The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales

Taken altogether, the bulk of this adventure feels uncharacteristically, aggressively safe compared to Team Asano’s past work. I’m a big fan of Tomoya Asano and, by extension, Team Asano, whose last several HD-2D RPGs have really hit home runs in the narrative department. Games like Octopath Traveler 2, all the Bravely games, and even the Live A Live remake (which has a different ending from the original!) all pull some incredible narrative twists, especially near the end. Maybe The Adventures of Elliot feels so careful because the risk the team took here was in swapping up its usual genre and framework from turn-based, party-based RPGs to a more solo (well, duo) affair. If that’s the case, then I have to commend them for doing really well at the mechanical execution of that. I just wish that, in doing so, Team Asano hadn’t sanded off all the storytelling edges that I always look forward to scraping against.

While a couple late-game side quests overstay their welcome, a big part of this game’s appeal is that it can easily be enjoyed in shorter sessions. You can’t really drop in on Tears of the Kingdom or Persona 5 for 30 minutes and make meaningful progress, but you absolutely can in The Adventures of Elliot. Though the scope of the story is compact, I was pleasantly surprised by the way the stakes ratcheted up over time to reach a thrilling conclusion. While I do wish the time-travel aspects had more depth, if you have fond memories of Secret of Mana and/or A Link to the Past — or are simply craving a satisfying RPG experience that won’t take over your life — you’ll have a fantastic time with The Adventures of Elliot. It’s an easy game to pick up and a hard one to put down.