Pragmata

• Genre: Action/Third Person Shooter
• Spoiler Free Review: Pretty much.
• Time Played: 18 Hours
• Too Short/Long: A lot of people complain that it's too short to be a "full priced game", but I'd take a dozen Pragamatas over one game stuffed to the brim with filler and meaningless secondary objectives. I thought the runtime was pretty much perfect for the intensity of the gameplay. There were times I needed a break after only a an hour or two of playing because of how on-point the game requires you to be.
• Did I cry: A whole lot. Maybe not the most I've ever cried playing a video game, but if not, damn close.
• Soundtrack: The atmosphere of the game wouldn't quite hit without the soundtrack. It's very good, and it knows when to take to the sidelines. It can be somber, it can be intense. Not much to jam out to on it's own, but great for setting the scene none the less.
• Why I played: No real reason, other than a Capcom game outside their main three franchises as it's been for sometime. Seemed fun, seemed like it my evoke something familiar and be something new.
• Jank: It's a rather polished game so it's pretty jank free. There were a few moments I remember when playing thinking "I should mention this" but they must have been so minor I forgot about them.
• Difficulty: Just about right, I'd say. I played on normal and there are more difficult... difficulties, but for where I like to play it felt like it more or less matched my skill level each time, and the action was intense and took all I had, without actually failing - except in the training challenges. Which can be pretty difficult later on.
• Pleased/Disappointed: I'm very pleased. I think this is an excellent game, maybe the best game I've played thus far this year.
• Recommend to others: I would definitely recommend Pragmata. It's a great game with a touching narrative and unique spin on the typical third person-shooter. It makes you fully engage with it's systems, which makes it a unique experience.
  

Just to get it out of the way, I think "game timer" vs playtime gets in the way of this one again. Another game I seldom let hang, and yet my PlayStation playtime is hours after the "game timer". It might be another that doesn't count something like cutscenes, or reading notes, or time in menus. I'm not going to test each to find out, but my console timer was hours after my save data timer and I think that skews peoples perception. Or maybe people just don't engage with all a game has to offer? Reading? That's for nerds. Collecting objects? Losers. Training Sim challenges that offer significant rewards? Sweaty.

Before I even got my hands on the game I saw people chastising it for being too short. It's about the same length, if not a bit longer than Resdient Evil requiem, Capcom's other big recent release, and if you ask me, personally, a better game overall. I played that 18 hours and that was a very slow... going back and forth constantly because I'm paranoid/scared 18 hours. I imagine a good bit of that time would have been reduced if I wasn't trying to play it as safe as possible and was better at horror games.

I remember a time when people would disapprove of games being "too long". Do people forget these days? 40+ hour rpgs were mocked for being something only nerds and weebs enjoyed. The average game used to be well under 20 hours, if not under 10, and honestly without much reason to keep playing. The shift toward such an expectation of pointlessly extended runtimes is something that just irks me to the core. Especially when presented with a game like this that wastes no time at all and is just a great solid experience the whole way through. Nobody should be docking this any points for not offer value.

Pragamata does have a bunch of unlockable content after you beat it, and some of it is pretty cool. Some of it I feel should have been in the main game. Like some of the mods for your suit/weapons, and even whole weapons. I get they may have skewed the in-game experience for some, or maybe they just wanted to provide people with more of an incentive to keep playing after they beat it, but I still would have liked to have seen more of that stuff throughout my main run of the game.

That said I am very happy with my main run of the game, you still get a pretty diverse selection of weapons and I appreciate how they're set up in the game. It doesn't necessarily make you use all weapons - so if there is something you absolutely hate, you probably don't have to use it, but it does put you in position where you have to use most weapons, or, that is, whatever is available to use. Your initial load out isn't going to take you super far, and your sidearm - while invaluable, doesn't quite do the job on it's own. Early parts of the game are a bit more horror-esque as you come across new enemies, some who are sneakily trying to attack you from around the corner, and that actually is a bit of a threat.

Later on you can easily tank hits from all but the largest threats - or you simply have other counter measures. They more or less drop the "jump-scare" tactic and instead just face you with challenges layered upon challenges. Managing fighting a small army of enemies while trying to set them up to get hacked while they have countermeasures, while you need to dodge their attacks, while you shoot them. It's all a bit much at times, but like in the right way. It's intense, but rarely feels unfair, and you come out of battle feeling like a badass... and you can breathe.

Diana despite being a child-like character, is thankfully not annoying as some child characters can be. The interactions with her are mostly cute and endearing. It helps that Hugh(you), is just a sweet and good guy who ended up here because of his job. He's an engineer who lived a relatively normal life - a mostly positive one from what it sounds like, and he carries that kind of attitude with him. Considering the situation they're in, it's all far more wholesome than it has any right to be, but of course, that's what they're going for. The setting is gorgeous, even though it's that very... 90's, early 2000s kind of take on uhh Moon-Core style, where everything is white and somewhat alien, yet still technologically familiar. Like if all technology just looked like a NASA space shuttle, essentially. It's really entirely unnecessary, so it's 100% just a design choice, but it really works with Pragamata. It also manages to mix-up the locales because of all the types of environments they are replicating on their moon base, so it never really gets old either. I just though it was a gorgeous game, another that I could spend time just admiring when not fighting for my life.