DeadToast Entertainment's My Friend Pedro is the expected offspring of a Devolver Digital title: oozing with style and enough substance. Players looking for an addictive score-attack game in the vein of Hotline Miami will embrace the over-the-top gunplay and the emphasis on skill and replayability.
My Friend Pedro exists in the microcosm of Devolver Digital’s warm embrace. Anyone familiar with the publisher’s catalog would see gameplay of DeadToast Entertainment’s John Woo-like shooting acrobatics and immediately recognize the familiar stamp of frenetic style, just without the barrage of doves. Like many, I first latched onto this particular brand of batshit insanity with Hotline Miami, a masterpiece of sheer arcade-like gameplay that only cared to entertain players with ruthless violence and a pristine soundtrack.
Much like Super Meat Boy‘s ability to invigorate the thirst for painfully difficult platformers in the indie scene, Hotline Miami sparked a synthwave movement of cool across a small branch of gaming. At one point, I became so addicted to Dennaton Games’ series that I spent the course of a week or so pushing my limits to achieve a platinum trophy in both games.
Those who receive no joy out of videogame whiplash in the form of score-attack systems of constantly replaying and learning levels would likely do best to turn away. While it’s never a wise idea to shelve away a game for a particular group of players, I can’t imagine a person disinterested in this genre not being overwhelmed by some of its most brutal and engaging entries. Still, I want to make a case for why My Friend Pedro is one of those games that should not be missed.
Back in the day, kids like me used to rent games from a video store to while away the hours of a weekend. Often, these games had little story and were tough as nails, products of the arcade cabinets they were barely removed from. Mario’s sole purpose was to save a mushroom princess from a dinosaur. Unless you read the instruction manual, Link was really just killing a pig guy to get some triangles and save the world. On the other end of the spectrum you had something like Battletoads, where anything post-Turbo Tunnels was an arduous test on your infantile reflexes. Or Ninja Gaiden with its revolutionary cutscenes and nearly impossible difficulty.
Game stories were harder to communicate and not always the most important. Gameplay was key and to incentivize kids and adults to actually buy games, they were made harder to prevent a weekend rental clear. My Friend Pedro would rest comfortably in that lineup of games that would have pissed me off just enough that I wanted to get better to spitefully kick its ass in the end.
Nowadays, punishing gameplay is used as a tool for learning and entertainment rather than a way to coax a permanent purchase out of us. Throughout the handful of hours of My Friend Pedro‘s campaign, players will get micro-doses of narrative in which the silent “protagonist” is guided by a banana named Pedro, his friend, through brisk levels of artful massacre. Seconds into the game players should think nothing else other than “this is weird.” Little is done to explain Pedro and his fruitful existence. Your player character is simply told to grab a gun and escape. What ensues are levels of eviscerating retired mobsters, bounty hunters, “haters”, and more. Will it all make sense in the end? Yeah, sure. Twists and nods and turns exist for the purpose of driving the narrative deeper into the realm of nonsense insanity meant to illicit head-scratches and laughs from the player. It allows DeadToast to shave a large amount of the seriousness off of killing hundreds of grunts in comical and horrifying ways.
Pedro will often pop up to give the player a hint or make a comment at the beginning, middle, or end of a level. Think Navi from Ocarina of Time but without the dedication of a small child wanting to get your attention. The banana winkingly acknowledges players, often commenting on how weird everything is or how it’s Christmas but does its best not to directly break the fourth wall. They are moments meant for taking a breath or getting a chuckle before moving on to the next pulse-pounding deluge of death.
My Friend Pedro is all about taking in the glory of violent videogame deaths and exposing them for how utterly ridiculous they can be. After its release, Hotline Miami became a commentary on violence in the industry. Critics marinated on the game’s message of committing mass murder with seemingly little purpose, only because we were told to do so, much like (spoiler alert!) BioShock. Those of us who wish to dwell on the deeper meaning of existence and life can find some material in My Friend Pedro but to do so would take away from the sheer fun of actually playing it.
Style and speed are the currency here. Players are told that pressing down on a button will cause Pedro’s pal to do a ballet spin that will dodge bullets. This can be performed in mid-air, while dangling from a rope, or while falling between impossibly high skyscrapers. Furthermore, a Wachowski wet dream and Max Payne-era classic allows players to slow down time to line up shots or have a little space to plan a next move–and, in such a great move, this raises the volume of the incredible music to emphasize tension. When slinging dual pistols or dual uzis, players can lock onto one enemy and shoot them while lining up the other gun to shoot someone else.
In a matter of minutes the foundations of My Friend Pedro will be explained away and free reign is giving to players. Learning what surfaces can be shot through, when to wall jump to get a better angle, and when to kick a frying pan into the air to ricochet bullets everywhere are key fundamentals to making the game entertaining and stupidly addictive. A constant reminder of your performance is reflected in a score multiplier at the bottom of the HUD. More points are given for stylish kills and the multiplier is only extended by stringing together kills.
During my first run through My Friend Pedro, I snagged a couple of S-rank scores, a handful of A-ranks, and a dearth of B- and C-ranks. But I was not frustrated or disheartened. This kind of quality is similar to those who play Devil May Cry for the first time. Initially, you are learning the ropes and becoming acclimated to enemy layout and the best way to string together combos. When I tried to become adept with Hotline Miami, it took several hours of repeating levels to fully grasp how AI can be manipulated and how to run through tight corridors of a deadly building. Eventually, these things become second nature and I assume the same will happen with My Friend Pedro.
In the second bundle of levels, players are given a skateboard for the first time. Pressing the jump button and then kicking can launch the board right into the face of a person, killing them instantly. A goofy action such as this is not meant to be taken seriously and instead is meant to show players how kills can be done with a flourish. Multiple times I would forget that I could dodge bullets or slow down time because these actions were not second nature and I was too focused on making it through a level. As familiarity increases, players’ skill ceiling will begin to rise.
DeadToast is keenly aware of My Friend Pedro‘s style and wisely incorporates social media into the game. At the end of each level, players can download a gif of their most stylish moment and brandish it on Twitter. I was impressed with a few of the snippets that were memorialized for me and deflated by others because I knew I could do better. And that’s where My Friend Pedro excels as a score attack game. It is one thing of a developer to ask the player to trudge through a bland game with the best score or when there is no incentive (I’m looking at you bags of money in Castlevania). But here, a great performance does not just result in a high score, it creates an outlandish symphony of death and destruction. In the weeks and months to come I not only expect the online leaderboards for this game to be baffling, but the creative ways players tackle the game to be absolutely artful.
In five hours players can beat My Friend Pedro and file it away never to play it again. To do so, however, would be to miss out on a truly addicting game. The game becomes a test of skill when dialed up in difficulty but also becomes more rewarding. While it is possible, this game is not meant to be blitzed through in two sittings. Instead, you are meant to learn it. Each replay should feel like tossing a quarter into an arcade cabinet, a test between human and machine. Eventually, the subtle mechanics and stylish maneuverability of My Friend Pedro will become intrinsically linked in your brain. This game controls so well and so fluently. It even breaks up the action with small platforming puzzles. And eventually, you and your banana friend will become masters of death and frying pans.
