Because this is a cruel world we live in, I will never get to play another Vanquish, my forever answer to the question “what videogame has the most juice?” But if I can’t play more of the knee-sliding, giant-sci-fi-mech-toppling shooter made by Capcom’s former design maestro Shinji Mikami, I will happily accept a successor from 2026 Capcom, which is now years deep into a hot streak of great games. (When your “duds” are still as fun to play as Monster Hunter Wilds, you know you’re on a heater).
Pragmata has seemed like a potentially shaky entry in Capcom’s remarkably consistent lineup, delayed four whole years to finally arrive next month. But a meaty hands-on demo at Capcom’s office in San Francisco last week reassured me that every look we’ve gotten at the action game so far has been holding back a lot of the good stuff—stuff like building-sized robot kaiju that demand I shoot them with enormous laser cannons. Maybe someone at Capcom’s carrying a torch for Vanquish, too.
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- Weird, alien hammerhead design with comically pregnant robo-belly
- Three distinct giant laser beam attacks that demand quick repositioning
- Smart evolution of the hacking minigame that demands shooting specific weak points to drop the bot’s cybershields
- Buildings that convey the sense of scale (robot indeed big)
- A weapon called the Charge Piercer that both charges and pierces with a giant laser beam of its own
While Capcom didn’t allow direct capture, here’s a small portion of the battle:
The particularly erudite among you may watch this clip and think “Hmm, cool spaceman and cool robot kaiju? Yes. But something is missing.” That something is of course a building-sized mech of my own to climb into for the proper Super Sentai-style finale. Instead I had to say distressingly normal sized, targeting the giant bot’s weak spots until I stunned it and could deliver a point-blank finisher for major damage.
But we must remain hopeful! This portion of Pragmata was still clearly early in the game’s campaign, and I have a feeling things will escalate sharply the closer astronaut guy Hugh and android sidekick Diana get to escaping the lunar base gone haywire. Dare I hope for the classical Japanese action game final boss set in space?
I’ve blown up the moon before, and I’ll do it again. Just give me the chance, Pragmata.
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