My Friend Pedro

Altogether, My Friend Pedro is a speedrunner’s paradise, offering a charming story with good gunplay for its price tag. But if you are looking for pure replay value you won’t find that here (unless you are a speedrunner).

My Friend Pedro proves that gameplay is king in a bizarre spectacle of bullets, bananas, and parkour. Whilst other aspects of the game may not be up to the same level of quality as the gameplay, it doesn’t manage to tarnish this otherwise excellent adventure.

My Friend Pedro is everything I wanted it to be. Smooth, stylish gun play, powered by creativity that makes you feel like you’re making your own action scenes in a movie. What’s not to love? Pedro is love. Pedro is your friend.

My Friend Pedro is one of the year’s best titles, and is easily among the Switch’s premier indie titles. It’s funny, it’s stylish, and it’s challenging in all the best ways, and definitely needs to be played by anyone looking for their next quick hit of action gaming.

It's over too soon, but while it lasts My Friend Pedro is a unique, likeable shooter and some of the best fun I've had in a while.

There's so much to love about My Friend Pedro that it's often hard to find something to complain about, so I'll just end this gushing little review on an extremely high note: Out of all the Nintendo Switch games I've played so far this year, I think I've found my favorite. I have plenty more banana-related adventures to pursue -- and bullets to waste.

This game is Bananas. B-A-N-A-N-A-S.

My Friend Pedro is an enthusiastic, stylish take on the shoot ‘em up genre that’s elevated by its complex level designs and clever puzzles. It combines so many mechanics from so many games that you might lose track, but these elements all come together to create a unified, singular experience. If you ever wondered what you’d get by crossing Hard Boiled and Super Mario Bros., it would look a lot like My Friend Pedro.

Aside from its occasionally imprecise aiming and uncharacteristically restricting final moments, My Friend Pedro is a gorgeous amalgamation of the best portions of many wildly different genres.

Sometimes indie studios surprise us with little jewels and My Friend Pedro is a sample of it. It's a frantic, fluid, fun and visually spectacular title thanks to its physics and the freedom it gives the player when it comes to killing enemies.

A glorious and brutal ballet of blood and bullets, My Friend Pedro is a symphony of action that will leave your thumbs aching for more of its completely bananas fun.

Like the John Woo movies that it successfully emulates, My Friend Pedro is all about the action – and that action is excellent. The slow-motion gunplay, fantastical stunts, and score-attack-driven mechanics all work together to create one hell of an adrenaline-filled ride, even if it doesn’t give you much reason to come back to it once that ride is over.

A fine shooter that does great great a few things, while not trying to do anything new. It doesn't lasts long, but is extremely fun while it lasts.

Almost impeccable in substance despite gameplay inaccuracies, it is in the execution of My Friend Pedro that Deadtoast misses certain targets. It has a short lifespan, a lack of varied opponents, and the artistic direction is rather dull — which contrasts with the madness of the concept. Irreverent, frenetic and original, it encapsulates what publisher Devolver is all about. Each part is an explosion of fun, and that's the main thing.

Without a doubt, My Friend Pedro’s greatest strength is its gameplay. While its surrounding narrative and levels are not at the same level, they do not hinder what is an overall solid game. My Friend Pedro is a relatively unique game that is hard to compare with anything contemporary and plays well to its strengths. With the ability to replay the game on higher difficulty settings and compete for higher scores, we can see My Friend Pedro being a fun pickup-and-play title for the foreseeable future.

An effortlessly fun game to play and come back to. [Issue #41 – September 2019, p. 21]

So this what happens if you put a 2D-Max-Payne, Bulletstorm and The Club in a blender. Unfortunately the visceral action suffers from some visual hiccups.

My Friend Pedro may not be the most unique indie game ever but its stylish gun combat will certainly make you feel like a badass.

My Friend Pedro is as wacky as the name suggests. In a sea of games it is hard to make a splash, but Switch owners would be wise not to skip this fun romp. While it has some issues the pure joy of bouncing a bullet off a frying pan and into the skull of your adversary outweighs that frustration. I wish Devolver would put their games on more systems right out of the gate, as I think this game could easily make a splash with just about every gamer.

My Friend Pedro is graceful horrific violence at its finest, never resting for a minute before moving on to something new, and while it never quite makes sense at least there’s a talking banana to put things in to perspective.

My Friend Pedro is a very interesting indie game that focuses in it’s gameplay. Master its different mechanics, obtain bigger scores and make true mayhem without ever stopping is the game’s main point. It requires a certain dexterity from the player, but it rewards him with a great show of blood, bullets and bananas.

My Friend Pedro is an excellent pickup that justifies the price. If you’re looking for an action game similar to the absurd action of games like John Woo’s Stranglehold, this is an easy recommendation.

If you're a fan of the ol' ultraviolence, sentient pieces of fruit, attitude akin to that of games like Hotline Miami, or dizzying gorefests, My Friend Pedro is for you. Give it a look, and give the trigger a squeeze. You'll find it has quite the ap-peel.

My Friend Pedro is a wild action-packed ride, where there is no such thing as too excessive. With hours of unleashing hell on a bunch of ne’er-do-wells is good and all, managing to do it while obtaining an S grade is a tougher task. Pedro might not be a grand narrative experience, but it brings everything else to the party. Some of the one-off levels might not work so well, but they are far outnumbered by those that do. If you’ve enjoyed the trailers or enjoy run based puzzles solved by shooting people, then My Friend Pedro is for you.

