A quirky action game, this is very on-brand for Devolver Digital, and I'd heard it bandied about on some GOTY lists, so I thought I'd give it a try on Game Pass. It's a good game, but I don't really think it's for me. That said, I enjoyed the 3 or so hours it took me to beat it on normal mode, even if I don't see myself ever going back to this game.
If you've ever played Hotline Miami, then My Friend Pedro's core conceit should be very familiar. Go through a level doing kills as quickly and efficiently as you can to try and get a high score (or at least finish the level). The twists MFP brings to the table are that this is a side-scroller instead of top-down, you have far more health than the basically one-hit deaths of Hotline Miami, and it has a bullet-time feature where you can slow down time to aim shots better. You can use 5 different types of guns, you can wall jump, kick stuff, make barrels fall onto people, kick a gas canister into their face and then shoot it before it falls onto the ground to make their buddies blow into tiny pieces and then kick the pieces into the face of the buddy who didn't get blown up. There's a lot of silly nonsense you can pull in this game if you get into it enough, and the top scoring runs for this game must look suuuper awesome.
The story is neat, but not that important. You're an amnesiac who wakes up in the back of a butcher shop about to be killed, but your hallucinatory banana friend Pedro gives you bullet time powers and helps lead you on your quest to horrible bloody murder (and safety). The world has a very neon, flashy look to it that clashes with a grungy, dirty dystopian flair. It's not the neon super-vomit style of Hotline Miami, and it's not entirely unique, but it looks nice.
Verdict: Hesitantly Recommended. At least for my tastes, this hasn't really come close to replacing Hotline Miami (coincidentally enough also a Devolver Digital game) in my heart. The lower recommendation is almost entirely down to it not really meshing with my tastes and it not really overcoming the quality of Hotline Miami for me. If I had to tell you which of the two to pick, I'd say HM every time, but if you're all Hotline Miami'd out and want something similar but different, this game is something you'll probably like a lot.
If you've ever played Hotline Miami, then My Friend Pedro's core conceit should be very familiar. Go through a level doing kills as quickly and efficiently as you can to try and get a high score (or at least finish the level). The twists MFP brings to the table are that this is a side-scroller instead of top-down, you have far more health than the basically one-hit deaths of Hotline Miami, and it has a bullet-time feature where you can slow down time to aim shots better. You can use 5 different types of guns, you can wall jump, kick stuff, make barrels fall onto people, kick a gas canister into their face and then shoot it before it falls onto the ground to make their buddies blow into tiny pieces and then kick the pieces into the face of the buddy who didn't get blown up. There's a lot of silly nonsense you can pull in this game if you get into it enough, and the top scoring runs for this game must look suuuper awesome.
The story is neat, but not that important. You're an amnesiac who wakes up in the back of a butcher shop about to be killed, but your hallucinatory banana friend Pedro gives you bullet time powers and helps lead you on your quest to horrible bloody murder (and safety). The world has a very neon, flashy look to it that clashes with a grungy, dirty dystopian flair. It's not the neon super-vomit style of Hotline Miami, and it's not entirely unique, but it looks nice.
Verdict: Hesitantly Recommended. At least for my tastes, this hasn't really come close to replacing Hotline Miami (coincidentally enough also a Devolver Digital game) in my heart. The lower recommendation is almost entirely down to it not really meshing with my tastes and it not really overcoming the quality of Hotline Miami for me. If I had to tell you which of the two to pick, I'd say HM every time, but if you're all Hotline Miami'd out and want something similar but different, this game is something you'll probably like a lot.