My Friend Pedro (2019)

My Friend Pedro is a side-scrolling action dual-stick Shooter. You play as an unnamed, and unvoiced protagonist. Being told what to do by a banana? That's right, Pedro the Banana. The object of My Friend Pedro is to blast your way through all the enemies. The way you get to do this is the treat!

During the game, you get to use gratuitous amounts of bullet time, and impressive yet awkward during certain moments; acrobatics to flip, spin, twist, and even aim two different directions to dispatch your adversaries. You can kick knives out of the air at your opponents, or toss a frying pan in the air and ricochet bullets around obstacles. The game's physics, mixed with the slow-mo effect of the bullet-time make you feel like an unstoppable badass, and look like one too! The weapon variety is a bit slim, but each weapon has it's best use, and you use them all.

The Story is nearly not there, and there aren't many memorable characters either, but none of that detracts from the action. Most of the "humor" feels forced but is a few times good for a chuckle to break up the gunfire. Even without bringing a story to the table, My Friend Pedro will keep you blasting away. On the easier difficulty, you can just press your way through most of it, but if you pump that difficulty up, each battle feels deep and challenging!

This game does exactly what it set out to do, allow you to be a badass that can twist flip through a window and shoot 4 enemies before landing. Incredibly fun shooter, and will make a great addition to any bullet-time fan's collection!

This is such a fun, self-aware game. It’s a short, simple yet innovative and stylish side-scroller with pretty cool mechanics and a nice sense of flow. Shooting and movement are arguably the 2 most important aspects here, and in this sense, the game is balls-to-the-wall goodness from start to finish. Both are impressively competent and fluid, and the physics are really cool, but the gunplay in particular takes the cake: all weapons feel great to use, shoot and listen to, and it’s a blast to tear through waves upon waves of enemies in such chaotic style. Style, by the way, is another thing this game does very well. It has quite a unique art design, both in visuals and in sound (I wasn’t the greatest fan of the music in the beginning but I quickly came around to it). It also boasts more-than-decent level design and a couple of awesome segments. With its overall solid mechanics, its arcade style bosses and its short runtime, there’s a compelling ‘just one more level’ syndrome to this game that I haven’t experienced since Streets of Rage 4. The challenge gets pretty steep but in a gradual way, giving you ample time to master the mechanics by the time things start to get tough. Finally, this game is whacky! I love the fact that it never, ever takes itself seriously, and even with a couple of unexpectedly serious moments, it always wears its ridicule on its sleeve. I mean, having a talking banana as your journey companion - which adds some well integrated comic relief and a strange level of comfort - kind of tells you all you need to know here.

It does have a few frustrating moments mechanically (which become especially apparent in segments when reaction time is paramount), and I can’t say I loved all levels equally, but as a whole, My Friend Pedro is an authentic, original, truly enjoyable experience that you’re bound to have a great time with, even more so if you’re into the 2D shoot ‘em up genre. 7.5

This game seemed like my jam but sadly I just didn't vibe with it. The music is great, art styles fine and the dialogue is fun but the game controls felt really clunky.

Aiming, jumping, dodging and moves that are mainly meant for style points were all clunky and I guess overwhelming for me, i really wanted to like the game but just couldn't get used to it. It's frustrating how much recoil the guns have and even when your aiming at the enemy it doesn't always hit. There's a way to split your shots when dual wielding but the auto target will sometimes lock on to a target That's in cover or behind a wall rather than the enemy out in the open, it just got frustrating. Unlike sifu or hotline Miami this games mechanics just aren't tight enough.

Best part for me is the music and I'll definitely be listening to this playlist. I personally can't recommend the game due to it's controls which is disappointing.

I finally completed My Friend Pedro and boy, do I have feelings about it.

