Summary
Your birthday is a special occasion that often involves gathering with family and friends, enjoying cake, and celebrating another year of your life by doing the things you love. As great as these activities can be, it’s sometimes nice to just relax on the couch with your favorite game for a low-key party.
It’s not incredibly common, but certain video games acknowledge your birthday with a special event or cutscene when you boot them up on your special day. These celebrations usually have little impact on the actual adventure, but it’s always nice to feel some love when you play these games on your birthday.
Fire Emblem is a turn-based strategy series that often involves entire kingdoms going to war with each other to claim some kind of power. Despite this, the games always leave room between battles for you to interact with your team and improve your social bonds with them by giving them gifts and just having a conversation.
Fire Emblem Awakening for the 3DS was thefirst entry to ask for the player’s birthdayat the beginning of the adventure, and it’s become a staple of the franchise since. If you play Awakening, Fates, Three Houses, or Engage on your birthday, you will receive special dialogue from most characters and will usually receive a unique item only obtainable on your big day.
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There aren’t many live-service games that go out of their way to celebrate your birthday, which is a shame because these are the types of titles that could stick with you for anywhere between a couple of years to an entire decade. Genshin Impact was massive when it launched in 2020, and one of the things it does differently than others is that it actually rewards you for playing on your birthday.
When you create your Genshin Impact account, you’ll need to fill out your profile with information, including what day you were born. When that special day finally arrives, you’ll receive a Cake for Traveler, which provides you with a Fragile Resin and a cake that stays in your inventory permanently.
Seaman was one of the most interesting games on the Sega Dreamcast. This virtual pet simulator requires you to raise the titular fish-thing and talk to it using the official microphone accessory, allowing the Seaman to learn critical details about you, like your age and gender, that it uses as a basis for conversation.
One of the things it might ask you about is your birthday. Seaman will remember the date you told it, and when it finally arrives, Seaman will bombard you with interesting trivia about events that took place on the same day. While you might have better things to do than hang out with a talking fish on your birthday, at least you could learn a thing or two about what else happened in the world on the day you were born.
Metal Gear Solid 5 is a thematically-heavy game that touches on sensitive subjects like child soldiers, loss, and how far someone will go to exact revenge on another person. Despite this, The Phantom Pain finds plenty of time to be just as silly as its predecessors, with some hilarious gameplay options and cutscenes.
It might seem weird at first, but Metal Gear Solid 5 begins with the protagonist in a hospital bed being asked questions like his name and birthday. This information is actually critical to the story, but a nice little Easter Egg happens when you play the game on your special day. The crew at Mother Base will surprise you with fireworks, a cake, and a jolly celebration before you have to head back out to save the world.
Hideo Kojima seemed to really enjoy the special birthday cutscene from Metal Gear Solid 5, so much so that he has implemented the same idea into both of the games he’s directed since then. You play as Sam Bridges in Death Stranding, a lonely deliveryman who must travel across America to reconnect the nation by walking to settlements and convincing them to let you put them on a network together.
Sam ends uplearning that he needs to rely on others to succeedand eventually becomes friends with characters like Fragile, Heartman, and more. If you play either Death Stranding or Death Stranding 2: On the Beach on your birthday, you will be treated to very fun scenes that display the camaraderie between Sam and his companions and how much fun they can still have in a world full of BTs.
Tomodachi Life is easily one of the strangest series in Nintendo’s massive catalog. It’s kind of similar to Animal Crossing except the residents in Tomodachi Life are Mii’s instead of anthropomorphic animals, and the humor is just as absurd as a Tim and Eric sketch. Your Mii will act as your avatar and should share your birthday so the two of you can celebrate simultaneously.
If you boot up Tomodachi Life on your birthday, you’ll find a handful of your favorite characters in your Mii’s apartment to surprise them with a party. From singing “Happy Birthday” to receiving special greetings from your digital pals, the game does a decent job of encapsulating the experience of coming home and being shocked to find your best friends waiting for you.
Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin is one of the last mainline 2D entries in the popular series, and it continued to refine the elements that made the franchise so iconic while introducing new mechanics to keep the experience fresh for longtime fans. Something unique to Portrait of Ruin is that it will actually read your registered birthday from your DS and treat you to something sweet if you play it on the same day.
If you visit Vincent’s shop in Portrait of Ruin on your birthday, he’ll have an item for sale called the Birthday Cake. you may purchase it for $3,000 gold, and it will refill a significant amount of your health bar. This cool feature was removed inthe version of Portrait of Ruin in the Dominus Collection, where you can buy a cake from Vincent every Sunday instead of waiting once a year.
Pokemon
Many people grew up with the Pokemon games, and it’s always exciting to celebrate the franchise’s anniversaries with new cards, games, and other collectibles. The series must know that it wouldn’t be the cultural juggernaut that it is without its loyal fanbase, so it’s been returning the favor and celebrating the player’s birthday since Pokemon Diamond and Pearl.
Like Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin, Pokemon Diamond and Pearl would know when your birthday is because of the information on your DS, and that trend has continued through to modern entries like Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. Every Pokemon generation does something a little different, like giving you items or unique dialogue, so don’t hesitate to set some time aside to boot them all up on your birthday.
Animal Crossing might seem like a chill game about pulling weeds and paying off your debt, but it’s much more about connections and the bonds we make with our friends and neighbors. Every villager has a birthday that you can help celebrate by giving them gifts, and they will do the same for you once your special day rolls around.
Birthdays have always been a part of the series, but they really started to shine in Animal Crossing: New Leaf for the 3DS. There, you will find villagers in your house to party and celebrate with a cake that requires you to blow on the console’s microphone to extinguish the candles. You could easily spend an hour or two with your villagers on your birthday, and it may end up being the highlight of your day.
