Tokyo Game Show 2025 - Pragmata Hands-on
On the surface, Pragmata may not seem all that original. A third-person shooter set on a space station, starring a hulking astronaut, Hugh, who shoots robots and hunts for electrical thingamabobs so he can open the next door and then shoot more robots, in space. So far, so 2012. However, he is joined by Diana, an android who appears as a little girl. She may be small, and makes for an interesting visual contrast to Hugh, but she's invaluable and, for all his heft, Hugh is useless without her.
Hugh is the muscle, and Diana is the brains. At the start of the demo, she rescues her new partner and brings his space suit back to life. The pair are immediately attacked by a robot - they look a little like mechanised clothes dummies, but more evil - and the role of each protagonist is quickly established. Hugh has the firepower to destroy the robots, but they are impervious to his attacks until Diana hacks them and disengages their shields. Then, and only then, can we shoot them to smithereens.
How this tag team action unfolds is what makes Pragmata unique and what made this demo so entertaining. The player must do three things simultaneously to survive: move, hack and attack. Sometimes in that order, sometimes not. L2 - I was playing on PS5 - brings up the aiming reticule. Hovering over a new enemy opens the hacking grid in the top right of the screen. This is a 4x4 grid for standard enemies, though it grew to a 5x5 for a later boss fight. Using the face buttons, you must move across this grid to reach one of the middle squares, which when activated will temporarily lower the enemy's shields. On its own, this puzzle would be fairly simple, as you need only head to the middle, moving up, down, left and right, and avoid obstacles. However, the action does not pause. You need to keep Hugh on his toes, dodging and boosting away from the opposition until the shield drops, while at the same time navigating the hack.
This balancing act works spectacularly well. To survive, you must immediately master the move-hack-attack rhythm, switching your gaze from Hugh to the grid and back again. Ignoring one to focus on the other is suicide. When I cleared the grid and removed the shield, I felt a huge feeling of satisfaction as I began to lay into the once invincible machines.
Extra layers are added to the hacking grid to help and hinder. In particular, if you're willing to take a longer route to the centre square, you can travel through defensive and offensive boost nodes that can be stacked within a single battle. Failure brings you back to the top left corner of the puzzle grid, and costs you precious time. Success is only temporary, and if you're slow to destroy a vulnerable enemy, its shields will replenish and then you'll need to re-hack it.
Groups of enemies were especially challenging. When you have one eye on the grid, it's near possible to keep watch over every angle of approach to Hugh and Diana. Being attacked by a second or third enemy from a blind spot causes quite a shock, and you'll need to scramble to get away as quickly as possible. Damage didn't seem to interrupt the hacking process, however, so you can leave Hugh to absorb a minor beating while you get to work on the grid, but he won't last long.
Hugh has real weight to him, which is hardly surprising given his space suit and the android he's carrying on his back. I'd assume Diana weighs more than your average elementary-schooler! He's not the swiftest of movers, but you do have access to thrusters with limited fuel, just enough to get you out of a pickle but not enough to spam and run rings around the AI-shits. As for his armoury, it's what you would expect. There's a standard pistol that's reliable and has plenty of ammo, but is next to useless for anything beyond standard foes. There was a shotgun with a real kick, and a net gun and an electric rifle which offered firepower over a larger area and provided more futuristic-looking routes to damage.
In general, encounters were quite contained and felt very deliberate, set in relatively confined spaces, featuring similar foes doing similar things. To be honest, I didn't pay much attention to the enemy design, as so much of my focus was on the grid and then lining up head shots. With the exception of the Metal-Gear-like boss, they weren't that memorable, and I don't recall them coming apart as satisfyingly as they do in Binary Domain, for example. By the time I was ripping through shields on one enemy, my mind had already moved to the next required hack.
Outside of the move-hack-attack of combat, there were other challenges to overcome. The lunar space station is quite vertical in places, so there was some light platforming that required the use of thrusters, which were fairly inoffensive. Diana's skills are also put to good use across the station, hacking doors and different security systems. The puzzles differed to those in battle, and they included a mix of spatial and numeric challenges. Once I'd figured out what was required, they weren't all that difficult, mostly just a case of moving shapes in order of distance from centre or in an ascending, numerical order. The hacking definitely lost some of its lustre when presented outside of combat, but was entertaining enough.
I have high hopes for Pragmata. If Capcom can keep that core mechanic of move-hack-attack fresh and challenging across a full runtime, it'll have a winner on its hands. We'll find out next year.
Comments
Post a Comment