If you’re like me and have less patience for a game that feels unintuitive for the first 20 levels out of 40, the final product might not click so easily. If you’re a patient player who likes killstreaks, points, and stylish gameplay, you might like this a lot. The strategic use of split aiming, slow motion, and the ol' Stylish window breach create One sensational action sequence after another in an explosive battle through the violent underworld. My Friend Pedro seems like the kind of game that either clicks with you or it doesn’t. My friend pedro is a violent ballet about friendship, imagination, and one Man's struggle to obliterate anyone in his path at the behest of a sentient Banana. There isn’t a ton of story before the end of the game, and all you really need to know is, “an imaginary banana convinces you to kill stylishly.” ![]() To offset the repetition is a multiplier-driven scoring system that rewards creative play, but I didn’t feel overly compelled to engage with it beyond, “I killed 9 enemies! Cool!” As for the story, which has its moments, it probably won’t be enough to carry you through the game either. ![]() There’s a lot of the game that can be solved with “turn on slow motion, shoot dudes, and use your invincible spinning move.” The game does try to mix it up using stages that are about solving more traditional puzzles, like lasers you have to jump through using platforming rather than guns, but these kinds of levels, which especially show up in the back half of the game, are hit-or-miss. After the game starts to feel better to play, that’s when My Friend Pedro starts to get a little more repetitive. The controls taking half of the several-hour game to feel good is not the only issue I have. The guns feel pretty good too-a lot like what I imagine Hotline Miami would feel like as a sidescroller. A great example is when you bounce bullets off a frying pan in the air to kill enemies in all directions. I especially like using the environment to kill enemies. While it’s not exactly a puzzle game, the best encounters in the game feel like you’re completing a puzzle. It (eventually) felt good to make a plan, run into the room, and carefully execute each acrobatic massacre. Once I got used to the controls, I had significantly more fun with the gameplay. Nothing felt right to me, and as a result, the first half consisted of me running into a room, slowing down time, spamming my invincibility spin, shooting dudes, and moving on to the next area. While it’s hard to picture what I’m talking about from just button inputs alone, the controls felt hard to work with for, I’d say, the first half of the game. Shooting guns happens with ZR, clicking in the left analog stick controls slow motion, L controls a spinning move where you’re temporarily invincible, ZL controls aim and/or secondary fire depending on the gun, and the kick is mapped to X. ![]() My initial answer was a solid “no.” Before I got good, the controls felt very cumbersome. Trailers showing off the game make it look beautiful, but there was a question nagging me: Would it actually feel good to play? It’s a sidescroller where you, with a full set of guns, kill your enemies using acrobatics, slow motion, and the environment around you. My Friend Pedro, on paper, is super cool.
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