For starters, it's a brilliant concept. In fact, I had it on my wishlist long before it even came out, that's how interested I was in it. After completing it, I can say I'm glad I got it gifted to me and didn't pay for it because goddamn is it underwhelming. Aside from normal complaints like an unresponsive control scheme and a slowdown effect that will make you tear your hair out and make a hair smoothie with it, the absolute biggest crime it makes is that it's completely nonsensical.

This isn't a bad thing, inherently, if that's what you're going for, but My Friend Pedro clearly starts the game off with a hint of a plot, and by the games final act, really seems to be heading somewhere. By the time you're well into the final act, it seems like the game has something to say about the internet, culture and violence in general. This is all well and good, except that it doesn't. It's just there for the sake of having a story of any kind and serving as a basis for having gameplay to go with it. The story, by the wrap up, makes zero sense, says absolutely nothing, and is completely vague and near nonexistent. Again, this wouldn't be a problem and, hell, most of the time I enjoy games that have very little plot in general and are much more about gameplay, which they could've done, but I think they felt obligated to put plot into this and that's when it all falls apart. Not to mention the gameplay didn't work 90% of the time anyway, so even if it had been all about gameplay it wouldn't have worked there either.

It's a real shame. Don't promise something if you have no intention whatsoever on following through. And now we're going to give this game a fucking TV show? Gimme a break. A TV show consists ENTIRELY a plot! How do you give something that decided to have as little plot as possible, under the guise of any whatsoever to begin with, an entire television series? What a joke. I don't know, man. Had it combined gameplay and a plot it would've been great, had it been one or the other, it would've been great, but the fact that it tried to do both and half assed the two of them...

...it just leaves a really bad taste in my mouth.

I'm not going to leave a review for this game, because this just isn't the kind of game I would review in the first place, because the kind of games I review have things to say and this sure fuckin' didn't. But I did want to get my frustration out, so there.

I was expecting a little more than what I got, but this is good enough.

My Friend Pedro is a hell of a fun game. While it doesn't offer a great challenge or tons of content, it shines on what it does, while it's doing it. The gameplay is creative, accessible and requires skill on harder difficulties. The writing is funny and level design makes you feel like a badass, traversing through chapters it with ease. It's not an AMAZING game, but it's "cool" to undergo the progress of its obstacles.

The whole game goes by in a flash. Not only its gameplay is extremely fast-paced, but its campaign lasts around only 4 hours. While this time can be very unique, it's not an excellent or very memorable experience.

Play this game if you can! I can't highly recommend it, but it's fun throughout its entire campaign. Also, always doubt a talking banana, just saying...

I have a rule that I have to give each game I try at least an hour or one achievement before I quit. This one I got a few achievements in but decided it just was not fun for me.

I think the controls are fine but it never "clicked" for me in that way where a game gets into a groove. I would get through the levels but never felt like I was doing a good job of it. I mostly got Bs and Cs so that checks out.

Games that are short are great but games that lengthen themselves by using rankings and "aiming for perfect runs" are really just not something I am interested in.

Story seemed kind of interesting and if I think about it I might google to see what the heck that was about.

Rather max payne inspired. it's a rather short (and at times quite silly) game but pretty fun and lets you keep at it with checkpoints (hotline miami 2 style) which really helps make the more reflex oriented puzzles less frustrating. This game is basically a Run and Gun action game mash-up of Gunpoint with Madness series and has bullet time key and a block/dodge shot button.

This game is pretty humours and funny and not one to be taken seriously. You literally wake up not knowing who you are and talk to a banana, who commands you to pick up a gun. what could go wrong?

The maps are wlll designed and explore several ideas and tricks and much of the game is rather imaginative. My Friend Pedro is yet another good example that platform games are somehow, always still able to be a fresh genre. A lot of the emphasis is on the maps more than the action and at times it feels more like a pseudo-puzzle or acrobatic game like dustforce or trials

Fun but fairly short and almost impossibly suited towards really achieve the finesse that the game makes you wish to strive for. The player often doesn't really feel in control of this bullet ballet and chaos will just happen.

But when you do good, and look good doing it, its awesome.