Review for My Friend Pedro. Game for Nintendo Switch and PC, the video game was released on 20/06/2019
Imagine for a single moment that you wake up, with no apparent explanation, in some sort of warehouse. In itself, this could throw you off a lot! Too bad, however, that Pedro, a flying and talking banana who will strongly advise you to get out of there, wreaking havoc on those who get in your way!
This is the crazy challenge that My Friend Pedro offers you, weird shooter developed by DeadToast Entertainment and distributed by Devolver Digital for PC and Nintendo Switch.
My Friend Pedro is basically a kind of Hotline Miami with side view and platform elements, an ignorant Twin Sticks Shooter, full of gory details and crazy stunts.
Our character will be called to go through 40 levels full of enemies, which he will obviously have to try to take out in the most imaginative way possible. To do this, our hero will have at his disposal, scattered throughout the levels, in addition to a regular football gymnastic, also a decent selection of weapons and armaments, often double (double pistols, double Uzi machine guns and so on) so that fire simultaneously in different directions.
This, combined with the remarkable ability to jump and dodge and, perhaps the main skill of the whole game, the ability to enter "Focus" mode, or a sort of bullet time in slow motion. Thanks to all these skills, we will be able to make our way through the levels in an extremely imaginative and creative way!
The chances of killing go up further as we understand how to use the elements of the scenario in our favor: bins, crates, various objects on the floor, fire extinguishers and so on. Everything or almost everything can be, if used “judiciously”, transformed into a weird way of killing one or more opponents. Of course, the speed and style with which we execute our kills will affect the general level completion rating, which we can also, if we wish, show off online and make us beautiful with friends and family.
Very nice also the possibility, at least in the PC version, the one we tested, to save once a level has been completed, a gif of our most stylish kill (or kill combo), at the sole discretion of the game. This gif can, of course, also be shared on social networks to bully anyone of our companies.
The gameplay is very high, but the great variety of available actions and related controls may not be exactly immediate, given the hectic nature of the game itself. Don't worry though! Pedro, our friendly flying banana, will be there to give us all the necessary explanations. Once you are familiar with the commands, however, it will be up to us to handle it in the most spectacular way possible. And, with only a minimum of practice and desire to experiment, you can perform, between jumps, somersaults, Focus and strange bounces, real killer combo fright!
As already mentioned the playability, once taken the hand, is very high. This, combined with a not excessive basic difficulty (apart from towards the final levels, where the learning curve undergoes a monstrous and quite unjustified surge), does not make My Friend Pedro a particularly long-lived title, we are talking about about five hours to complete the campaign with extreme calm.
Fortunately, the hilarious gameplay and additional difficulty levels (Hard and… Bananas!) Give the game a good deal of replay value.
Even the characterization of the characters does its duty in My Friend Pedro: our mysterious man has something of a "light-hearted superhero" à la Deadpool, or an ultra violent version of Spider-man, some opponents seem to come out of a movie Tarantino and then there's him, our flying yellow friend, a real guardian angel with all the skin!
Technically speaking, unfortunately, My Friend Pedro certainly cannot be defined as avant-garde. Mind you, the graphics do their job, with fluid animations and well-defined scenarios, but that extra something is missing, especially in the explosions, which is so dated. Not in a deliberately vintage way, but it's just an old game. This, together with a more than decent but not particularly inspired soundtrack (no memorable songs that remain in the head, for example), could make more than one person turn up their noses.
Overall, My Friend Pedro is a very fun game, ideal for fast, rather adrenaline-pumping games, and without too much effort. The high playability once you have learned the commands to the best, make it a title to try absolutely, trying to postpone the technical realization not exactly at the top for these times.
► My Friend Pedro is an indie-Shooter game developed by DeadToast Entertainment and published by Devolver Digital for Nintendo Switch and PC, the game was released on 20/06/2019
