It's frustrating when you can see a better game inside of a game you enjoy. Case in point: The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales.

Square Enix's latest in a series of smaller, throwback-oriented "HD-2D" games (using the same tech and art style as games like Octopath Traveler 0) is clearly intended to appeal to people who like the old-school Legend of Zelda games. It's also got a big infusion of Chrono Trigger and some elements of other RPGs like the venerable, criminally underrated Ys series.

Those are all things I love, so naturally, I was pretty excited for this one.

Unfortunately, Adventures of Elliot's best qualities aren't enough to overshadow how half-baked its structure feels. Between that and a lackluster story that takes entirely too long to reach its zenith, it's hard to call this one of the best 2D Zelda homages, though it's still pretty fun and worth your time if you're into this sort of thing.

Adventures of Elliot's best moments feel like an arcade game

In Adventures of Elliot, you play the eponymous adventurer. Elliot wears a cool hat. Elliot is a solid guy, known far and wide for being kind and reliable. I'd grab a beer with him if I could.

Some typical fantasy video game stuff happens in the game's first few hours, setting Elliot on a quest to save a princess. He's joined by an exceptionally talkative and annoying fairy named Faie. The two of them quickly gain the ability to travel through time, ultimately unlocking four different periods the player can freely explore.

Adventures of Elliot wears its Zelda inspiration on its sleeve. It's all about running around a relatively open-ended (but not very big) world, using a combination of Elliot's weapons and Faie's fairy powers to explore a cornucopia of caves and dungeons.

Faie's powers are one of the more novel aspects of the game, as you can control her separately with the right analog stick. The game will often ask you to direct her around obstacles that Elliot can't pass in order to light torches or carry items from one point to another.

This is one element of Adventures of Elliot that makes it stand out, and I appreciated it.

I found it fun to ignore quest objectives and idly explore Elliot's world, largely because the simple and accessible real-time action combat is the highlight of this adventure. Elliot quickly unlocks six different weapons, including a sword, a spear, a bow, and a hammer, and he can equip himself with any two of them at the same time.

None of the weapons are all that complex on their own — but there's a cool upgrade system which allows you to add unique traits to each one, unlocking an admirable amount of versatility. By the end of the game, my bow could do the following things, all at once:

1. Home in on enemies with a charged shot

2. Bounce additional arrows between enemies after the initial hit

3. Light any enemies who had been hit on fire

4. Cause explosions every time an arrow hit an enemy who was on fire

Every weapon has a unique, cascading set of upgrades like this, and it rocks. There's also a simple, arcade-like combo meter that goes up when you get a kill and resets when you take damage (the higher the number, the better the loot you'll get from enemies).

In short, combat is fast, fun, and generally a great time.

This time travel story does little with its premise

Sadly, good combat is pretty much all Adventures of Elliot has to offer. There is a story with lots of cutscenes and voice acting, but most of it is a particularly forgettable brand of corny and overly sentimental.

There are worse sins for a fun action RPG to commit than having uninteresting cutscenes, though. And I regret to inform that Adventures of Elliot has other skeletons in its closet.

The time travel mechanic adds next to nothing to the game, aside from padding. There are four versions of the world map set across the ages, a la Chrono Trigger, but they simply aren't different enough from one another. The volcano zone is always a volcano zone and the swamp area is always a swamp area.

There are plenty of optional caves and dungeons, but the most Adventures of Elliot has to offer, if you're thorough about exploring every cave in every time period, is an extra treasure chest or two.

Ultimately teh game fails to make good on its premise, both mechanically and narratively. The different stories in the different time periods fail to meaningfully interact with one another until very late in the game's plot. Adventures of Elliot has multiple endings, and the path to the true ending is the only time the game does anything compelling at all in this regard.

I'm fine with a game saving its best for last, but a 25-hour adventure that is only just OK for the first 20 hours doesn't feel particularly satisfying .

The fact that Adventures of Elliot is fun to play only serves to make the rest of it more disappointing. This really could have been a neat fusion of Zelda and Chrono Trigger, but it's merely a fair imitation of the former and doesn't even come close to reaching the heights of the latter.

The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales launches on June 18 for PS5, Nintendo Switch 2, Xbox Series consoles, and PC.