It’s no surprise or mystery that the Japanese heritage of Japan is alive and well in the country of Brazil. Harkening to some incredible and sometimes tragic history, the people of Nippon have shared so much with the people of Brazil, including their food, their culture, their fashion and their language. Some of the best markets and restaurants outside of Tokyo proper can be found right in the heart of South America.

But there’s one more thing Brazil shares with Japan: their love of impossibly long, insane game titles. While the throne of Mon-Yu may never be taken, there can always be attempts at the throne. Which is how we ended up with BRAZILIAN DRUG DEALER BEFORE 4: DEMONS FROM THE PORTAL TO HELL I OPENED ARE STILL IN THE FAVELA AND NOW I HAVE TO SAVE MAMADAS FROM RONALDO. Yes, 4. As in a sequel.

Now that’s some solid incentive to promote a game!

I have fantastic news for you all: you don’t need to play all of the BRAZILIAN DRUG DEALER titles to catch up. The first two, as the developer has said, exist in an alternate universe, similar to the Grand Theft Auto titles. The third entry, BRAZILIAN DRUG DEALER 3: I OPENED A PORTAL TO HELL IN THE FAVELA TRYING TO REVIVE MIT AIA I NEED TO CLOSE IT, can be purchased on Steam if you need to fully understand the vast, LOUD lore of the series, but I was able to play the 4th one standalone without too much confusion. Strike that: without too much confusion as to why I’m doing something. When the tutorial lets you know that you have fireworks in your butt and that’s why you can double jump, you realize that attention to continuity might not be on top of developer Joeveno’s priority list.

The title tells you everything that you need to know, which probably means something to the people of Brazil and is utterly inscrutable to my ex-pat ass, but that didn’t mean a thing when I jumped into the game. It’s been years since I’ve played an FPS game because of my age. I don’t mean I’m too old for this schtick, I mean that the way a lot of modern first person games are designed I get wildly motion sick trying to play them. My constant callback is when I reviewed Immortal Redneck for the Switch and then spent a half hour on the floor, staring at the ceiling, hoping that I wasn’t going to die like Jane in Breaking Bad. Teams around the world continue to refine and improve these games so you feel immersed and really in the driver’s seat, and my brain hates this. 

BRAZILIAN DRUG DEALER BEFORE 4 does not create this issue for me. I don’t know what degree of magic is at hand here, maybe there’s something in the id Tech 2 Engine at the core of the design, I don’t know. All I know is that, throughout my time with the game, the movement, animation and overall scaling and display of the game felt smooth, enjoyable and never gave me a hint of nausea. This is a testament to two very important aspects of the game. Firstly, Joeveno has put some serious work into this series, however ballistic the title may be, and cares about publishing something that plays incredibly well, even on computers without high end graphics cards. Second, BRAZILIAN DRUG DEALER BEFORE 4 is so overwhelming from the very beginning you don’t have time to get sick. It’s the Mr. Burns of first person shooters.

Woah. I mean, it’s deep, and I’m about to shoot a bunch of clowns, but woah.

There’s not a single second of BRAZILIAN DRUG DEALER BEFORE 4 that isn’t over the top. The graphics are loud and violent in color and display. There’s a sense of this being carefully sketched out in someone’s artbook, lovingly detailed and considered, and then slamming three espressos and a small bump of cocaine before translating it into MS Paint. But it’s not amateurish or slapdash: the chaos and chicanery is deliberate and methodical. You’ve got these representations of icons and figures that (probably) crop up in different parts of Brazilian pop culture and internet life that are relatable and recognizable even in their distorted state. If Salvador Dali mixed absinthe with guaraná and started sketching out a fever dream he had in Fortaleza, he might have created some of the basic ideas you see laid out within the game.

As a boomer shooter, you’re packed to the rafters with weapons of all shapes and sizes, but they’re distinctly Brazilian in their execution. Use a sandal to beat nearby enemies to death. Go guns akimbo with twin bottles of Guaraná Golly (no relation to Golly Guaraná) to really bring the pain. Golden shotguns, payphones that shoot coconuts, bowls of feijoada…the list goes on, and it never stops being inventive or unbelievable. It’s almost like someone did a re-skin of classic Quake to make it feel like a massive Brazilian shitpost, but there’s actual physics and consideration to balance it out, and it lends strategy and thoughtful execution to everything. This isn’t going to suddenly make you a fan of explosions and frantic gameplay, but it certainly couldn’t hurt, especially with autoaiming being an easy toggle for controller players.

Who the hell is this? Why was he attacking me with a berimbau? So many questions!

BRAZILIAN DRUG DEALER BEFORE 4 never stops being exactly what it intends to be. The music is overpoweringly loud loops of hip hop and electronic breakbeat, positively slamming into your eardrums. The enemies are vicious and wild, vacillating between cartoonish and terrifying. You’ll marvel at the tight and calculated level design and secrets hidden throughout, before encountering a massive black rectangle that just screams “enter here/ entre aqui” so you know where to go next. You’ll find what amount to cardboard cutouts hanging out, giving you exposition and deep knowledge, right before you get merced by what I think were extra monsters from the game Prey. It constantly keeps you on your toes, never relenting for a moment and barely registering your discomfort long enough to tell you to shut up and keep moving.

Frankly, this is the kind of PC nonsense that I live for. You get games on consoles and you expect them to be polished and smooth, having had all the kinks ironed out so, even in an age with hot patching, you still get something that’s 99.9% complete. Here, you have this game that is both deadly serious and an absolute farce, generating pages upon pages of Steam discussion, a store page in all caps and the promise of new content monthly, a promise that Joeveno was able to successfully keep with BRAZILIAN DRUG DEALER 3. If you’re not from this part of the world, you almost feel like this is a window into something beyond comprehension: the lives and memes of a group of people you might not ever interact with. 

Good news! I shot enough Oompa Loompas or whatever they actually are!

I cannot, in good faith, tell you that BRAZILIAN DRUG DEALER BEFORE 4 is going to change your life for the better. I’m not going to say you can use this game in lieu of Babbel before a trip abroad, but it shines insight in the same way playing D4: Dark Dreams Don’t Die gives you a terrible idea of what Boston and its people are like. But I can say this is the best five dollars you can spend on Steam right now. Did you love playing Doom but wished you could shoot people in paintball helmets? Did you want Wolfenstein to swap out Nazis for soccer mascots? Did you think that Quake’s Nine Inch Nails soundtrack could have used some high intensity Portuguese rap instead? Then here: your very specific present is ready. Come unwrap it, drahma queen.

BRAZILIAN DRUG DEALER BEFORE 4: DEMONS FROM THE PORTAL TO HELL I OPENED ARE STILL IN THE FAVELA AND NOW I HAVE TO SAVE MAMADAS FROM RONALDO  is available now on Steam.

Reviewed on AMD Ryzen 5 3400GE with Radeon Vega Graphics and 16GB RAM.

A copy of BRAZILIAN DRUG DEALER BEFORE 4: DEMONS FROM THE PORTAL TO HELL I OPENED ARE STILL IN THE FAVELA AND NOW I HAVE TO SAVE MAMADAS FROM RONALDO was provided by the publisher.