Holy shit! Hoooooooly SHIT! HOOOOOOLY SHIIIIIIIT! This was me during most of my time playing My Friend Pedro. This is the kinda game which epitomizes “fun” experiences. It isn’t too in-depth, nor will it bog you down with story and tutorials. Instead, it allows you to feel like a badass from level one.

Developer: Deadtoast Entertainment

Publisher: Devolver Digital

8 Hours Played // Review Copy Provided // $19.99

My Friend Pedro is a milestone for us at Nindie Nexus. Why? We can finally welcome Devolver Digital into the fold! One of the champions of the indie movement, it is an honor to finally be working alongside them. Anyway, onto the bag of epic gun-toting mayhem. For one, how many games have you played which involve a sentient banana? None, no longer! The bananas rise up and command you to gun down everyone in your path. That is essentially what you are doing in My Friend Pedro, and it is fucking awesome. If you will pardon my language for the entirety of this review. It really is an example of a relatively shallow experience, but that doesn’t make it a bad one. The gameplay loop is simple and to the point. The flash origins of My Friend Pedro are apparent and it’s one hell of a ride. Definitely check out the flash version if you remain unconvinced!

Let’s get one thing straight. If you checked out a trailer and decided My Friend Pedro wasn’t for you, it isn’t. As I said earlier, the gameplay is fairly basic so what you see, is what you get. It’s the equivalent of the flashy summer blockbuster movie which you go check out because the effects look cool. An inoffensively enjoyable experience, as long as you turn off your brain. Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed playing My Friend Pedro but just by the nature of it means some people will instantly be turned off. I mean sentient bananas make it worth the asking price alone. How about we dive right into the nitty-gritty!

Aside from sentient bananas, My Friend Pedro is all about the crazy set-pieces. Early on in the game, the action is relatively slow and simple, picking off enemies with pistols and SMGs whilst they hide behind boxes and emerge from doors. However, it quickly winds up to spectacular backflipping after diving off a rope and gunning down 4 goons all whilst duel-wielding MAC-10s. Before proceeding to hop on a bike and wheelie over a line of bikes before planting a shotgun shell in someone’s forehead. It’s like side-scrolling DOOM, you are quite literally just shooting the shit.

“YOU WILL DIE! Anything for my sentient banana!”

One of my favorite aspects of My Friend Pedro is how good it sounds. Deadtoast have nailed the gun sounds in particular. When I shoot someone in the head, I FELT THAT! The clip above perfectly summarises this! I hate blatantly awful gun sounds, especially when they just feel so light and empty! This is not a problem for My Friend Pedro here. It passes the test with flying colors if anyone was wondering. The soundtrack is rather phenomenal too, perfectly matching the frenetic gameplay. Ramping up when the action gets intense and scaling away as your heart rate decreases in the time between levels. Sound is so often underappreciated in games but is a crucial part of building the gaming experience. Case in point here, where sound adds to the atmosphere of chaos My Friend Pedro is trying to generate.

500 words in and I haven’t really told you about how it feels have I? My apologies. It really makes you feel like a gun-toting psycho listening to a banana. Nuff said. For real though, I was worried how the aiming would feel on a controller but a decent level of aim assist smooths out the whole experience. You obviously have to successfully aim to a degree, but that eventual lock-in that is aim assist will engage which ensures you will be hitting your targets. When dual-wielding you also have the ability to split your aim in two directions which can make for some amazing shots.

All this pales in comparison to the dope shit you can get up to with the slowdown option. Pressing L3 enters you into a slowed-down version of the world and allows you to perform some rather awesome maneuvers. I’m talking backflips off walls whilst shooting a barrel resulting in the death of a whole room of goons before you stop and go “WOAH”. I have so many clips of this game, and a good 99.8% of them are in slow motion. My Friend Pedro may as well be called, ‘Jon Wick: The Game’, for these epic moments. You don’t even need to be precise with your movements either. The game is forgiving in this regard, springing your character back onto his feet if you don’t quite finish the turn.

“You get a shell to the face, and you do too!”

My Friend Pedro is fairly intuitive too. A couple of levels in and I was already immersed in the controls and it feels incredibly natural. Tricks are easy to perform and dodging bullets is done through simply pressing L. My Friend Pedro isn’t aiming to punish you through rock hard difficulty, instead it is all about refinement and enjoyment. Each level awards you a grade based on various criteria and the emphasis is on achieving perfect runs in order to improve your scores. Simple yet highly enjoyable.

The only flaw I found in the gameplay is how slow you move. I can’t help but feel either increasing the movement speed or allowing a run button would have aided this. This is only an issue because of how jarring it feels in comparison to the rest of the experience. Selling itself as a fast-paced action-packed experience is fine but when you have brief moments of not shooting it feels incredibly slow. Do you know what would have been awesome? Removing the periods of slow “ambling” and switch it up with parkour segments in order to reinforce the chaotic nature of My Friend Pedro. It may seem like a small complaint but it just felt so out of place in the rest of the action.

I wouldn’t recommend playing My Friend Pedro in handheld, mainly because of aiming. I do have big hands which may have an impact on this, but I have never liked the form factor of the Switch. That bloody right thumbstick!! Just a quick note really, not the games fault but rather just the nature of the flawed layout of the Joy-Cons. My Friend Pedro feels the best while docked with a pro controller. Maybe even with the detached Joy-Cons, just not in handheld mode!

“Only Donkey Kong uses barrels better than me!”

Graphically, there isn’t anything too breathtaking. Honestly, in some places, things are a little rough This is likely because of the game’s attempt at maintaining a solid yet quick performance level, which it does really well. Still, some rough edges do exist. Who the hell is picking this one up because of how it looks!? It does the job just fine even if it does echo back to the flash roots of its predecessors. Handheld is much better in this regard. Mainly due to the smaller screen making it harder to actually inspect the small details and rough edges.

My Friend Pedro won’t redefine how you see video games. Nor will it immerse you in a 50-hour adventure. If you are looking for anything more than a fairly shallow but fun experience, look away. People will likely stay away from My Friend Pedro because of these reasons. I like to imagine the reason I play games is that they are first and foremost, fun. I had a lot of fun with this one! It’s probably my favorite experience on the Nintendo Switch for June. For these reasons, and just because I love the power fantasy it provides, My Friend Pedro is awarded a well-deserving of a full heart rating.

Well. I mean reviewing a Devolver game was pretty fun, shoutout to them for having faith in us! You should 1000000% check out some more of their games, such the The Messenger! or this epic piece by our own Joshua Robinnn on The Shared DNA of Gris and Destino. To keep the conversation going go follow us on Twitter and join our Discord. Also make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel where a video version of this review is available now!