Ivar et l’équipe ont pu tester Pragmata, dernier-né de chez Capcom qui est décidément en forme en ce moment avec la sortie récente du Resident Evil : Requiem. Retrouvez notre test vidéo ci-dessous avec notre revue de l’accessibilité de ce titre.
| Moteur | Visuel | Auditif | Cognitif |
|---|---|---|---|
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Moteur
Visuel
Auditif
Cognitif
Aide à la visée
remapping quasi inexistant
Pragmata is a brand-new game, and that’s good news in the midst of sequels and remakes, even if this game seems to have been difficult to get out, since we’ve been hearing about it since 2020.
In Pragmata, you play the role of an astronaut named Hughs, sent as part of a team to find out why there hasn’t been any news from the lunar base. A little reminiscent of Alien, but without a big beast, although it’s an AI gone mad that will be your opponent, and that’s no better! However, it’s also an AI who will be your ally in the “almost-person” of Diana, a Pragmata who takes the shape of a child discovering the world.
Beyond the relationship between these two characters, which inevitably brings to mind that of Ely and Joel from The Last of Us, the wind of novelty is also blowing at the level of gameplay. Pragmata starts out as a classic action-adventure game. You’ll explore a confined environment made up of corridors and rooms, while encountering puzzles, and enemies to fight. Meeting Diana will bring the plus that changes everything, that is to say, the hack!
In fact, in addition to having Hughs fight with a whole array of guns and other energy weapons, you also control Diana, who has the power to hack enemies, disabling their defenses while making them vulnerable to Hughs’ gunfire. That changes everything!
Your aim will therefore be to calmly prepare yourself in the Shelter by upgrading your gear, skills, and weapons. Then you go off to explore an area often filled with robots controlled by IDUS, the rebel AI. You’ll need to find your way around, unlocking doors whose controls are scattered throughout the area. Of course, you’ll need to get rid of enemies in the meantime, be they simple ones or bosses with very nervous patterns.
During battles, you’ll first have to manage the “Hack” phase with Diana, taking the form of a grid on the right-hand side of the screen, in which you have to navigate using the arrow keys – for the four directions – to reach the square at the center of the grid, passing through certain squares to activate effects. This hack will disable enemies’ defenses and damage them.
At the same time, you have to manage the “physical” part of the battle with Hughs, that is, dodging opposing blows, choosing the right weapon, and aiming to shoot at the right moment, once Diana has succeeded her hack.
Can you feel an accessibility problem coming on? Whereas it’s a highly innovative gameplay that has charmed a good number of players, it will also be an obstacle many who will have great difficulty managing this double gameplay element!
In fact, aids are rather slim to make up for a doubly-demanding gameplay. On Hughs’ side, there are a number of aids, such as avoiding certain keystrokes or aim assist, which is quite effective and much appreciated. However, there are still many problems:
- button holds, if only for permanent thruster use
- fine motor skills to make many jumps accurate to a fraction of an inch
- obligatory key combinations to the point of blocking Ivar in the middle of a test
- hacking, which can be similar to QTEs – quickly performing keystroke sequences
There are so many possible pitfalls without a solution, which is what gave the 4.5/10 for the physical disability aspect.
The game isn’t any more helpful for visual impairments. In fact, color isn’t adjustable. Even if the electric blue of digital interfaces is quite visible to people with poor color perception, it’s displayed in bright environments and therefore offers little contrast. It’s also going to be difficult to move around without collision sounds or fall alerts in a very vertical environment, requiring excellent 3D vision management. Unfortunately, that results in a 4 out of 10.
For hearing disabilities, you’ll be missing out on some contextual information, even if the subtitles are good quality. However, the main points will be the lack of information regarding unseen hazards, for example, you don’t know where your opponents will be. Regarding sound, there are source settings, but no mix settings to manage spatialization. We give it a 6/10 for a playable game, albeit with some difficulties.
Finally, it’s on the cognitive level that Pragmata most baffled us. This innovation in gameplay finally proved to be a major pitfall for much of the team. The first battle was a moment of panic, especially since it was Zizou and Steve who started off, and both of them have concentration problems. So, having to manage the hack AND the battle at the same time was impossible because of too much stress, and too many demands all at once. Zizou totally ignored the hack, whereas, with time and explanation, Steve finally managed both.
Portos, the team’s new tester, admitted that he was able to finish the game in Casual Difficulty, since Pragmata offers it, and partly because once you learn it, the gameplay is fairly repetitive. But even so, the Excavator gave him quite a few problems.
Ivar explains all this, and more, in the French-language video test below!