My Friend Pedro is overall a pretty good time. The controls probably could be a little tighter but the gameplay is very fun, especially when you get the swing of things and are rolling and spinning around killing everyone with style. The level design and the way the different mechanics get added on gave a good feeling of progression. The story is pretty bland, and the big twist at the end is very uninteresting, but it can be pretty funny and it has just the right amount of wacky-ness to be enjoyable. Its no Hotline Miami or Katana Zero but if you're in the mood for more like it, this is an easy recommend for a few hours of fun

Trophy Completion - 79%
Time Played - 4 hours 13 minutes
Nancymeter - 74/100
Game Completion #45 of 2022
April Completion #14

Some of the most pleasurable mindless violence this side of Hotline Miami. My Friend Pedro is built on a perfect intersection of simple and satisfying, with levels made to facilitate moments that somehow feel just as cool as they look and never get old.

One moment you're backflipping off a skateboard and through a window in bullet time before taking out two guys at once by firing your dual pistols in different directions, next you're kicking a frying pan across the room then ricocheting a bullet off it in mid air to get the guy hiding behind cover - all done organically with real-time physics and underscored by a hammering EDM soundtrack. It's the kind of audio-visual stimulus overload our ape cerebellums are built to seek and get instantly fried by. Every gun feels great too.

Sure the dice are a bit weighted in favor of raditude - you know, for example, that richochets will almost always land in your favor while blasting sewer-dwelling mutant gamers, but this just enables you to blaze through with the exaggerated swagger of a John Wick.

It's the only game in recent memory that I've wished was longer, though it does get a little more uneven as it goes on. A few levels forego combat altogether, opting for puzzle-platforming. While these bits are pleasantly retro in design (possibly owing to its Flash game origins, also something that bleeds through in its enjoyably stupid plot) and I detected some heavy Oddworld influence in the more intense sequences, at best they feel like interludes between the real gameplay and will have one itching to get back to the fireworks factory.

The other fumble for me are the S ranks, the requirements being so brutal it squeezes most of the fun and just became frustrating. You can rush through a level taking out every enemy in a perfectly strung combo chain and still only land an A-rank. The time requirements are so strict that every little physics snag or a moving platform being a micrometer farther away than convenient ruins your run and means you're punished for use of bullet time, disabling probably the game's single funnest element. Some lunatics surely loved the trial-and-error perfectionism but I gave up on S-ranking most levels quickly for fear of ripping out some hair.

That's a minor gripe overall though and I'll no doubt replay through these levels many more times regardless of what rank I get. Victor Ågren, if you're reading this please make a sequel and inject it directly into my eyeballs.

I could tell you about how repetitive, gratuitous, ugly, unfunny and just plain awful this game is, but instead I think it'd be more productive to give you a list of some other things you can spend your time on instead of playing My Friend Pedro.

-Clean the house
-Go for a relaxing nature walk
-Watch a movie
-Learn a new hobby
-Catch up with old friends
-Play literally any other video game

I really did not enjoy my time with this game. If it wasn't for the boss battles, I honestly would have regretted my purchase. I dislike the controls of the character, specifically aim. Maybe it wouldn't have felt so bad if I used a keyboard and mouse but eh whatever.

I wasn't a fan of stage layouts and "puzzles", they were honestly either annoying or straight up boring. I didn't like the grade system either, the game just wasn't fun enough to participate in it and it was just lame to constantly see C's most of the time.

I loved the first boss battle the most and found the third one to be the most meh. The final boss was great, but that ending scene ruined the moment unfortunately.

The music isn't my style, it's similar to Midnight Fight Express. Which I said in that review, it just isn't my taste regardless of the game.

Anyways, I personally wouldn't recommend it. It's something but it's definitely not great.

I wish the level design focused more on cool action movie shit instead of gate puzzles and laser beams. Needed more frying pans.

The physics are the defintion of floaty and playing on a controller doesn't feel right because of the trigger usage. It probably plays better on PC.

It's only 4 hours but playing it was a bit of a pain sometimes. I don't feel like revisiting it any time soon, but I guess I had fun. The gunplay is satisfying, at least.

everything's very floaty and imprecise, and i find it difficult to manage the controls (you essentially need to have your indexes on r1/l1 and middle fingers on r2/l2, and then you're clicking a stick while moving sideways in the sidescroller to activate bullet-time, etc). it's kind of like if katana zero had the gamefeel of gang beasts - not an especially compelling power fantasy, nor is the challenge of it interesting to me. the small handful of deaths i experienced felt dissatisfying, rather than like learning opportunities or a personal failure.

sometimes i can power through a game where i have these complaints if the story or presentational elements are enticing enough, but i don't really like much of what this game is offering there. the music is fine, the visuals are grey and unremarkable, and i just really don't care about my character (what bland design, looks like someone opened a tacticool magazine and drew some guy from the background of an ad for ar-15 rail-mounted accessories), or the talking banana, whose jokes are all groan-inducing and lame.

admittedly, i'm not that far in, so maybe there's a really interesting twist regarding this banana that would turn the whole thing around for me, but i sincerely doubt it. i might pick this up again to see if the controls feel better after sleeping on it, but i've played much better versions of this, the split-aim shooting is a neat innovation, but not enough to keep me here.

