The Adventures of Elliot The Millennium Tales review - a Zelda style adventure that delights in HD-2D. Following a slew of great turn-based RPGs, Square Enix's first action RPG in HD-2D makes for a remarkably compelling concoction.
The Adventures of Elliot is the very first 2D-HD game from Square Enix to not centre on turn-based combat, rather refreshingly.
Against all odds, The Adventures of Elliot mixes in smart gameplay depth with a beautiful world across four distinct ages. The result? Quite possibly the start of Square Enix's next big thing.
You know what can be equally as fun and inventive as traditional turn-based RPGs? Top-down action-adventures styled in the vein of classic Zelda. And with The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales, Square Enix seems to have finally gotten the message. I say this as someone who utterly adores the pixel-fuelled HD-2D art style Octopath Traveller pioneered back in 2018. However, even I had admittedly grown pretty tired of it by the time of the fourth, then fifth release to use the aesthetic within the same genre.
Well, as The Adventures of Elliot swiftly proves, there's plenty of life left in it yet, and it's all down to how surprisingly well it merges with a fun, fluid, and ambitious adventure that places real-time action and dungeon-based puzzle solving at the forefront. Mouthful of a title aside, The Adventures of Elliot is an unexpected delight I didn't really see coming.
A Refreshingly Low-Stakes Setup
Core to this inherent appeal is the simple but extremely effective structure and setup of the world itself. Rather than drop within a war-torn fantasy realm where the fabric of reality is in danger (that old chestnut), the stakes set at the outset in The Adventures of Elliot are refreshingly low. You play as Elliot himself, of course, who makes the point multiple times early on in the prologue that he's just happy to help in the most selfless sense if it means an adventure will ensue. This explains why he's all too happy to aid the princess when this one that has him jumping through time across multiple eras falls into his lap. What else is a self-proclaimed adventurer to do? After all, it's all he lives for.
You'll run into many screen-sized bosses whenever you reach the end of a dungeon, all of whom test your combat ability.
What follows is a familiar yet still thrilling, thousand-year spanning journey to save the continent of Philabieldia from an unexpected villain, one that has you jumping through four distinct ages in the past. Story and exploration are married perfectly this way, since you get to explore the map as it takes on multiple guises, witnessing different environmental and population changes that helps make Elliot's adventure feel a lot more epic than it otherwise would be. Ostensibly, this is the exact same map you'll be exploring, yet be it an entirely new enemy type, fresh way to traverse, or a kickass dungeon, jumping through the door of time each time works amazingly to keep Philabieldia feeling fresh across 20 or so hours.
Gameplay: Classic Zelda with a Twist
Gameplay-wise, anyone familiar with even one iota of classic The Legend of Zelda will know exactly what to expect. Much like Link, the deeper Elliot pushes through the map the more unique ways he uncovers to explore it. True to the genre, too, he even has a wispy fairy companion joining him alongside to help out - although the way it's handled here is slightly more ingenious. You see, simultaneously as Elliot slashes and bashes away at enemies using weapons that range from the humble sword to a giant mallet or chain-tethered scythe, you can also deploy Faie the fairy's suite of discoverable abilities in a way that synergises with Elliot's basic attacks.
From her simple ability to ignite a fire and catch enemies in a blaze to the way she is able to warp Elliot himself out of danger whenever he's in a difficult spot, Elliot and Faie make quite the team - both in and outside of combat. Better yet, peppered throughout all four distinct time periods you'll visit are myriad excuses to use them, most commonly in the form of optional challenge dungeons that possess useful rewards and upgrades to Elliot's slowly-growing arsenal or side missions. It's a shame that the latter so often boils down to simple 'go here and kill this' objectives or basic fetch quests, but exploring this ever-changing world is so beautiful and rewarding, this is an otherwise rote aspect of The Adventures of Elliot I can easily forgive.
Dungeons and Boss Fights
It wouldn't be a proper top-down Zelda-like, of course, without dungeons, and luckily The Adventures of Elliot brings plenty. Admittedly, most aren't quite as elegantly handled as Nintendo's beloved series, but there's still plenty of fun to be had working your way through differently-themed castles and ruins designed to test your mastery of Elliot's weapons and Faie's powers. One memorable descent into the underground had me shifting beams of light around the different rooms using mirrors to find the relevant keys and doors, while another saw me guide Elliot around the chamber using various Lily pads that would give him a high bounce. I wouldn't say that any dungeon here was particularly mind-blowing, per se, but each one ramps up in difficulty to a good degree and had me using the heroic pair's abilities in ways I didn't previously consider. It also helps that most are punctuated by a climactic boss fight that always forced me to think about my weapon loadout carefully.
The Magicite System
The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales is a stellar example of the genre it so clearly has affection for, then, but Square Enix also finds a way to provide its own imprint. This comes in the form of what's called the Magicite system, which essentially means upgrading all of Elliot's weapons with different kinds of buffs, depending on your playstyle. Elliot's sword, for instance, works just as well on its own, but can be improved with different randomised magicite upgrades that might, say, increase your critical attack or decrease the time it takes to charge up a devastating swing.
Exploring the same map across four distinct ages ensures you'll always see something new each time you jump across the decades.
The kicker comes from how you're only able to apply a set amount of magicite upgrades depending on the size of Elliot's box and therefore how many he can fit in. The box itself can be upgraded as you go, however, and thankfully equipping magicite onto one weapon doesn't affect how many you can apply to another. It's a rather complex yet forgiving upgrade system in that way. True, magicite didn't really need to exist, but as a way to customise what would otherwise be a conventional action RPG, I found magicite to be a cool twist on the action-fuelled format that allowed me to have greater control of the action.
Conclusion
Just when I thought I had my fill of HD-2D games from Square Enix, The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales has arrived as an undeniably charming surprise. Sure, turn-based combat is thrown away in favour of real-time brawls and battles, but none of the art style's inherent charm or the exploratory curiosity said aesthetic allows for has been lost in the process. Providing you can forgive some uninspired side quest design (cat collecting aside) and a somewhat straightforward story, there's plenty here that should make it easy for old-school action RPG heads to get their fix. In other words, something tells me this won't be the final adventure we see from Elliot.
Rating: 4/5