It’s hard to complain too much about My Friend Pedro’s shortcomings, though. What’s here is incredibly fun and the inclusion of worldwide leaderboards for every level is perfect for competitive types. If there’s a sequel (and we really hope there will be), it will need to greatly expand on the bullet-time gimmick. For now, though, Pedro will definitely be your friend too.

One thing’s for sure, My Friend Pedro is another example of how Devolver Digital truly knows where to scout for talent. It’s a great companion piece to the other recent suicide missions of Katana ZERO and Ape Out, the three games almost playing out in similar fashion to Edgar Wright’s Cornetto trilogy. The team at DeadToast Entertainment has certainly created something that wonderfully builds upon the dynamics of Gun-Fu culture. But, there’s a need for extra content to fill out what’s currently on offer, as My Friend Pedro could easily benefit from a much-needed encore with a bag full of boomsticks and a few more bullets to the head.

All in all, though, My Friend Pedro is an exhilarating indie title. There is no greater feeling than slowing down time, diving through a window, dodging bullets with a pirouette in midair, and shotgunning an enemy into bloody chunks on the way back down. Few games can replicate that moment of pure tranquility you get in Pedro when you make it through a room unscathed with bodies littering the floor. Lastly, and this must be mentioned, Pedro pops out of the side of the screen when you do something cool, wearing a different shocking expression each time. There’s no other game like My Friend Pedro, and that’s probably the greatest accolade I can give it.

My Friend Pedro is an action movie compressed into a 2D-sidescroller, complete with an oddball premise, unlikely heroes, and bullet-time cinematics. It manages to be both a fast run-and-gun à la Contra as well as a slow, thoughtful platformer like Metroid. The game isn’t pushing any visual limits, but on the plus side, it performs fine on the Nintendo Switch’s tablet mode. My Friend Pedro may be short, but it’s an explosive, wild ride that is rarely boring and always bananas.

My Friend Pedro is fantastic. It’s one of those games meant to be played with skill and style, like a hack & slash or like Bulletstorm. If that’s something that appeals you, you’ll love this killer banana.

My Friend Pedro is a hyper-violent ballet that you control. DeadToast Entertainment takes players on an incredibly fun ride with the game’s enjoyable combat system. All good things come to an end though, and this one ends just a little too soon.

My Friend Pedro is the new Hotline Miami we are all waiting for, with a psycho floating banana named Pedro who suggests killing everyone. Lovely.

My Friend Pedro is a stylish side-scrolling shooter with tight core gameplay. Its Shootouts are tirelessly cool to look at, and the action remains entertaining throughout the four or so hours it'll take to get through. Unfortunately, the excellent gameplay is hindered by a drab, uninspired art style. Those looking for a story should keep looking, but if you just want a fun romp filled with bullet-ballet, Pedro more than delivers on the action front.

Although at first glance My Friend Pedro may seem a simple descendant of Hotline Miami, as soon as you dig under the surface a whole series of particularities emerges that makes it fully original.

Savage and weird like any good Devolver Digital game, My Friend Pedro holds true to it's motto : Blood Bullets Bananas as there are plenty of each. Shaped for speedrun and scoring alike, the game isn't too elitist, but suffers from a short life.

With slick gameplay mechanics and buttery smooth controls, My Friend Pedro will keep you coming back time and time again in the pursuit of that perfect run.

While a few finicky mechanics and a lack of content outside the campaign keep this from getting a universal recommendation, $20 still gets you a memorable experience and offers a deliciously fun twist on the sidescrolling shooter formula.

It's a testament to the strength of Pedro's core premise that you'll likely persevere through design fumbles, odd pacing and wonky writing in search of more bonkers ultraviolent combos and leaderboard glory [Issue#335, p.108]

The GIF generator’s feature is probably a good summary of what My Friend Pedro truely is: a vast collection of cool ultra-dynamic short sequences. But between these sequences, there’s nothing more, really.

My Friend Pedro seems like the kind of game that either clicks with you or it doesn’t. If you’re a patient player who likes killstreaks, points, and stylish gameplay, you might like this a lot. 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 eve though that "Max Payne, but in 2D" would be great... Turns out you were right. My Friend Pedro is just that: a ridiculously stylish shooter with the right amount of absurdity to keep you engaged until the end.

And at the end of the day, I’m not sure if I’m happy with what the game represents, but I can’t help but admit that the levels are well made and the core gameplay is immensely enjoyable.

My Friend Pedro can be an absurdly stylish action game when everything aligns but you’ll just as likely find yourself slipping over its unwieldy controls.

My Friend Pedro, for the most part, delivers on its promise to provide you with an almost endless variety of ways with which to carry out the flashy brand of OTT violence that’s had gamers eagerly awaiting its release. The controls can be cantankerous at times and the levels are far from being an eclectic mix, but it adds enough diversions to the action with light puzzling and platforming elements to keep things interesting enough to see through to the end. Also, your best friend is a banana.

My Friend Pedro's story is banal and cliche; the developers at DeadToast know this doesn't matter. You'll keep playing because it's fun.

It isn't consistently exhilarating throughout the entire campaign, but My Friend Pedro is worth playing because it’s full of moments where you can jump down a shaft and shoot in two directions in slow motion, or kill an enemy by kicking the skateboard you’re riding into their face.

Just when I had a solid grasp on the controls and could pull off stellar moments of action, the final stretch morphed into a series of annoying insta-death puzzles and dull boss battles. I had a fair amount of fun blasting fools in My Friend Pedro, but I wish my experience was more about losing myself in the frenzy of its action and less about navigating a tiresome control scheme.

Much like the laid back quips of our banana buddy, it's too easy to leave My Friend Pedro without many strong feelings.