Pedro is love, Pedro is life

I've sunk around 200 hours to hotline miami 1 and 2 since I got them in summer of 2023 (writing this in January 2025). I got this game expecting a similar experience but was hella disappointed. I really like the challenge of hlm that you have to complete the whole level without taking a single hit (with a few checkpoints). My Friend Pedro does have a no checkpoints/one life mode but I won't try it, since I played the whole thing on the hardest difficulty knowing that if I get stuck I won't lower it, I'll just have to get better.

The gameplay against enemies is nowhere as cool as in hlm. In this game you'll face about 3 enemies at a time on average, with about 5 seconds of moving to the next room. Whereas in hlm, you can choose to face the enemies one room at a time (♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ little ♥♥♥♥♥) or you can clear all the rooms instantly one after another (very cool, very fun, very based). Also the kills in this game rarely feel rewarding. Most of the "heck yeah" moments you'll recieve are from turning the head of a fiend into a fine pulp with a shotgun from point blank range. The other 99% of the time the goons you kill just.. fall down.

About the checkpoints in this game. Dying does not feel like a punishment at all. It feel more like a "Oh no my little baby, it seems like you didn't have enough health to kill all those goons. Here let me put you back into the exact moment before contact with the enemies but this time I'll give you slightly more health".

Also the story is absolute ♥♥♥♥ it only makes sense in the first 2 chapters. The ending is cliché as ♥♥♥♥, it doesn't make sense, it isn't being built up to and there is zero character development.

The game does have it's John Wick type moments but they can get very boring since you don't "earn" them. I'd say the game is in a dilemma since it's difficulty is perfect for 5-year-olds but you shouldn't really show them this type of content.
Thank you for reading all the way here.

TLDR: Nowhere near as good as Hotline Miami, buy hlm instead (it's also cheaper).
♥♥♥♥ you if you didn't read the full review.

Я РАССТРЕЛЯЛ ТОЛПЫ ЛЮДЕЙ И МНЕ ПОНРАВИЛОСЬ

gets repetitive but its not bad

It gud

killing game with banana is very nice