Pragmata on Nintendo Switch 2 is a few patches away from being truly great

Pragmata launches this week for PS5, Xbox Series, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC (Steam). It is yet another Capcom game that added a Switch 2 version following its original reveal. I've played every single Capcom Switch 2 port so far including Resident Evil Requiem and Street Fighter 6. I was curious to see how Pragmata would look and feel on Switch 2 given the genre blending gameplay. It felt like a good fit for portable play, and while the demo gave me a teaser, I wanted to see how the full game would fare. I'm working on a full comparison covering all platforms as usual, but I wanted to focus on the Nintendo Switch 2 version today.

Over the last week, I've been playing Pragmata on Switch 2 both docked and handheld. Before I even played the other versions, I put in about 8 hours into the Switch 2 version. Based on the little I played of the demo, I have a small list of things I hoped Capcom would address, but unfortunately none of those have been addressed as of version 1.2.0. 

When played on my 1440p monitor, Pragmata delivers a solid but not perfect experience. It holds up rather well when it comes to image quality and I think Capcom has done a great job of retaining most of the game's aesthetic well. There are regular instances of low resolution or blocky reflections and shadows, but the major visual issue is Diana's hair. While Capcom is no stranger to using detailed and demanding hair strand systems in games, the fallback is never this jarring. In Pragmata, it almost feels like this non-strand system was a last minute addition and it is pretty distracting when you jump around during exploration. 

I got used to the visual issues I had though because Pragmata's gameplay holds up very well when docked, and I was enjoying it a lot with the Switch 2 Pro Controller's back buttons alongside the gyro support. Capcom unfortunately did not implement mouse controls. Hopefully this gets patched into it at a later date. The only times I found myself really bothered by the image quality was during particle-heavy moments and when scanning. You can tell the actual source resolution before upscaling is very low here. I did some pixel counting and it appears to be around 540p docked. Still, the overall experience when playing docked never really looks bad. It can get soft though.

Performance is where things fall apart, but only a bit when playing docked. Pragmata is a 60fps target game on Switch 2. When playing docked, it almost never holds a solid 60fps for more than a few seconds unless you are in a small space just walking around. It doesn't run poorly, but hovers below the 60fps target with bigger drops during cut-scenes. If VRR was supported docked, I think this would not be an issue, but Nintendo is yet to add that. 

One more thing to note is the HD rumble implementation. Capcom continues to take advantage of features like that and the haptics on the DualSense controller to elevate the experience. I value this a lot when I decide where to play a game across platforms, and it is good to see Capcom not just add basic vibration when the controllers support a lot more.

Pragmata unfortunately is not a good handheld experience on Switch 2. Not only is the image quality sub-par and noticeably worse than when playing docked during any sort of action, but the performance is too unstable for my liking. Capcom's insistence on uncapped frame rates without offering any sort of graphics modes or optional frame rate caps really hurts Pragmata. 

Had there been a 30fps or 40fps cap option handheld with tweaks to the visuals, I would have played Pragmata on Switch 2 handheld all the way. Right now, I don't think VRR is working correctly or at all because the frame rate just constantly jumps around when playing handheld. The cutbacks to visuals and unstable performance make it hard to recommend Pragmata purely for portable play on Switch 2. One last thing I'd like to see adjusted is the gyro when using split Joy-Con controllers. Right now it appears that gyro is still only on the left Joy-Con with no option to change this. I mostly played with my Pro Controller where it felt great, but if you use the split Joy-Con setup, it is worth keeping in mind.

I can accept and expect some visual cutbacks for a portable experience that performs well, but if both the visuals and performance are lacking, I'd rather just play it docked on Switch 2 for improvements across the board. I hope Capcom can add optional graphics modes or frame rate target options since Pragmata is exactly the kind of game I'd have loved to play portably on Nintendo Switch 2. Hopefully Capcom continues to work on it and address some of the issues. I'll be revisiting this whenever we see any notable Switch 2-focused patches.

Stay tuned for my full comparison covering Pragmata's visuals, performance, and load times across Nintendo Switch 2, PS5, Xbox Series X, PS5 Pro, Steam Deck, and ROG Ally in the near future.