Introduction
My god, what a crime... There's no toilet paper left." Aya Brea, 2000
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The 3rd Birthday is a third person shooter crossed with a JRPG released by Square-Enix on March 29th, 2011 exclusively for the Sony Playstation Portable. If that description sounds vague, think *groans deeply* Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus. This is actually a sequel to the Parasite Eve games back on the original PlayStation. A series which managed to be a semi-real time combat strict JRPG, a Resident Evil clone, and now a full on third person shooter. It was originally announced as a mobile phone game for the Japanese market, before being expanded to a full PSP title. The Parasite Eve name was dropped from the title, since Square-Enix felt it was no longer marketable in the decade since the last game.
The 3rd Birthday was dubbed a conceptual re-birth of Aya Breas character to reintroduce to the gaming community. Which is fancy talk for a soft reboot. And the reimagining of the series protagonist is well Have you ever played Metroid: Other M? You know Samus Arans shitty portrayal in that game? Yeah. She may as well be fucking Ellen Ripley compared to Aya in The 3rd Birthday. It's incredibly bad!
If youve never played the earlier Parasite Eve games, dont worry! I dont think much of the writing staff did either. There are a handful of returning characters from the earlier games, outside of the core heroine, but they all may as well be in name only. And even Aya herself may as well be a completely different character. And the plots of those games are almost entirely inconsequential. Ill probably be making allusions to Parasite Eve I & II, since I did like those games quite a bit. Unlike The 3rd Birthday.
Ill get out in front and say I fucking hate this game. This is probably the closest you could get to the spiritual successor to Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus. Character designs are by our old friend Nomura, alongside the stiff stilted dialogue and directing like a Japanese soap opera really invoke that old late 00s Square-Enix feel. While at the same time having a plot that is a clusterfuck of poorly thought out ideas and plot holes, which actively shits on its predecessors in the same sort of way Chrono Cross plot pulled off. Its a real goddamn mess! You dont even know It's a terrible idea that I'll probably regret. But here we are!
With that said, lets begin
Part I: A Series of Quickly Escalating Events
Part II: Meat Puppets
Part III: Optimal Loadout
Part IV: Flavor Text
Part V: An Encore Performance
Part VI: Feats of Strength
Part VII: Bernfried Rockel
Part VIII: Scaling Issues
Part IX: The World is Changing
Part X: Shower Mechanics
Part XI: Mixed Signals
Part XII: The Ol' Stinky Beans
Part XIII: The Queen of Spanish Harlem
Part XIV: HR Complaints
Part XV: Attack of the Buzzing Mess of Polygons
Part XVI: Unfortunate Series Continuity
Part XVII: Family Ties
Part XVIII: One Night in Neo Kobe
Part XIX: I Am Russo
Part XX: Skipping Steps
Part XXI: And Now For Something Entirely Different
Part XXII: Maeda's House
Part XXIII: Mechanical Issues
Part XXIV: The Revisionist
Part XXV: Aya Brea Gets Nuked
Part XXVI: Science is Never Wrong
Part XXVII: Mudflaps, Meat Walls, and Bone Curtains
Part XXVIII: Berserker
Part XXIX: The Crooked Man
Part XXX: Aya Brea On Ice
Part XXXI: Flipping Out
Part XXXII: Parasite Eve
Part XXXIII: Sweet Dreams
Part XXXIV: The Third Birthday
Part XXXV: The Fourth Birthday
Datalog entries are additional information gathered in dry in-game text files. I've tried to make them interesting but... they're spruced up codex entries. There's only so much I can do. These entry summary updates were all made after the first update of their corresponding Episode.
Episode 1 Timeline: The Story So Far That Nobody Mentioned
Episode 1 Datalogs: Just the Facts, Maam
Episode 2 Datalogs: Fly Fishing Lore
Episode 3 Datalogs: Citation Needed
Episode 4 Datalogs: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back
Episode 5 Datalogs: Updated My Journal
Episode 6 Datalogs: Unlockable Email
The 3rd Birthday's Name Game