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 more currencies than a global bank. Several systems and UI components are point-for-point recreations of Genshin Impact, from icons and menu placement to currency conversions and banner layouts. It even has its own Paimon-like fairy stand-in.
It's also worth noting that purely as a gacha game, Astra's banner rates, pity counter, daily rewards, and currency conversions don't seem particularly inviting to me. I get that this is just a beta, but it's not a great first impression mechanically. I don't even want to find out what you get for spending real money, because the time investment is already daunting.
If this stuff is a deal-breaker for you, I don't blame you. It's a deal-breaker for me and I actually like a few gacha games. It's not just that I don't have the time or appetite for another gacha grind, either. Even if I hadn't already filled the gacha slot in my gaming routine, I don't think Astra would hook me in the long-run. The art is definitely the best thing about it so far. Combat is fine but not stellar, and the best part of it – hot-swapping between a team of four heroes to layer abilities – feeds right back into that gacha FOMO. I am head-over-heels in love aesthetically, but I'm sorry Astra, I don't think your good looks are going to carry this inevitably toxic relationship.
Here are the best JRPGs you can play today. And if you're wondering, the most popular demo in Steam Next Fest so far is a Valheim-style survival game with Dark Souls-style bosses.
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