Seven Years On, My Friend Pedro Still Makes Every Banana Toss Count

My Friend Pedro asks players to control a banana-throwing assassin who moves through levels with perfect aim. That premise alone sets it apart from almost everything else on PS4, PC, XONE and Switch. The game, released in 2019, is a tight, often absurd shooter built around momentum and precision, and it mostly delivers on its strange promise.

Trailer, via DevolverDigital.

The Core Loop

The loop is simple: move, aim, throw. Players guide the assassin through a series of rooms filled with enemies, moving with a sliding, bounding step that rewards timing over raw speed. The gun in hand is always aimed perfectly, so the challenge comes from reading enemy movement and choosing targets. It sounds dull on paper. In practice, it becomes a rhythm of motion that feels satisfying after a few minutes.

The game leans heavily on style over substance, and that shows in its presentation. Levels are bright, cartoonish and deliberately theatrical, with enemies that explode into blood and bananas that fly with exaggerated force. The tone shifts between tense and comical, sometimes within a single room, and the game rarely decides which mode it prefers. This can feel jarring, but it also gives the game a distinct identity.

Where It Falls Short

The game’s strengths are also its weaknesses. The lack of variation in enemy types means that later levels start to feel like repeated exercises in the same mechanics. Difficulty spikes occur without warning, and some deaths feel less like a fair test of skill and more like a sudden wall of damage. The story, told through brief scenes between levels, is thin and mostly serves as a device to move the player from one set piece to the next.

The controls are precise, but the game’s insistence on perfect aim can frustrate players who want to improvise. There is little room for error, and the game rarely offers a second chance beyond restarting a level. This rigidity can make the experience feel more like a test than a game, especially during boss encounters that demand near-perfect execution.

What Stands Out

The best moments in My Friend Pedro come when the game lets go of its strict rules and lets chaos reign. A handful of levels allow players to chain together throws and movements in creative ways, creating small combos that feel genuinely rewarding. These sequences stand out because they break the game’s usual rigidity and let players experiment with its systems.

The soundtrack, a mix of synth-heavy tracks and quiet ambient pieces, matches the game’s shifting tone. It rises during intense moments and falls during quieter ones, giving the game a sense of pace that its visuals alone couldn’t provide.

Here’s a quick rundown of what stands out across the four platforms:

1. Controls feel best on PC and XONE, where aim precision is easiest to manage.
2. The Switch version suffers from frame rate dips during busy scenes.
3. The PS4 version holds up well but shows minor slowdown in dense rooms.
4. All versions share the same content, so platform differences are minor.

Final Word

My Friend Pedro is a game that knows exactly what it wants to be, even when it doesn’t fully deliver on its ambitions. Its core mechanic is strong, its presentation is distinctive, and its best moments are genuinely memorable. The game’s flaws, particularly its difficulty spikes and lack of enemy variety, keep it from greatness, but they don’t diminish the pleasure of its best levels.

For players willing to accept its quirks, My Friend Pedro remains a solid, if uneven, entry in the action genre. It’s a game that rewards patience and punishes carelessness, and it wears its absurdity proudly.

action shooter · game review · My Friend Pedro · PC · PS4 · Switch · Xbox One