Pragmata - Capcom’s New IP

By Capcom France, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=183892404

I just finished playing Pragmata, which is Capcom’s brand-new action-adventure game. Pragmata follows Hugh Williams, who is a space explorer, and meets an android girl named Diana, as they try to escape the moon and try to make it back to Earth alive. Pragmata gets comparisons to the Dead Space series due to the space setting, but without the survival horror aesthetic.

The thing that Pragmata does different from other action-adventure games comes from its unique combat mechanics. As Hugh, you can shoot enemies as you encounter them, which is nothing new. The new dimension to the combat is you can also play a hacking mini-game as Diana while you are shooting enemies to damage enemies further and open weak spots on the enemies for even more damage. This combined combat mechanics of shooting and hacking makes Pragmata frenetic and a lot of fun to play, though it can get a bit challenging in trying to focus between shooting, hacking, and dodging enemy attacks. 

As you play through the game, you start to see this pseudo father-daughter relationship develop between Hugh and Diana, and I think this is a refreshing take on writing both characters. Usually, you see the father as this stoic, manly figure, and the daughter as some know-it-all, but it is nice to see Hugh as an attentive figure to Diana despite the situation they find themselves in, and it is also nice to see Diana act as if she is an actual child, despite her being an android.

With these positives, there is an obvious weak point with Pragmata, which is that the overall story is quite average, not very engaging, and takes a back seat to the dialogue between Hugh and Diana. There were long stretches of Pragmata where the game gets much in the weeds in the interactions of the main characters that it seems to forgot the main objective of trying to get off this moon base and try to get back to Earth.

Overall, I had an enjoyable time with Pragmata, and I think it is a great game. The combat alone makes this game so much better gameplay-wise than other similar action-adventure games, and there are several fulfilling and touching moments between Hugh and Diana that make you invested in their relationship. However, Pragmata as a game never gripped me. Maybe it is because of the average story, but I felt like I was waiting for a payoff that made the experience worth it, but never came. Still, I am glad there is this brand-new successful IP in a sea of remakes. I cannot wait to play a sequel of this game and I hope this IP sticks around for a bit.