An enjoyably straightforward game-ass game. That blunt simplicity does mean that this does better in small doses, though—I frequently find myself taking breaks between levels. But if you're looking for an enjoyable over-the-top shooter with some fun movement mechanics, I wholeheartedly recommend this.

The one real gripe I have with My Friend Pedro is that I don't get how its scoring system works or why it's even in the game. A big part of the reason I still haven't beaten this despite putting well over ten hours into it is that I'm a little perfectionist sometimes; it took me hours to beat Ultrakill's first stage, and that's only because I kept trying to get an S on it with the starting weapons. In Ultrakill, you're rewarded for speed, combos, and absurd kills. In My Friend Pedro, I've beaten stages where I have a firm grasp on all three, but I finish with a C because? Because I don't know. I know there's a bonus for playing on harder difficulties and another bonus for not dying. But other than that, how well you're actually doing on a level is poorly telegraphed. To bring up Ultrakill again, another thing that I like about that game's scoring system is that it takes into account kills that aren't just shooting guys very fast. There's a bonus for shooting at a coin and getting a ricochet shot to land, one for blowing up groups of enemies, one for jumping on the heads of your enemies, and so on. Although it's fun to jump off of an enemy while dual wielding pistols, split my aim mid-air, and kill two guys at once in slow-motion... I don't feel like the game ever adequately rewards me for doing it. I know exactly how this is going to be misconstrued; "skill issue!" Counterpoint: Hotline Miami 2. I suck ass at that game, but I feel content about it. Something about My Friend Pedro's mix of score-centric systems and movement-based shooting mechanics just don't click in the way they should for me, and while I'm usually okay with a B or a C, I find that to be disappointing.

Edit: beat the game. The scoring system never makes more sense, and I actually think it's a creative decision that sets this back in the long haul. Otherwise, this is a solid three stars!

MUITO divertido. A história em si é total simples e superficial mas o seu grande ponto forte é uma jogabilidade viciante. O game tem um level design IMPECÁVEL tendo ambientes que favorecem a fluidez, valorizando os movimentos plásticos/parkour, as coberturas providenciais, e os ataque/mortes alternativas. Além disso o jogo traz uma diversidade de armas que alteram a jogabilidade.
O único contra que vi no jogo foi a pouca variedade de inimigos (e talvez o pós história fraco), fora isso o jogo é super viciante e desafiador.

This game was better when it was a tech demo you saw cool clips of on Twitter.

Pedro has a lot of cool ideas and mechanics, sometimes these feel as good as they should such as flinging a frying pan into the air to get ricochet kills off but too often does it feel floaty, unresponsive and inaccurate.

At first I forgave the "floatiness" as the game is wanting you to fly through the stages, killing everyone in spectacular fashion and all whilst dodging weaving between enemy fire.
However, as I played more throughout the day it just never felt good, it never felt right, I questioned why the game felt like the protagonist was moving in slow motion when there is a designated slow motion command.

Then it started to get worse; a transitional stage where you ride a bike that felt like a vintage coin-op (and I don't mean that as a compliment) continuing then later into levels that tried to turn the game into a platformer.
This is where the game just felt horrible and at parts I caught myself audibly laughing and saying "this is rubbish".

I imagine there are people who will read this review and find the feel of 'My Friend Pedro' perfect, giving them the desire to replay levels to get high scores and cool clips.
That's just not me.

Aesthetically the levels themselves are also very uninspiring and with a couple of major exceptions almost look the same.
Seeing the name of the final chapter of stages ahead of time I was expecting something wild but even then it was just disappointment.

This front end of this game shows you everything you want, but maybe 20 minutes later you'll have seen it's best.
It's weird for what is a 4-5 hour game to out stay it's welcome but for me this silly banana prick could've got out of my face ages ago.

I need banana,
Tasty Banana!
PUT BANANA IN MY MOUTH,
SQUEEZE THE PEEL, IT COMES IN DENIM!

ack ack ack SQUEEZE BANANA!!!

