Pragmata Feels Like An Xbox 360 Game In All The Best Ways
I had forgotten all about Pragmata by the time Capcom was setting up appointments to play the puzzle shooter at Summer Game Fest. We’re five years removed from its original announcement, and Capcom is no stranger to quietly hiding a game away and never releasing it (remember Deep Down?). So, I let the game disappear from my memory until its name showed up in my inbox. Perhaps it’s fitting then that Pragmata feels a bit like a game out of time, as its gruff old man protagonist, slow-moving enemies, and brutalist sci-fi aesthetic are all evocative of the over-the-shoulder shooters from the PS360 era. Given those seemingly bygone qualities, it’d be easy for Pragmata to feel rote and dated, but what I played was just inventive enough to feel novel. I was super impressed with it. – Kenneth Shepard
