What Is Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales?
There's a particular kind of frustration that comes from playing a game that almost gets everything right. You can see the outline of a truly great experience hiding just beneath the surface, tantalisingly close but never fully realized. That's exactly the feeling that Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales leaves behind — a game that inspires genuine affection while simultaneously making you wish it had pushed a little harder in almost every direction.
Developed and published by Square Enix, Adventures of Elliot is the latest entry in the company's growing library of HD-2D titles. This distinctive art style — characterized by richly detailed pixel sprites layered over lush, depth-of-field-enhanced 3D environments — has become something of a signature for Square Enix's throwback projects. Previous games like Octopath Traveler 0 have used this aesthetic to remarkable effect, and Adventures of Elliot continues that tradition with visual aplomb. But a beautiful coat of paint can only carry a game so far.
A Love Letter to Classic Zelda — and Beyond
At its core, Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales is a love letter to the golden era of action-adventure gaming. Its clearest inspiration is the classic Legend of Zelda series — specifically the older, top-down entries that defined an entire genre. Players who grew up with A Link to the Past or Link's Awakening will recognize the DNA immediately: the puzzle-locked dungeons, the exploration-first overworld, the satisfying loop of acquiring new tools that open previously inaccessible areas.
But the game doesn't stop there. Square Enix has also woven in clear influences from Chrono Trigger, one of the most celebrated RPGs ever made, as well as elements drawn from the Ys series — a beloved but criminally underrated franchise of action RPGs that has been quietly delivering excellence for decades. The result is a genre cocktail that sounds incredibly promising on paper, and in many respects delivers on that promise in brief, exciting bursts.
For fans of any of these touchstones, the initial hours of Adventures of Elliot feel like stumbling across a treasure chest. The references are affectionate rather than cynical, and it's clear the development team has a genuine reverence for the source material they're drawing from. That enthusiasm is contagious, and it goes a long way toward making the game's weaker moments easier to forgive.
Where Adventures of Elliot Shines: Arcade-Like Combat and Exploration
When Adventures of Elliot is at its best, it feels like a tightly wound arcade experience. Combat is snappy and kinetic, rewarding players who learn enemy patterns and react quickly. There's a rhythmic satisfaction to clearing a room of enemies or navigating a challenging platforming sequence that echoes the best moments of the games that inspired it. The HD-2D visuals make every encounter pop with color and personality, and the sound design — all crunchy effects and melodic chiptune-influenced music — adds layers of sensory delight.
Exploration is similarly well-crafted in spots. The overworld is dense with secrets, and the game does an admirable job of making environmental discovery feel rewarding. Finding a hidden path or cracking an environmental puzzle produces a genuine dopamine hit, and the moment-to-moment flow of moving through the world has a pleasing rhythm to it. These are the segments where the game's influences shine most clearly and most positively.
The Frustrations: A Half-Baked Structure and a Slow-Burn Story
Unfortunately, Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales can't sustain that momentum across its full runtime. The game's structural design is where things start to unravel. Progression feels inconsistent, with the pacing lurching between engaging sequences and stretches that feel underdeveloped or padded. It's the kind of structural imbalance that suggests a game that may have benefited from additional development time or a stricter editorial hand during production.
The story presents a similar challenge. Narrative has never been the primary selling point of classic Zelda-style games, but Adventures of Elliot clearly has ambitions beyond pure gameplay — particularly given its Chrono Trigger influences, a game whose storytelling remains a benchmark for the genre. Those ambitions are admirable, but the execution struggles to match them. The story takes far too long to reach its most interesting moments, front-loading the experience with setup that doesn't adequately hook the player. By the time the narrative reaches its zenith, some players may have already grown impatient.
This makes Adventures of Elliot a difficult game to recommend without qualification. It is genuinely enjoyable and absolutely worth the time of anyone who has a soft spot for retro-inspired action RPGs. But it falls short of being a definitive entry in the genre it's paying tribute to, and that gap between potential and execution is hard to overlook entirely.
Is Adventures of Elliot Worth Playing in 2025?
So where does that leave Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales in the broader landscape of modern retro games? Firmly in the category of worthwhile-but-imperfect. If you're a fan of classic Zelda titles, Chrono Trigger, or the Ys series, there is genuine joy to be found here. The HD-2D presentation is gorgeous, the combat has real spark, and the love for its source material is evident in every design decision.
What holds it back is the sense that the game could have been so much more with tighter structure and a more disciplined approach to its narrative pacing. The better game hiding inside Adventures of Elliot is an exciting prospect — and hopefully a template for where Square Enix takes this particular sub-series next.
For now, approach it as a fun, occasionally frustrating tribute to gaming's greatest adventure titles, and you're likely to come away satisfied. Just don't go in expecting a genre-defining masterpiece, and you might be pleasantly surprised by how much there is to enjoy.
Final Verdict
- Gorgeous HD-2D visuals that make the game a delight to look at from start to finish.
- Exciting, arcade-style combat that captures the energy of the classic titles it draws from.
- Rich exploration with satisfying secrets and environmental puzzles scattered throughout the overworld.
- Inconsistent pacing and a half-baked structural design that undercuts the overall experience.
- A slow-burning story that takes too long to reach its most compelling moments.
Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales is an enjoyable, flawed homage that fans of classic action RPGs will find worth their time — even if it never quite lives up to the games that inspired it.