’ll get to meet a colorful cast of characters and the plot really enticingly dangles the mystery of the facility and why you can’t seem to remember anything. Additionally, you’re given the option to remap your controls for both PC and console devices.

Practice makes perfect

Overall, Bittersweet Birthday offers a great storyline that may interest RPG and mystery fans. The combat system is quite brutal, however, and you should expect that you’ll be retrying even the first actual fight a few times. It has a pretty pixelated art style, though, and has enough content to not even feel like a demo. If you like bullet hell games, then this is a recommended title to try out.