My Friend Pedro is exactly what it looks like: a short game about doing flips and shootin' stuff.

its sold entirely by its super solid gameplay that more than carries it for its brief 4-5 hour runtime. backflipping off a skateboard and shooting two guys in the face simultaneously is obviously crazy fun, and it remains that way to the end

this game's strong lack of a story would be fine since it bases the rest of itself on comedy, but its unfortunately one of the least funny games i have ever played. thankfully, all dialogue is brief and skippable, and theres no voice acting to cover up the incredible soundtrack that accompanies this game

this game doesnt pretend to be anything its not, which can be more of a downside for some than others. i for one appreciate this game for existing without shame, and hope more games like it can exist

My Friend Pedro reminds me of a lot of early 2010s flash games, just with a lot more polish and a good bit more meat to it. It’s got some platforming, some solid Adult Swim humor, and a healthy scoop of Max Payne-esque shooting, only in a 2D plane now. And I’ve got to say, it’s a better time than I expected. Each of the 40 levels is around 5 mins or less, perfect for short gaming sessions. Along with regularly introduced guns and platforming mechanics like levers and lasers, it helped the game from becoming stale. Though not wildly differing I liked to switch up my choice of weapon now and again, aided by a healthy share of ammo the game offers.

It’s pretty easy on normal difficulty. You almost have to try to die unless you never use your dodge or slow motion, though higher difficulties offer a healthy dose of challenge for those who want it. Plus if your aim isn’t horrible you can pretty much use slow motion permanently as long as there’s an enemy around to shoot. Speaking of, the spotlight of My Friend Pedro is how fun the movement combined with the slow motion is here. It has its derpy moments, but by and large the movement is very reactive and smooth.

The slow motion front flips, akimbo rope descents, and hilarious monkey-ball method of rolling around were a great mix of funny and cool. Skateboards, frying pans, and explosive barrels were there to break up monotony as well. I’ve heard others criticize the game for being too repetitive or basic; I respectfully can’t disagree more. Sure, it’s not winning any GOTY awards, but successfully combining an irreverent flying banana razzing you while you channel your inner action hero is more than I would’ve expected from a small pick-up-and-play game. There’s no million different methods to beat the game, except it was never advertised as such. Maybe it’s because I didn’t marathon it that I didn’t ever feel like it was dragging. I went into it lukewarm thinking the premise would expire before the game did, but I’m happy to report that was not the case. My Friend Pedro adheres to the “what you see is what you get” adage. And speaking personally, I’m quite happy with what I got.

A short but slick action shooter that feels like a toned down version of Hotline Miami in many ways. My Friend Pedro does a lot of cooooool things with it, the gameplay is easy to pickup, difficult to master but fairly addicting, the music is thumping, and it's all in a package that's around 3-5 hours (Beat it in around 3 but I could see it being a little longer on higher difficulty settings).

The look of the game is kinda interesting at first, nothing too crazy and over the top visually though and it does all feel kinda samesy and repetitive from that perspective as you progress through the various levels. The levels and look never change up all that much, enemies pretty much look the same, areas kinda all feel the same as well, so any interesting look does quickly fade into the background as you progress.

The gameplay is fun though. You're just looking to blast your way through these areas and build up your chain of cool shit (not sure what it's actually called but the chain combos continue to increase the more you're flowing through the various areas and as you chain together your kills).

The game does offer a bit of variety in the ways you can go about killing people, so you don't have to just bulletstorm your way through it all, but it's mostly going to be tied to that aspect either way. Whether that's ricocheting your shots off of things in order to hit guys, or going up or down ropes while shooting and taking guys out. You'll even at times be able to throw items up into the air and use it to your advantage, such as throwing a frying pan into the air and shooting it to have your bullets ricochet off of it and at enemies. You can kick people to death though, you can blow them up of course, you can hit them with barrels so there is minor things you can do to change it up slightly, though obviously the game's focus is on shooting things.

You'll be given a variety of weapons, starting with unlimited ammo handguns but you'll get the obvious things like SMGs, shotguns, even a sniper rifle and assault rifle. The guns are pretty by the book and you'll need to find ammo for them to consistently use them so you'll have to swap in between things as you go from area to area.

Swapping out isn't too bad, a simple press of the d pad left or right will change these up. The only issue is that you will have to scroll passed some of these if you're trying to get to a specific weapon. This on its own isn't a hard/bad thing, but when the game focuses a lot on frenetic, quick action and trying to rack up a massive action chain, slowing down to focus on the exact weapon you're trying to swap to does stick out a lot more.

As you progress too, the game does implement a few platform aspects to the game, simple puzzles you'll have to do in order to get to the next room. These are relatively easy but these actions are definitely not the games strong suit. They just feel a bit off and not as tight as I'd like.

Overall though, for a game this short, it's hard to find massive faults. If you like stylish arcadey action games, My Friend Pedro is a solid single playthrough experience.