Pragmata Review

Pragmata is a rare bird. It's a AAA game produced by a behemoth game publisher, beholden to investors and the punishing vagaries of the stock market, and yet it actually takes big creative risks. Capcom, a long-time industry stalwart, has been here before, developing trailblazing games in a variety of genres -- most notably Street Fighter, Mega Man, and Resident Evil, but experienced gamers will point out the quirky creativity of games like Okami, Viewtiful Joe, and Ace Attorney as well. In recent years, Capcom has seemed a little complacent, regularly pumping out enjoyable, but iterative Monster Hunter games and Resident Evil remakes and sequels. Pragmata, then, represents something of a return to form for them, the Capcom muses finally climbing back up Mount Helicon to drink the inspiring water of Hippocrene once more.

The set-up of Pragmata is simple enough -- cliché, even. You play as Hugh Williams (David Menkin), a systems engineer sent to investigate the Cradle, a mining outpost on the Moon that is designed to harvest as much lunafilament as possible. You see, lunafilament is magical stuff. The Delphi Corporation uses it to 3D-print anything you could possibly imagine, via a machine they invented called a lim replicator. Naturally, when the Delphi Corporation loses contact with the Cradle, they send a team of specialists to investigate what went wrong. There's way too much money at stake.

When Hugh and his team arrive, they notice the eerie lack of humanity. Where are the scientists? The miners? The welcoming committee? Something is obviously wrong. When a moonquake strikes the Cradle, the situation quickly deteriorates, and the astronauts are beset by hordes of killer robots. These blue-Kool-Aid-filled slaughterbots are directed by the Cradle's A.I. administrator, IDUS (Intelligent Direction Unification System). IDUS is a fun one. A murderer, yes, but personally I think he sounds a little bit like a stern, gay hall monitor, his prissy anger lightly bubbling under a calm and controlled surface.

"Hugh Williams, you were NOT invited to Delphi's Rainbow Cradle Cruise. Please leave the premises immediately!"

So, it all begins as a typical, A.I.-gone-rogue, science fiction horror story, depicted with surefooted cinematic flair -- beautiful graphics and wonderfully framed shots of spaceships and space towers and other spacey things. But then Hugh meets D-I-0336-7 (Grace Saif), or Diana, as he quickly renames her. She's an android that appears to be an eager, bubbly six-year-old girl with blonde hair and blue eyes, wearing a blue armored coat that looks like an oversized floatation device, and no shoes. She is what is called a pragmata, the purpose of which you learn a bit later in the game, and it's simultaneously heartbreaking and disturbing, not completely unlike Kazuo Ishiguro's novel, Never Let Me Go.

When the pair is attacked by robots, Hugh's paternal instincts kick in. He pushes Diana behind him and opens fire, but the bullets can't fully penetrate the armored monsters. Diana, knowing she can help, climbs atop Hugh's back, leans forward, and sticks out a hand, ringed with moving holographs, initiating a hack that opens up the armor, allowing Hugh to finish off the enemies. This hack and shoot mechanic forms the basis of almost all of the gameplay in Pragmata, and it is utterly brilliant and unique -- so much so that I would say it made me fall back in love with 3rd-person-shooters.

It seems tricky at the beginning. First, you must use Diana's hacking ability to navigate a puzzle-like grid, snaking your way through obstacles and power-ups, as you carefully maneuver Hugh around the battlefield, using Hugh's limited thrusters to boost away from enemies or jump up to dodge attacks. Then, when you have completed the puzzle, you can use your gun of choice to fire at an enemy's weak spots, taking it out. Some weapons, like the stasis net, allow you to inflict a sort of status effect on the enemies, slowing them down. Overall, the pace of the combat is slower and more deliberate, yet with the challenge of multitasking -- dodging and hacking and shooting -- it feels so much more intense and exciting than other 3rd-person-shooters. You eventually fall into a pleasing, coordinated rhythm.

Because of the ability of lunafilament to 3D-print anything, the biomes and robots of the Cradle vary significantly. You'll be taken from an A.I.-bastardized version of New York City to lush greenhouse environments and the surface of the moon itself -- floating across it, sort of Dead Space-style. Certain locations within the biomes can only be accessed once you've gained abilities later in the game, encouraging the player to return and explore the areas further.

NYC was especially astonishing, a topsy-turvy cityscape, with incomplete taxis and cars and buses melting into the walls and streets, the billboards and shops plastered with funny, bizarre advertisements, and grotesque, 3D-printed robots lurking around every corner, like you'd expect from an A.I. on nightmare mode. The boss battle at the end of that section is also one of the most spectacular I've ever experienced. The effective use of scale combined with the multitasking made it truly heart-pumping.

You take a tram to the various destinations on the Cradle from a central hub called the Shelter. There, you will upgrade both Hugh's and Diana's abilities, engage in various virtual challenges, learn more about the Cradle and its machines, play bingo with a baseball-hat-wearing robot called Cabin, and, best of all, gift Diana with Read Earth Memories (REM) that you have collected from around the Cradle, providing her with unique memorabilia and toys from Earth and unlocking new dialogue and cute interactions. You can create an entire series of playrooms for her. As Diana bounces happily around the Shelter, one can almost feel the oxytocin spiking in his brain.

Hugh and Diana's relationship is refreshingly positive and unfussy. Diana is deeply curious about Earth, and Hugh willingly shares information and stories with her, chatting as they fight their way to the Central Port to put a stop to everything and find a way off the Moon. Hugh isn't a damaged man like Joel from The Last of Us or Kratos from God of War, and thank goodness the game avoids those now tedious tropes. Any misgivings Hugh has about working with Diana melt away quite quickly, as he realizes he needs her help, and grows to believe that maybe she could benefit from his, too. Just how different from a real human being is Diana really? There are thorny ontological questions here. In any case, Hugh and Diana's relationship is genuinely charming. And Diana made me laugh out loud on more than one occasion, as I absurdly carried her on my back for most of the adventure.

Pragmata stumbles a bit by dumping most of the "actual" story near the end of the game, rather than revealing it more gradually. It's a lot of tell rather than show. This is, alas, the Capcom way. The game is further hampered by a somewhat repetitive mission structure. It frequently asks you to unlock a series of electronic locks scattered throughout an area to open a big door. Certainly, the designers could have crafted more interesting objectives for the player. Some aspects of the narrative and characterizations veer a little too close to "anime" as well, although some of that adds to the charm.

But then the gameplay is such fun from moment to moment that these flaws don't matter much. The thrilling, cinematic last battle dazzled me -- an epic mix of orchestral and electronic beats thumping intoxicatingly as you're chased up a wall in space. Shortly after that, the game tore my heart out with a truly poignant and thoughtful ending, one I'm sure will resonate with parents and empathetic gamers everywhere.

When Pragmata's ending credits have rolled, and you've dealt with your feelings, there's really only one question left to ask: "Well, what comes next?"

Image: Capcom