The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales

The Adventures of Elliot holds so much untapped potential that even discussing it becomes frustrating: every single aspect of the game seems to have been designed without regard for the others, yet somehow the whole package manages to be incredibly consistent. Ultimately, it was an enjoyable experience—never dull—that left us feeling satisfied despite the aforementioned flaws, though largely because we love the genre and the HD-2D style. And because we have an obsessive-compulsive need to deal with locked treasure chests and kittens in distress.

The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales is a story that looks to the past in order to better exist in the present. Captivating and elegant, but at times a little too restrained to leave a lasting impression.

Despite my frustrations, by the end, I just couldn’t find myself to truly dislike The Adventure of Elliot: The Millennium Tales as a whole. It just has too much heart, and I see a lot of room for improvement. This is the kind of game where you can just tell the people making it approached the project with pure passion. I’d love to see them get another shot, because you can just tell a follow-up could be legendary.

Nothing about Elliot feels outright poor, but there's an air of slight disappointment that the game can't shake. There are even parts that I really love: the genuinely bright and whimsical style and soundtrack, combat options, and ludicrous ending, but it feels like the whole package has trouble clicking together. And honestly, maybe part of that is simply how good nearly all of Square's HD-2D efforts have been up until now...On its own, The Adventures of Elliot is just fine; a solid action RPG to fill your time. There's a strong foundation to build on for the future, if another HD-2D action-RPG can actually find that untapped potential that Elliot doesn't manage to reach.

The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales conceals its various endings beneath layer upon layer of the player’s genuine interest in soaking up every last detail of a story that offers nothing new or original, but which, in its final stretch, features a ‘cliffhanger’ that gives it the boost it needs to remain in the category of a good game. It won’t feature in any ‘must-play’ lists for the genre, but I don’t think it’s a bad choice for some light-hearted fun without too much pressure over the summer.

A traditional Zelda alternative with good-feeling weapons-based combat. The Adventures of Elliot's world and characters might grate over time, but it does feel like a good evolution of Square Enix's HD-2D aesthetic.

It’s clear that Claytechworks understands what the key ingredients of a good Zelda-like are, but they haven’t quite managed to strike the right balance between them in this first attempt. They should have sprinkled a little more puzzle-solving into the mix and a little less combat. However, that’s a minor issue compared to the paper-thin story and the bizarre decision to copy-paste the same map four times. It reeks of too much ambition and too few resources, and if that’s the case, it can be forgiven because the combat system and the obligatory dungeons and bosses are truly rock-solid here. If Elliot sets off on new adventures in the future, I’d gladly join him again. As long as Faie and Philabieldia are left at home.

With this fond and technically accomplished homage to the action-adventure games of the SNES’s golden age, Team Asano once again succeeds in bringing the appeal and charm of celebrated genre pioneers into the modern era. However, while titles like Octopath Traveler and Triangle Strategy did more than just pay tribute—enriching their genres with original ideas—The Adventures of Elliot remains largely repetitive and predictable. Although I thoroughly enjoyed my roughly 20-hour adventure, I frequently lamented the game's unfulfilled potential. I would welcome a sequel that builds upon this solid foundation while addressing the current shortcomings.

Whatever team Asano's original statement of intent may have been in crafting The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales, it will only have been partially honored. Beyond deploying the era-hopping mechanic as a design shortcut rather than a genuinely coherent narrative element, this latest HD-2D epic loses itself in outrageous repetitiveness, one that will have players retreading the same areas time and again; and the handful of sporadic, era-dependent variations won't be enough to fend off the overdose. There is, admittedly, a soul to it all the same, systems that work and a certain moreishness to the gameplay, yet the experience spreads out as so much scenery to be crossed again and again, all while waiting for the story to finally deign to begin. And it's very good, once it truly does. But in plenty of cases, by then it will already be too late. "Hope is eternal," one might draw as the game's moral. We'd mainly have preferred it to be in a little more of a hurry.