My Friend Pedro Preview

By: Logan Manfredi on Nintendo Switch

Overview

        My friend Pedro is a new game out today published by the always reliable Devolver Digital and developed by solo dev Dead Toast Entertainment. Using a Genre to label this game would be reductive. Stylistically it's that of a dark comedy you'd find on Adult Swim. From a gameplay perspective, Pedro feels more like a highly polished bullet hell or arcade classic. The controls are easy to grasp but offer a level of mastery that I can see being all over Twitch and social media. Mission ranks at the end of each level provide an easy way to challenge friends and leader boards for high scores. 

Aiming two guns simultaneously while flipping through the air has never felt this precise. Every time you start to feel comfortable with the controls, a new unique mechanic is added. Items such as kick-able balls or gas cans add yet another layer to the intricate dance that is gameplay. Something that Pedro does excellently is keeping the player on their toes. What I mean by that is, every time a new mechanic gets added, there's a certain level of uncertainty and adrenaline the player feels as they try to complete the level as fluidly as possible. The stages are shorter than I imagined but work perfectly with the design of the game. Each level focuses on typically one new mechanic to learn and then master over a few obstacles. The subsequent levels then add to those concepts in a delicately beautiful snowballing fashion. After each significant chunk of levels, there are gorgeous set pieces that feel like an entirely new game. Things like motorcycles or sky diving replace the normal side-scrolling action and propel the eccentric story forward with each one. The story itself, which I won't spoil is worth experiencing and is consistently surprising me with new and exciting ideas. 

The first few levels
        The beginning of the game will see you the player learn all the basic mechanics of the game such as Focus, Split shooting, and dodging. Focus is the game's version of a bullet time effect in which time slows down so the player can plan and score higher combos.  Personally, I've been using this to clear certain jumps or if I know there a specific path I need to follow to get an impressive looking kill sequence. Split shooting is the act of dual wielding guns and aiming them at two different targets. This is handled the best I've seen in any game in Pedro and feels incredibly natural. Using Focus to slow time and aim your split shot, you can score some crazy combos and pull off some real John Wick style moves. Dodging is simple in design but combined with the other core mechanics adds a sense of flair to the gameplay. In order to dodge the player holds a button and spins. This is interesting because the player can still shoot when spinning or even reload and the animation itself makes everything you do look that much cooler. The start of the game is a great time to explore combining each of these mechanics and find precisely how you like to play without being punished by some of the more advanced features like intense platforming sections later on. 

**Mild Spoiler alert**

Sizzle reel

Mechanics to watch out for
        I'm enjoying My Friend Pedro just as much as I thought I would and will probably finish it tonight or tomorrow. That being said, it's not without some hiccups. There were a few small things that I found not necessarily bad, but they didn't fit the way they should with the rest of the game and some caused pauses in an otherwise action-packed game.  The skateboard functions like all the other kick-able objects except for the fact that you can ride and jump with it. 

The problem is that the jump with skateboard mechanic always seems to lose the skateboard and cause me to lose my momentum. The level design where skateboards are present clearly show paths for the entire level to be done in a swift kickflipping combo of death, but the skateboard itself is just too slippery to clear most obstacles. Instead, I found myself walking around them intentionally, so I could do more badass ninja flips, and 360 wall jumps in slow motion. I worry that the rest of the game feels so incredibly good to play that skateboards may be ignored so you can continue with your bullet ninja flow. I found a few other little things that were not game breaking but kept consistently killing me until I figured out exactly what was happening. Typically, the gameplay is quite fast-paced, and bodies are flying everywhere. I kept dying and not knowing why that was until I saw that enemies would sometimes get stuck behind other dead enemies and bullets in Pedro do not pass through bodies. This would result in me pouring clips into enemies never actually hitting them. This was easy enough to address by slowing down and using Focus to get a new angle on the corpse shield using jerks. 

Overall it took nothing away from my gameplay experience, but it seemed unintentional in design. The only other thing I found to be a nuisance was that the button control for Focus is to push down the left stick and that causes my heavy fingers to unintentionally trigger Focus more often than I would like to admit.

Tips and tricks

• You can kick enemies for a melee attack that helps extend combos when reloading.
• The larger the combo, the bigger your score. You can extend combos by killing enemies.
• Switch guns often, certain situations are much more suited for a specific weapon.
• You can dodge bullets and reload at the same time.
• Levels are short if you're playing for a high score restart the whole level when you die to get the no death bonus.
• Pay attention to your score screen at the end for ways that you can increase your high score. 

If you like it
        My Friend Pedro is a blast to play, and for the current discounted price of $16.99 until July 9th on Steam, it's completely worth picking up. There are hours of intense adrenaline filled gunplay to be had, and the Banana named Pedro is simply the man. The wacky story filled with comedy lends perfectly to the hectic yet rewarding gameplay, and I can see perfectionists getting tons of replay value from competing for high scores on individual levels. Frequent new mechanics and wildly varying level design pull the player in and make it an incredibly hard game to put down. As far as fun is concerned the game is an 11/10 and I can't think of any game quite like it. I highly recommend giving it a try and look forward to anything more from the developer.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/557340/My_Friend_Pedro/