The most gorgeous JRPG in this Steam Next Fest is putting me through the stages of grief

gamesradar.com:

When I stumbled upon Astra: Knights of Veda in the Steam Next Fine lineup, I genuinely thought I'd somehow missed an announcement from Dragon's Crown and 13 Sentinels developer Vanillaware. 

This is totally on me for trying the demo without any research. This side-scrolling JRPG is a dead ringer for Vanillaware's lavishly illustrated art style, so while I wait for the actual next Vanillaware game – the promising but terribly named strategy RPG Unicorn Overlord – I thought Astra could be my jam. 

There's just one little problem. It is my jam, but it's the wrong kind of jam. What I wanted was a beautiful 2D brawler, and what I found was a beautiful 2D brawler that's aping Genshin Impact so hard that gacha kingpin Hoyoverse is arguably an easier comparison than Vanillaware. Astra: Knights of Veda is a gacha game, it turns out, and I haven't been so disheartened in a while. 

Speaking as someone who's played Genshin Impact basically every day for over three years – and has now inadvisably added Honkai Star Rail into the mix as well – I don't want or need another gacha game in my life, even (and perhaps especially) if it's ripping off one I already play. Astra: Knights of Veda looks incredible, plays pretty decently so far, and its voice acting is in the Xenoblade Chronicles sweet spot that alternates between endearingly hammy Brits and legitimately solid performances. But my playtime with the Steam Next Fest demo, which is apparently also the first global beta, has been completely upstaged by predictably insidious gacha systems, and they feel devastatingly familiar. 

Astra has log-in bonuses, daily challenges, limited-time banners for characters and weapons, a gear grind that's already intimidating, labyrinthine menus, and