The recent review of The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales, a new action RPG from Square Enix's Team Asano, offers a timely reflection on the commercial viability and cultural resonance of titles deliberately designed to evoke the 16-bit and 32-bit console eras, a design choice that often invites scrutiny regarding its fidelity to original hardware limitations versus mere aesthetic pastiche. As reported by Polygon, this new title, co-developed with Claytechworks, aims to capture the spirit of a lost SNES or PlayStation-era classic, a sentiment that resonates with a growing segment of the gaming audience.
Polygon's assessment highlights a game that, while not presenting anything particularly new by contemporary standards, excels in its execution of familiar mechanics. The pacing is described as tight, boss encounters are varied, and puzzles offer a satisfying level of challenge. The visual and auditory presentation is said to conjure the atmosphere of a fairy-tale storybook, a deliberate choice that underpins its retro aspirations.
A Deliberate Retro Aesthetic
The Adventures of Elliot clearly draws from a specific period of gaming history. The game’s art direction, while modern in its rendering, consciously echoes the pixel-art charm and vibrant colour palettes characteristic of 16-bit titles. This isn't merely a superficial nod; it is an attempt to recreate the feeling of discovery inherent in those older games. The review notes a Ghibli-esque earnestness in the storytelling, which, despite initial impressions of being somewhat hokey, ultimately wins over the player.
The narrative begins in the Kingdom of Huther, where the protagonist, Elliot, embarks on a quest to retrieve a seemingly mundane item for an older gentleman. Elliot is portrayed as a kindly, boy-scout figure, a stark contrast to the often brooding anti-heroes prevalent in many contemporary RPGs. His motivation, to avoid disappointing his family who believe him to be the world's greatest adventurer, sets a consistently optimistic tone for the entire experience.
Gameplay Mechanics and Familiar Echoes
Team Asano, known predominantly for its turn-based RPGs and a foray into tactics with 2022's Triangle Strategy, ventures into action RPG territory with The Adventures of Elliot. The game's design is heavily influenced by SNES-era Zelda titles, placing a strong emphasis on exploration. Players use new skills and weapons to access previously unreachable areas, a core loop familiar to anyone who spent time with those classics. Elliot can use bombs to break cracked walls, a hammer for stakes, and arrows or a boomerang for distant switches.
Elliot's fairy companion, Faie, also contributes significantly to gameplay. Faie possesses abilities such as lighting fires in dark spaces, warping Elliot across gaps, and creating an illusory double for puzzle-solving and combat. The review mentions a setting to reduce Faie's chatter, a small but welcome quality-of-life feature that acknowledges player preferences, particularly for those who found similar companions in older games somewhat verbose.
The Time-Travel Conundrum
A central narrative device in The Adventures of Elliot is its use of time travel, spanning four distinct periods. This element naturally invites comparisons to titles like Chrono Trigger. However, Polygon's analysis points out a significant divergence: the game does not allow player actions in one time period to tangibly impact future exploration. Draining a flooded dungeon in the past, for instance, does not open new areas in the future.
This design choice feels like a missed opportunity, especially given the repetitive nature of the overworld map and dungeons across different eras. The time travel primarily serves a storytelling purpose, rather than offering complex environmental puzzles or branching narrative consequences. Elliot's casual disclosure of his era-hopping to historical figures, without apparent repercussions, further underscores this simplified approach. While this aligns with the game's sunny disposition, it does sidestep the more intricate possibilities that time manipulation can offer in game design.
Customisation and Combat Nuances
Unlike many modern RPGs, The Adventures of Elliot eschews an experience-based progression system. This means random encounters are often straightforward and can even be skipped later in the game. The focus shifts to strategic thinking during boss fights, where players are encouraged to experiment with different approaches. Deflecting attacks with a shield, timing bomb tosses, or using Faie's unique skills become critical for success.
The magicite system offers a layer of combat customisation. Magicite shards are used to create randomly generated accessories for weapons, enhancing stats like critical rate, damage, or charge time. These also introduce new riffs on familiar abilities, such as increasing boomerang count or adding elemental attributes to weapons. While the system provides many options early on, the review suggests that players may settle on a consistent loadout by mid-game, making further magicite capacity less essential.
The Value of a Compact Experience
One of the game's most praised aspects is its runtime. At approximately 25 hours, The Adventures of Elliot is designed to be a satisfying, complete experience without demanding hundreds of hours. This compact scope, coupled with a generous fast-travel system, allows for meaningful progress even in shorter play sessions. This stands in contrast to many contemporary open-world titles that often require substantial time commitments.
Polygon's reviewer found that while some late-game side quests might overstay their welcome, the overall pacing ensures the stakes escalate effectively towards a thrilling conclusion. The game’s design respects the player's time, a quality that is increasingly valued by an audience with diverse commitments beyond gaming. This approach, arguably, is a quiet politics of design, offering a counterpoint to the prevailing trend of endless content loops.
What This Means for the Retro Market
The real story here is not merely the game's quality, but what its reception suggests about the evolving expectations of players who grew up with the SNES and PlayStation. There is a clear appetite for experiences that respect a player's time, offering a complete narrative arc within a manageable timeframe, rather than demanding hundreds of hours for completion. This trend, arguably, speaks to a maturing audience with less disposable time, seeking quality over sheer volume.
The Adventures of Elliot is not a disaster, just a game that makes specific design choices. Its deliberate retro aesthetic and gameplay philosophy, while perhaps not pushing boundaries, demonstrate a viable path for new titles seeking to capture the essence of beloved classics. The game's release on Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X on June 18 will provide a broader audience with the opportunity to assess this approach firsthand. It will be interesting to observe if this measured, throwback style continues to find its niche amidst the larger, more sprawling releases dominating the market.
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Originally announced by Square Enix · first reported by Polygon.
