Pathetic excuse for a "deep narrative" this game dares to spit on the face of the millions of people who have violently resisted colonial oppression, prejudice, and labor exploitation. I really think whoever wrote this pile of shit needs to go read some books instead of sitting in their posh apartment spitting on the poors and whining about how if we use violence we are just as bad as the bad guys.

At least the gameplay is passable and the world design is good. I just can't get over the writing, narrative, and worldbuilding.

What a legendary clusterfuck of a game. Broken controls, textures that look unfinished, cursed music. Feels like the video game equivalent of "weirdly familiar" liminal images and I kind of love playing it as a result. There's a lot of genuinely great ideas here like all of the characters racing on foot with multiple branching paths (like how 2D sonic levels are designed). It was way too rushed to be executed well but I'd say what we got was a happy accident.


Good luck getting anyone to play multiplayer though lol

Once the credits started to roll I found I was pulling face like someone had just farted.

The writing in this is mostly quite good, the music and presentation is wonderful but the plot - I'm just not sure.

Without spoiling it, Backbone moves on from being "just a detective story" into some strange stuff and ends quite suddenly.
Not as sudden as being hit by a bus but that sort of sudden you feel when you trip on a curb and you know what's coming but time slows a second.

It was free as part of bundle on itch supporting Ukraine, so it has that in its favour.
There's a demo on steam which is the prologue and I'd say that it's worth playing to see and feel this game's world and presentation but it doesn't reveal what the game is or at least becomes so it doesn't do a good job there.

Maybe I need more time to sit and think about the game, the themes are interesting and as I said before writing, sound, graphics all of that is good but I feel like Backbone ends up being less than the some of its parts - at least that's how I feel while writing this.

This game was better when it was a tech demo you saw cool clips of on Twitter.

Pedro has a lot of cool ideas and mechanics, sometimes these feel as good as they should such as flinging a frying pan into the air to get ricochet kills off but too often does it feel floaty, unresponsive and inaccurate.

At first I forgave the "floatiness" as the game is wanting you to fly through the stages, killing everyone in spectacular fashion and all whilst dodging weaving between enemy fire.
However, as I played more throughout the day it just never felt good, it never felt right, I questioned why the game felt like the protagonist was moving in slow motion when there is a designated slow motion command.

Then it started to get worse; a transitional stage where you ride a bike that felt like a vintage coin-op (and I don't mean that as a compliment) continuing then later into levels that tried to turn the game into a platformer.
This is where the game just felt horrible and at parts I caught myself audibly laughing and saying "this is rubbish".

I imagine there are people who will read this review and find the feel of 'My Friend Pedro' perfect, giving them the desire to replay levels to get high scores and cool clips.
That's just not me.

Aesthetically the levels themselves are also very uninspiring and with a couple of major exceptions almost look the same.
Seeing the name of the final chapter of stages ahead of time I was expecting something wild but even then it was just disappointment.

This front end of this game shows you everything you want, but maybe 20 minutes later you'll have seen it's best.
It's weird for what is a 4-5 hour game to out stay it's welcome but for me this silly banana prick could've got out of my face ages ago.