(Played in Japanese on the Steam Deck. Play time on “kill screen” save file says “10:26:02” while the Steam clock says "13.3 hours". As I checked back with NG+, cut scenes do not count into the play time on save files.)
In contrast to the industry as a whole, Capcom seems to have a better time in the roaring twenties than they had in the previous decade. Deep Down, the game announced along side 2013 with PS4, is still vapor ware. The subject of this review was revealed with PS5 in 2020 and had an alarming habit of getting delayed. Yet, here in April, 2026, it has become a real video game one can buy and play. And it’s worth playing.
We are the world, we are the children
In a not too distant future, humanity has established a foothold on the moon dubbed Cradle. One day, said moon base goes dark and a team of 4 system engineers are sent to sort it out, Hugh Williams is the intern and security guard of the team. Soon after they touches down, intense seismic activity on Earth’s satellite left Hugh as the lone survivor and the base’s control AI IDUIS turns against him. Lucky for Hugh, a Pragmata android designated D-I-0036-7 is interested in helping him. Dubbing the life-life robot “Diana”, Hugh has to fight their way to a ride back to Earth.
It would not be accurate to call stories like this “man versus machine”. For it’s really clash between machines, one side gives a shit about meatbags’ well-being while the other does not. Pragmata’s story does fall into the “good not great” rut. Hugh and Diana make up a nice duo to watch and care about, though the story is effective buy by the number. Speak of numbers though, the game’s effective-only-to-a-certain worldbuilding not giving player a referencing point to the present day, which dampens the lore a little bit.
Still, this game would mop the ground with any Platinum offering regarding narrative. The tone has a earnestness that Platinum and current day just aren’t capable of. As a potential franchise starter, the game manages to tease a sequel not at the expense of closure. Does not seem much to ask, but expensive polygonal extravaganzas nowadays do not offer much.
Suppose there is the question of how anime is this. My answer: very much. Macross er, show runner Shoji Kawamori was brought up for cry out loud. While this game’s director brought the anime guy up like he is a certified master of science fiction, Mr. Kawamori is just the one to ask regarding putting a faceless mech and a girly pop star dressed to dance in the same frame.
The game is also very James Cameron, before his science fiction flicks became so expensive to make yet not as fun and larger-than-life. Diana would of course make people think of Newt in Aliens. The enemy variety would make one think of Terminator 2 as the late game brings out some er, nanomachine monstrosity. Robots sure consider fluidity as advancement in science fiction.
Pragmata does share one habit in Japanese voice casting with 1997’s Rockman Dash/Megaman Legends. The old game cast the 2 leads in Castle In the Sky a decade after the duo were in an animated feature about discovering ancient advanced technology. Diana in Pragmata is voiced by Nao Toyama, who voiced one out of five girly pop stars in 2016’s Macross Delta. Ms. Toyama is probably the one among those five who can play 6-year-old (An in-game file states that Diana is modeled after a 6-year-old) mostly convincingly. She was also drilled in the not-to-breath-vocally school of voicing robots.
Beat it
Make no mistake about, Pragmata is a mecha combat game under that over-the-shoulder orthodoxy. By which I mean, one got to be patient when it comes to finishing armored foes off. In the future, this game might be held at high regard for making jumping not shit (Looking at you, Rockstar and Naughty Dog.) in an over-the-shoulder shooter. But that’s not for us in present to say.
What is for us in present to say is the game asks player to conduct a shooting war and a cyber war at the same time. While Hugh bumps lead or whatever material that can put those robots out of the fight to robots, Diana is hacking them in form of a mouse muse puzzle with the fac buttons. Those tin cans are so hard to put down by lead or whatever material that can put those in cans down alone than hack is essential. Both require a good line of sight as well.
Pragmata does have reload like shooters usually do. The left face button is dedicated to scanning. Player is kitted out with a slowly reloading gun with infinite ammo then an arsenal of weapons with limited uses. Left on D-pad is to select more offense options like shotgun or long distance shots. Right is for more assistance and down is more defense option.
The game does not have melee the way over-the-shoulder shooters usually have melee either. In combination with the requirement for good lines of sights, the game encourages player to always improve their position. There is the usually click left stick to run, useful before one is boxed in. There is also the right bumper for thrust, sharing fuel with down face button to jump. The truly old-school moment came to me when I encounter enemy attack only can be avoided by jumping over it. I for one had not done it in a 3D game space for years.
Diana’s muse like hacking mini games varies throughout the game as well. There are nodes for different options with limited use like turn foes into friends, stun locks and hack more than one foe at one time. Some enemies can block out hacking with some red blockades, require Hugh to shoot them first. The “click both sticks to even the odds” thing of PS2 days is also contextualized as Diana releasing a huge field to disable a crowd of enemies.
Another thing this game can mop the ground with Platinum for: camera angle. Pragmata would pull the camera back a bit wherever it’s more fitting to do so. But it’s always between Hugh, so no worry about not knowing where you are going.
The game’s level structure can be described as Metrovania lite. There is no movement suite for Hugh to unlock but Diana’s ability to remove certain barriers does encourage backtracking. And the game does allow it in ways more linear Capcom titles do not. Aside from the prologue and epilogue areas, player can go back to the very first room from the final boss’ door step. This structure somewhat dampens my interest in New Game Plus, as the itch to try out the powerful arsenal on earlier foes is scratched already.
The game can be called Souls-like, as one unlock Emergence Lifts back to the hub called Shelter in the levels. Go back to the Shelter would refill health and healing items then allow players to cash-in the resource gather for upgrades and kit out among other things.. As player goes back out, enemies would repopulate certain areas.
This is it.
In many ways, Nine Sols and Pragmata are 2 different approaches of the same story. Both have the mechanic of showering a child with gifts and said child can make quite a mess at the hub. Yet the former is set on a partial Dyson Sphere over the sun while the latter set on the moon. Their different approaches also resemble the celestial bodies they are respectively set on.
Nine Sols is more distant and bigger. The indie gem made by Chinese speakers intended to compress the whole history of an alien civilization into its 25 hours long revenge tale. Pragmata, due to its production value is closer yet smaller. Why will we go to the moon? Look at the news and tell me why we got to mine something elsewhere.
Nine Sols is a niche graphic novel aiming to be science fiction epic while Pragmata is a blockbuster movie. As long as the likes of former are satisfying reads and the likes of latter have me leaving the theatre happy, I give the thumb up. And Pragmata does make me “leave the theatre” very happy while willing to go back for more.