Pragmata Review – Dismantled Sincerity

It’s tricky not to get cynical about game development these days, especially from high-profile developers who take immeasurably longer to release their titles. Having grown up in an era I took for granted, where so many of my favorite franchises saw consistent releases, I doubt I’ll ever witness it again. Even the notion of new IPs comes across as fantastical these days due to the inherent financial risks they entail.

So, it definitely feels like a monumental event when Capcom, one of the most celebrated developers out there right now, launches an ambitious new IP. Pragmata has endured quite a lengthy wait since its 2020 unveiling, but it has finally arrived. And as someone not too keen on the series Capcom has been prioritizing, namely Resident Evil and Monster Hunter, I was hopeful for Pragmata to reignite the love I once had for what they can produce. Now, on the other side of it all, while I don’t think the half-decade-long wait has been worth it, this is a title that tends to thrive where it matters most.

Story and Setting

Pragmata takes place in the near future after the discovery of the malleable resource known as lunum ore. This item, capable of producing the rich material referred to as Lunafilament, can replicate just about anything you can put your mind to. However, the lunar research station dedicated to developing this craft loses all signal, prompting the dispatch of an investigation team, which includes the protagonist, Hugh Williams. Soon after arriving, though, a quake disrupts the premises, separating the team and causing Hugh to encounter an android created via Lunafilament, an artificial girl Hugh decides to name Diana.

Unfortunately, narrative is the one area where Pragmata stumbles significantly. Despite the captivating premise, especially with the introduction of such a creative tool in the form of Lunafilament, not much intrigue is really pursued surrounding it. Hugh’s and Diana’s traversal of the station does uncover a larger plot, yet it’s all played pretty safely. There is an overt reliance on audio logs and written lore notes to inform you about the station’s past and what ultimately led to its now-sparse population, which didn’t really work for me as a primary source, though mileage will certainly vary on that point.

Character Relationships

On the other hand, Hugh’s and Diana’s bond takes center stage, effectively cementing itself as the core of this narrative. In contrast to Hugh’s poorly woven history with his crewmates, whom he describes as his friends, his growing closeness with Diana is natural and gradual. By the end, their father-daughter-like relationship feels impressively authentic, bolstered by systems like gift-giving and playing hide-and-seek in the hub area. I also found the ending terrifically moving, somewhat offsetting the middling storytelling I couldn’t care less about throughout the main campaign.

Combat and Hacking Systems

Thankfully, when it comes to the gameplay experience, Pragmata mostly hits it out of the park. Progression is divided between a handful of intricately designed locations aboard the station, where you perform platforming, lite puzzle solving, and combat encounters. The lattermost facet has two distinct layers, too, divided between third-person shooting and hacking. Gunplay functions about as you’d expect, with plenty of discoverable firearms differing in specialties, including a default one that doesn’t run out of ammo, ensuring you always have something at your disposal.

Where matters truly become unique, though, is in the hacking. At any point, you can have Diana hack foes, a practice you enact simultaneously during active movement. This minigame, so to speak, is pretty simple, as it necessitates you navigating tiles to reach the sole node that opens an enemy’s weak points, which Hugh can shoot for greater damage. Still, for as straightforward as that task seems, being cognizant of your immediate surroundings is paramount to both avoiding damage and ensuring your hacking progress isn’t interrupted.

At the same time, that singular opening node is not all you should be aiming for, either, since doing so only leaves foes vulnerable for a second. Instead, you’re encouraged to pass through blue nodes along the way, extending the opening time. Additionally, progression reveals a limited number of unique nodes that can be added to the hacking board, triggering numerous effects, including status ailments. Besides the obvious benefits these fresh arrivals comprise, their treatment as consumables leads to you needing to consider when and where to use them so as not to waste their significance against weaker enemies.

Enemy Variety and Combat Depth

Consequently, every combat encounter in Pragmata is teeming with continuously gratifying decision-making, enhanced by healthy enemy variety that feels purposefully approachable depending on your overall gun loadout. The handful of bosses are also memorable in their individual approaches, both in the meaningful layouts of their arenas and their movesets.

Further, it’s worth noting that when firearms besides your default one run out of ammo, they vanish, as they were made of Lunafilament, one of the few ways the setting cleverly weaves into the gameplay systems. Guns have one of four general classifications as well, so you constantly need to ponder what to equip before leaving the hub and whether it’s worth switching on the fly mid-exploration to maximize what you can do during battle.

