The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales is a fantastic HD-2D adventure from Square Enix that immediately impressed us with its beautiful world, intriguing story, and overall presentation. We played the game on Nintendo Switch 2, where the experience ran incredibly smoothly and helped make exploring its immersive world even more enjoyable.
One of the most interesting aspects of the adventure is the way you revisit the same world across different periods of time. Seeing familiar locations change and discovering how the world has evolved gives exploration a unique sense of discovery and makes you want to see what has changed each time you return.
With its gorgeous HD-2D presentation, smooth performance, intriguing storyline, and clever use of different time periods, The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales makes a fantastic first impression and quickly establishes itself as an adventure worth experiencing.
Graphics 9.2
The graphics in The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales are fantastic and showcase just how impressive the HD-2D style can be. Detailed pixel-art characters are combined with beautifully rendered environments, creating a visual style reminiscent of games such as Octopath Traveler and Live A Live while still giving Elliot's adventure its own identity.
The world itself is especially impressive. Mountains, castles, towns, and surrounding landscapes are filled with layers of detail, and seeing familiar locations subtly change across different time periods makes exploring them even more interesting. Dynamic lighting, combat effects, particles, and smooth animations also give the classic pixel-art presentation a much more modern feel.
Overall, the graphics are extremely polished and very well put together, especially for an HD-2D game. There are very few visual issues to complain about. Some environments could have benefited from a few more finer details, but at that point we are really just nitpicking an otherwise beautiful-looking game.
Gameplay 9.5
The gameplay in The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales is incredibly smooth and easily one of the strongest parts of the game. The real-time, top-down action feels responsive, while the combination of combat, exploration, and platforming keeps the adventure moving at a great pace.
Elliot has access to a variety of different weapons that can be swapped on the fly, allowing you to quickly change your approach depending on the enemy or situation. Weapons can also be upgraded, while crystals allow you to add new abilities and further customize how you approach combat.
Another great addition is the fairy companion that follows you throughout the adventure. The fairy has its own abilities that can also be switched on the fly, adding another layer to both combat and exploration. Combining Elliot's weapons with the fairy's abilities gives you plenty of options without making the systems feel overly complicated.
Enemy variety is also excellent. Different enemies require you to change how you approach encounters, which prevents the combat from becoming stale even after spending many hours exploring the world.
Overall, the gameplay is fantastic. The smooth combat, instant weapon swapping, upgrades, fairy abilities, platforming, and strong enemy variety all come together to create an action RPG that remains fun and engaging throughout the adventure.
Audio 8.5
The audio in The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales is strong overall, with clean and precise voice acting that helps bring the characters and story to life. There are moments where we would have liked to hear more voiced dialogue, but for the first entry in a new series, what is here is handled extremely well.
The soundtrack complements the adventure nicely, although some tracks can become repetitive after spending a long time exploring the same areas. One particularly great touch is how the music changes when you travel through time. Revisiting a familiar location in another era can introduce a different version of its soundtrack, helping reinforce just how much the world has changed.
Overall, the audio is very well done. More voiced dialogue and slightly more musical variety would have improved it further, but the way the soundtrack evolves alongside the different time periods is an excellent addition.
Value 9.1
The value in The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales is immense. Even after completing the main story, there is still plenty of reason to continue exploring the world, whether you are searching for hidden treasures, discovering additional dungeons, or uncovering areas and secrets you may have missed during the main adventure.
Players focusing primarily on the core story can expect roughly 14 to 19 hours of gameplay. A more typical playthrough that includes exploration, side paths, optional dungeons, and additional activities can easily reach around 20 to 30 hours.
Completionists have even more to discover, with roughly 33.5 to 50+ hours available for those looking to uncover the different endings, collectibles, shrines, side quests, and other hidden content scattered throughout the world.
Overall, the game offers fantastic value. More importantly, much of the additional content encourages you to explore rather than simply padding out the experience. There is always a reason to venture off the main path and see what you can discover next.
Pros
- Beautiful and highly polished HD-2D graphics.
- Incredibly smooth and responsive real-time combat.
- Excellent weapon variety with the ability to swap weapons on the fly.
- Weapon upgrades and crystal abilities add plenty of customization.
- The fairy companion adds another layer to combat and exploration with its own abilities.
- Excellent enemy variety keeps combat from becoming repetitive or stale.
- Huge amount of content with excellent value even after completing the main story.
- Plenty of optional dungeons, treasures, shrines, side quests, and secrets to discover.
- Travelling through different time periods and seeing how familiar locations change is a fantastic concept.
- Different music for locations across different time periods is a great touch.
- Intriguing story and an immersive world that encourages exploration.
Excellent performance on Nintendo Switch 2.
Cons
- Some areas could have benefited from a few more finer visual details.
- More voiced dialogue would have helped bring the characters and story to life even further.
- Certain soundtrack tracks can become repetitive after spending extended periods exploring.
- With such an interesting world and time-travel concept, some locations could have been expanded even further.
Verdict
The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales is a fantastic action RPG that combines a beautiful HD-2D world with smooth combat, excellent exploration, and an intriguing story. The ability to revisit the same world across different time periods is one of its greatest ideas, especially when you begin noticing how familiar locations, environments, and even the music have changed.
Gameplay is another major highlight. Switching weapons and fairy abilities on the fly keeps combat fast and flexible, while weapon upgrades and crystals give you plenty of ways to customize Elliot. Strong enemy variety also prevents battles from becoming stale, even after spending dozens of hours exploring the world.
There is tremendous value here as well. Finishing the main story is only part of the experience, with optional dungeons, treasures, shrines, side quests, hidden areas, and other secrets providing plenty of reasons to continue exploring.
There are a few areas that could be improved. We would have liked more voiced dialogue, certain soundtrack pieces can become repetitive, and some environments could use a little more fine detail. However, these complaints feel minor compared to everything the game gets right.
Overall, The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales is a beautifully crafted and highly polished adventure. With fantastic gameplay, an immersive world, excellent value, and a clever approach to travelling through different eras, this is a great new adventure from Square Enix and one we thoroughly enjoyed.