My Friend Pedro review — Not so a-peel-ing

My Friend Pedro is an action arcade game based on a Flash game from 2014, not that there’s anything wrong with that. From its marketing and trailers, you’d think it’s not so much about playing through a story, and more about trying to pull off crazy moves just for the sake of it — and you’d be absolutely right.

The premise

As the nameless and voiceless protagonist, you wake up in a dingy basement with nothing but a mask and a bad case of amnesia. Oh, and Pedro, your floating sentient banana acquaintance. Why is he floating, sentient, or a banana? No one knows.

Together you must journey across the city to seek revenge on (i.e. gruesomely murder) the crimelord family who own the basement. It seems a bit drastic, but it was Pedro’s idea, and no one is going to stand there arguing with a banana.

The gameplay

My Friend Pedro is a 2D shoot-em-up platformer. You’ll be jumping around its fairly compact levels while being faced with a bunch of enemies with varying levels of firepower. You get to use the same weapons they do, so the gunplay is mostly about avoiding their bullets before returning fire.

To help with the “avoiding” part, early on in the game you gain the ability to slow down time and leap around in slow motion to hopefully…