Recent reviews by Syviery

I had a consistently good time during my playthrough, so I'd definitely recommend this game. The highlight of the game is in the characters and writing. There's plenty of life and personality in the world of Bittersweet birthday and I'd be remiss not to mention the gorgeous pixel art. These elements carry the game. I tend to play more combat oriented RPGs, but the story was engaging enough to keep me playing during the slower moments.

The term boss-stroll defines this game perfectly. I'd say my initial playthrough was about 15 hours and maybe 2-3 of those were boss fights and puzzles. I also know that I didn't do myself any favors in that department by looking for absolutely every bit of side-content and dialogue. The gameplay loop consists of 1-2 hours of cutscenes and story progression in-between each boss fight, with side-content accessible during breaks in the story. The bosses were engaging, but not super difficult, as someone relatively familiar with action-combat. I played without memories, as suggested, and beat at least a few of the bosses on my first try. The rest took just a few more tries. The bosses felt intense and I could see someone less experienced struggling, especially with a few difficult memories turned on.

My main critique would be that the pacing can feel slow towards the second half of the story. After the time reset shenanigans and once the story progression was no longer just focused on the build-up to the next boss, the bosses felt a bit like gates to more story, instead of fun breaks. I think this was because I beat them relatively quickly before going right back to another couple hours of story. Admittedly, I may have front-loaded the side-content by doing it as soon as it was accessible; so, I didn't have those as breaks from the main story for the final third of the game. I'd suggest that people take it a bit slower and do the side-content when they want a little breather from the story. I was worried about missing out on some content and unique-interactions but the game does a pretty good job about not letting you miss too much. I think a few more small QOL features would help, because I spent a lot of times checking NPCs for new dialogue, but it's clear that effort was put into that area. The games tries to communicate to the player their completion progress in diagetic ways, although it was sometimes still unclear to me.

To summarize- Bittersweet Birthday is a fun and engaging game that looks gorgeous. However, it's heavily dominated by cutscenes and story segments that can slow down the pacing at times. The story was enough to keep me going, but I'd still have enjoyed a tighter experience a bit more. I'd recommend the game to people who like slow burn mysteries with unique characters and don't mind fighting a few bosses to see it.

Just a couple hours in but I can already tell I'll be playing much more. I reached up to the second boss thus far and am enjoying it a lot.

The game has many of the standard tropes of rogue-lites with overall progression through item unlocks, additions to the hub of NPCs and aesthetic updates and all those little tid-bits. In my opinion, they are implemented quite well and have a satisfying progression sequence. I've found the dialogue to be quite charming and the art is adorable as all heck.

A fun game with good stealth elements that lend to the overall atmosphere!