Exploration and Platforming

Another major strength, and one that pleased me greatly, is how Pragmata isn’t simply a gun-based series of bouts with the hacking gimmick coating it. Unexpectedly, exploration and platforming are central focuses, and they’re executed brilliantly. Every area is densely packed with optional pathways, forming a compact yet still vast web of rich interconnectivity. Diana’s hacking can open blocked paths and disrupt jamming rays, so it’s not limited to combat applications.

Plentiful collectibles, such as upgrade materials and currency, abound throughout the premises and are easier to find thanks to Diana’s scanning capability. Still, this function doesn’t negate the joy of discovery, because not only does the map not directly communicate the exact point you currently stand at, but some of these rewards also require understanding the environment to reach, regardless of the apparent numerical closeness.

The movement itself is rewarding to master, too. Hugh’s motions are dictated by a fuel meter that drains when he jumps and dashes with his thrusters, and it all feels pretty intuitive. Upgrades to the thrusters can also be made, expanding the avenues of horizontal movement you can enact, a satisfying feat to pull off when backtracking previous areas for missed rewards.

Hub Area and Progression Systems

The hub, referred to as the Shelter, has no shortage of utilities to actively consider. You have upgrade menus for Hugh’s primary firearm, health, and Diana’s hacking, all tied to one set of upgrade components, as well as growth for your inherent abilities, other firearms, and mods, which are swappable skills raising efficacy of select maneuvers, occasionally at the cost of something else. As a result, every trek from a sector yields an appreciable amount of player-driven choice, directly tied to the avenues of growth they prefer.

An equal level of significance is tied to Cabin, a friendly NPC in the Shelter who grants access to training simulations and a bingo board filled with a special currency, Cabin Coins. The latter is gathered through gameplay strides and, when used, unlocks notable bonuses such as cosmetics, secret lore reports, enemy profiles, and mods. I will admit that this practice, while conceptually fulfilling, proved rather underwhelming. The cosmetics tend to default to uninspired color variations, and as someone who wasn’t particularly enthralled by the narrative, these supplemental additions weren’t exactly riveting reads.

Training Simulations and Side Content

Still, on the other side of that token, the training simulations ended up being some of my favorite content offered. These self-contained missions, each consisting of a main goal and two minor objectives, provide fixed loadouts that test your aptitude in specific facets of the platforming and gunplay systems. They’re genuinely gripping mini-challenges that steadily amp up in intensity, with an arcade-like feel that evokes Pragmata at some of its best.

One last aspect of the Shelter is connected to Diana herself. Amidst exploration, you can amass giftable items that teach her about life on Earth, with Hugh taking the helm of explaining their functionalities. These side tasks end up changing how the hub looks and provide brief divergences from the usual gameplay cycle. Admittedly, I was quite impressed by just how many unique conversations this duo can have, all of which are entirely optional, so I heartily recommend speaking to Diana in the Shelter as much as you can.

Length and Post-Game Content

Roughly speaking, a playthrough where you take your time doing everything will take about 15 hours or so, but that is far from the end if you want to see all of what Pragmata has to offer. For one, you unlock New Game+, letting you do another playthrough from an enhanced state while being able to skip the introduction. There’s also the unlockable Lunatic difficulty, a hard mode only available from an entirely new game that also grants special weapon functions. Perhaps most significant, though, is Unknown Signal, a post-game mode comprising ten challenges providing their own slew of rewards.

Alas, I found both Unknown Signal and the Lunatic difficulty lackluster. The former’s challenges are too easy for their own good, with tacked-on boss rematches that don’t feel different, while Lunatic only came across as a slight step-up, contrasting what its name would imply. On one hand, I do heavily respect having this type of content at launch, since post-game feels like it’s relegated to post-launch patches these days. Still, I would’ve liked greater challenge and variety, considering how brief the core story is.

Final Verdict on Pragmata

As a new IP, Pragmata accomplishes what it sets out to do with what I firmly believe will have robust staying power. Despite its setting and story ideas not being handled with the grace they could’ve had, they’re still standouts given weight by the believable bond between its two leads. Plus, the core gameplay systems here are remarkable, boasting a coalescence of fully realized, multi-layered combat, substantial exploration, and constant growth across several avenues. Not every facet here is struck with a homerun, but as a first go-around, this is undeniably solid, and I hope to see this IP evolve with more outings in the near future.