Review | The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales

A Millennium review

How often do we get to play Zelda from Square Enix? This review will answer if that is good or bad, and what to expect from this gorgeous HD-2D title that came out recently.

The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales was developed by Team Asano and Claytechworks under the umbrella of Square Enix's Creative Studio 5. Like previous titles such as the Octopath Traveler series and Live A Live, the game features Square Enix's trademarked HD-2D art style. I love the style, and most of all, all love when they're not reusing assets, so this game falls into that category, but with some twists. The game was released for Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and Windows on June 18, 2026, and it's a traditional action adventure.

The biggest issue is the price - 70 Euros for Europe; and that's just plain greed. For a 20-25 hours game, this is too much, just too much. On the other hand, this is perfectly polished product with no hickups or issues whatsoever, so at least that stands for something.

Story and the characters

The whole game premise is very simple; it's how the creators envisioned it anyway. To me, this feels like a game for children, maybe teen ages; and I'm not really that young anymore, so I condiser the dialogues, writting and characters to be a little too childish for my taste. I do love how they've designed the story and all endings, so at least something is great in all that.

Don't expect mature storytelling. And if you don't like timelines and revisiting all locations 4 times due to game design, this can be a bit painfull in that sense, as you get to backtrack through timeliness a lot. 

Game design, exploration

So, this is a top-down Zelda clone. It's what you can expect from such game, and I think this one does well all of its aspects - minus the enemy variety and challenge. I always crave for some challenge. I love to learn boss fights, meddle around with stats and such... You can partialy do that here, but overall, it's a simple experience with dodge, parry and attack mechanics. 

You are a time traveler and you get to explore world (a map with dungeons) 4 times. This is my bigger problem with the game - I dislike re-using locations just to make the game longer. If there were to create 4 unique worlds, that would've been a 9+ game for sure. Because of this, I was just bored with parts and it was hard to even finish the game. I'm glad I did, because the ending routes are the best the game has to offer.

The dungeos are ok, and the puzzles as well; although they are simple, but using different skills such as teleportation makes up for the simplicity. 

Combat

Combat is also somewhat simple, but I find it to be a lot of fun. You get to equip different gems that you can produce - to buff and enchance weapons with some unique skills, and that is really cool. The effects and art in the game trully shines, so for me using all different weapons and their skills was a fun experience.

In terms of challenge, boss fights are cool, but there is just that something that is missing. I can probably name a few good ones, and the rest of them are just mashing your way until you win. Some even repeat for a couple of times. 

You can also equip accessories to get more movesets and buffs, but nothing really worth mentioning.

Side Content

Side content is basically collecting 20 heart containers, all chests and doing side quests. Side queast can be a bit boring, even though they come with lore extension and full voice overs. I just didn't find them interesting, nor I consider most of the characters to be.

There is not much to discuss besides that, it's all there is, and alongside with 3 endings that expand the story a lot, there is not much else to say. I only wish there is a better tracking of what you miss on the map.

Conclusion

Elliot is a great contender for new ideas in this direction. I hope that Square can continue with such games, but I also hope they can lower the prices for such products, and get rid of this awful game design with repeating story bits/worlds; I never liked it, starting from their Bravely Default games etc.

It's a great Zelda-like, but with some better aspects, and with some worse; overall it was a fun experience with beautiful art style that I would recommend on a sale.

One of the best older Zelda games out there!

Too bad there isn't more enemy and boss variety, plus the challenge is almost non-existing.

Maybe the story is a bit childish, but the whole idea and how it all wrapps at the end is good.

I was tired from re-visiting the same locations 4 times... But the game is still fun!

Ah, the feeling when you complete a game and enjoy most of it... Priceless