Developer: Square Enix, Team Asano, Claytechworks
Publisher: Square Enix
Platform: PC, PS5, Switch 2, Xbox Series X/S
Tested on: PS5
The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales – Review
Back in 2018, Square Enix’s Octopath Traveler put the HD-2D style on the map. This graphical style of combining old-school 2D pixelated character sprites with 3D environments and modern lighting has become the benchmark for many new Square Enix releases and remakes. Most of the titles that utilize the style, however, are RPGs with fairly old-school mechanics. In comes The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales, a game that strays away from this formula, opting more for an experience akin to The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. We were lucky enough to try out the game before its release, and it’s easy to say, we had a blast.
Story
The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales starts in The Kingdom of Huther, where Elliot, who’s an adventurer, gets summoned by the king to come to the kingdom’s aid. What starts as a fairly generic story where the adventurer must save the kingdom, the princess, and overcome many obstacles, does become a bit more interesting after the introduction. You’ll go back and forth through different time periods, making sure the timeline stays intact. While even with the time-traveling component, things never stray far from a standard adventure game experience, we still enjoyed the different story beats. The story is brought nicely via a lot of dialogues and short cutscenes, and even if you do a lot of side content, it still progresses at a steady pace.
Graphics
As mentioned above, Square Enix’s HD-2D graphical style returns for The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales, making the game a perfect blend of 2D old-school character and monster sprites with top-of-the-shelf 3D environments and finishing touches. We loved the intricate character designs as well as their matching high-quality portraits during dialogues. The monster designs were maybe sometimes a bit more generic, but they still managed to hit all the right notes for an adventure title such as this. The environments in the different time periods were diverse enough, even though we were traversing the same region in each of them. It was immediately clear what time period we were in while exploring, which is a huge plus. Obviously, there were no performance issues to be found here, as we can imagine the utilized visual style isn’t too taxing on Sony’s hardware.
Sound
Unsurprisingly, Square Enix hits it out of the park with The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales’ soundtrack and voice acting. We absolutely enjoyed the game’s music, and on more than one occasion, we found ourselves just listening to the music in the background. This is further complemented by the great voice acting. The main quest dialogues, as well as the side-quest dialogues, are fully voiced. Only the small conversations with random NPCs are not voiced here. The SFX round things out nicely here, with proper audio feedback during combat and exploration.
Gameplay
The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales is an old-school action adventure title in which you’ll explore the kingdom of Huther and its surrounding regions in different time periods. Everything here feels very straightforward, as the game sets up roadblocks to prevent players from progressing into areas they aren’t supposed to be in yet. As you complete story quests and side objectives, more tools will become available to you, opening new roads and areas. To be honest, the game is mostly a by-the-numbers affair that holds little in the way of surprises, but feels extremely polished nonetheless.
All in all, there’s actually not that much to tell here, as you just go around the world, explore every nook and cranny, and progress at a steady pace. You’ll find new weapons as you go, and these will unlock new avenues. Optional quests can help you with upgrades, such as bigger quivers of arrows or more accessory slots you can use. It’s all fairly standard stuff here. The unique gimmick here may be in the form of Faie, a fairy only Elliot can see. She can help you with casting magic, but also by attacking enemies and picking up items. The right stick also allows the player to move her separately. This gives you an additional gameplay mechanic to focus on, making The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales a bit more than a standardized old-school adventure title.
Combat works like many other titles in the genre as well. You can always equip two weapons at the same time, and you have basic and charged attacks for almost all of them. You can adjust your settings on the fly for Faie’s spells and how directional attacks work. We loved messing around with the different weapons, as all of them have their strengths (and weaknesses). For the most part, everything really feels polished, and combat feels really intuitive.
A fun touch here is the option to play the game in co-op. A second player can take control of your fairy companion, Faie, damaging enemies, casting spells, and collecting items that have been dropped. While this is still a more passive role than the player controlling Elliot, it’s still a nice way to play this game together with a friend or family member.
As our only point of critique here, we’d say that a few gameplay design choices feel a bit basic. Your map feels a bit clumsy at times, and some of the fast travel points feel a bit awkward to use. Some menus also feel a bit finicky, but all in all, these are just minor remarks that will probably be overlooked by most players.
Conclusion
The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales is a very entertaining old-school adventure game backed up by gorgeous visuals, tried-and-true gameplay mechanics, a captivating soundtrack, and a slightly predictable but enjoyable narrative. While not perfect due to several dated mechanics and Square Enix playing it a bit too safe, we can still easily recommend this one to fans of older Zelda titles or those looking for a fun adventure game that never overcomplicates things.
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