Square Enix and Team Asano have crafted something unexpected: an action-adventure game that borrows liberally from The Legend of Zelda's playbook while carving out its own identity through smart combat design and a charming cast. The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales marks the first time the studio's signature HD-2D aesthetic has ventured beyond turn-based combat into real-time swordplay, and the result is an adventure worth taking.
You play as Elliot, a perpetually self-aware adventurer who gets swept into a time-spanning quest to save both a princess and a kingdom. His companion Faie, a chatty fairy with intermittent amnesia, tags along with magical firepower and occasional puzzle spoilers. Over roughly 20 hours, the core cast grows on you, though the story's most emotionally resonant beats arrive late, sometimes not until post-game content. The world building is genuinely inviting.
The time travel hook, however, underwhelms. Jumping between different ages shows promise at first, with certain structures crumbling into ruins or revealing their former glory. But venture beyond the cities, and the landscape becomes static. The beastmen settlements never evolve despite spanning a thousand years. Enemy variety suffers similarly, with the same slugs and rat creatures appearing across ages, palette-swapped automata being the rarest nod to temporal distinction.
What saves the world from feeling repetitive is its visual design. The HD-2D treatment brings stunning environments to life: the drooping indigo leaves of Grandree forest, the volcanic crown of Mount Phoenix, the crystalline structures of Weyzn. Boss designs shine, from a laser-spewing lava lizard to a frog knight riding a turtle. The Nintendo Switch 2 version runs nearly as smoothly as the PC build, with only minor slowdown during extended play.
Magicite and Mastery
Where Elliot diverges from Zelda tradition is its growth system. Rather than leveling up, you equip Magicite crystals into weapons, each granting unique modifiers and stat boosts. Seven weapons each support 15 different crystal options, swappable instantly even mid-combat. Found in chests or crafted from enemy shards at specialized shops, these crystals come in escalating rarity tiers, creating meaningful build variety.
Synergies between crystals become intoxicating. Equip Fire Shot on your bow to light enemies ablaze, then use Explosion Magicite to detonate them. Suddenly a boss melts. With two weapons mapped to separate buttons and Faie's spells on speed dial, combat feels fluid and responsive. A radial menu freezes action while you adjust loadouts without penalty, empowering tactical swaps without breaking momentum.
Basic sword swinging remains satisfying. Parrying with your shield opens enemies to critical hits. You can hurl pots, trigger explosions that chain to nearby foes, or exploit environmental height for advantages. Boss difficulty spikes have a safety valve: if you fall short on health, Faie can revive you for a fee that doubles with each use but resets at checkpoints. Very Hard mode disables this mercy.
A combo counter rewards clean play, doubling enemy loot drops at higher chains. Break it once through damage, and you start over. The Temple of Trials tests mastery with escalating boss rushes and mob gauntlets, useful for stress-testing weapon combinations but punishing for the unprepared.
Beyond combat, Elliot demands platforming chops. Dungeons feature sections leaping across gaps, navigating lava pits, and solving vertical puzzles. Controls feel tight enough that these sequences frustrate rarely. Helpful accessories like hover boots or fall-damage negation exist, and explorable map areas mean you can often bypass challenges entirely using Faie's Warp ability or other unlocks.
Navigation itself is effortless. Guideposts scattered across the world fast-travel at any time regardless of era, crucial for a time-jumping adventure. The map smothers you with icons marking treasure, shrines, collectible cats, and more. This generosity aids completionists but might overwhelm those seeking discovery without guidance. A filter option would be welcome. Dungeons replicate this design, placing guideposts at entrances and before bosses, ensuring healing stations are never far away.
Elliot wears red instead of green, but the DNA is unmistakable: puzzle dungeons, chest-hunting, companion mechanics, a familiar cadence to exploration. Yet the Magicite system and action-focused combat give it breathing room. This is what a modern, Square-developed take on A Link to the Past might look like. The time travel never fully delivers on its premise, and enemy variety dries up quickly, but the core loop of combat experimentation and world exploration remains compelling. Whether intentional homage or coincidental parallel, it works.
Author Emily Chen: "The time travel feels halfhearted, but everything else clicks so well that you won't mind the missed opportunity."
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