Played through the demo of this recently. There's a bit of overlap between certain schools of shmup boss design and certain schools of MMO raid boss design, and this game sits very comfortably in that intersection. You're still being asked to master your DPS rotation, manage your build, and cooperatively solve boss mechanics without eating shit (or worse, making your party members eat shit), but they've trimmed out the 'MMO' part in favour of a tight, fast-paced, co-op experience. Lots of boss attacks feel extremely reminiscent of FFXIV raid staples—to the point where we were using their FFXIV names when calling them out—but there's a greater emphasis, particularly at higher levels, on weaving through projectile patterns like a twin-stick shooter. Minus that troublesome 'aiming' business.
I think it's a cute idea. There are certain aspects of the experience that I obviously miss from FFXIV (playing dress-ups, learning about the boss's tragic backstory, having a nuanced job class with more than four buttons, listening to the boss theme on loop afterwards), but it does quite a good job of condensing the core of raiding into a faster, more streamlined thing that you can just blast through with a few friends on occasion. I think the visual language could maybe use a bit of work in places, but I'm very keen on trying the full game when it comes out. It's neat!
