I love pixel art. I find that, even decades later, the best-looking games of the ‘90s – Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy 6, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past – can still be breathtaking in a way older 3D games usually aren’t. That’s why I take notice whenever Square Enix uses its signature HD-2D art style, and why it’s so exciting to see that aesthetic expand past its turn-based roots with The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales, the first action-adventure game to get this modern-retro treatment. Even though its titular hero may be wearing red instead of green, it essentially asks the question, “What if Square made A Link to the Past?” The answer is an adventure I never knew I wanted – one with a compelling story, impressive build customization, and a world I hope we see more of.

Elliot is an adventurer – a fact he makes sure everyone is aware of – who helps anyone that may be in trouble or has a problem to solve. After a summons by the king, your seemingly routine quest turns into a mission to save both the princess and the kingdom itself, traveling through time to do so. Elliot is is easy to root for, charismatic without ever crossing over into cheesy. Traveling alongside our hero-in-red is Faie, a small and slightly amnesiatic fairy who helps Elliot navigate and faces down foes with her magical abilities. She is a bit chatty (how chatty can be adjusted but never turned off completely) and occasionally falls into the “partner who gives you the puzzle answer too soon” trope, which is unfortunate, but is still a pleasant companion to have. Over the span of the 20-ish hours I spent with Elliot, Faie, and the rest of the supporting cast, I grew to love this world and was invested in the lives of these characters – even if the most emotionally impactful moments don’t arrive until quite late, sometimes not until the post-game portions.

One of the core components of The Adventures of Elliot is its time travel, which can be a tough thing to get right in a game, and it never quite lives up to its promise here. You’ll jump from age to age, and while that’s reflected in some ways as certain locations or routes change depending on the time period, these differences are rather underwhelming. It’s neat to find the ruins of a once great building from the Age of Magic during the Age of Reconstruction, but venture a short distance outside the city walls, and you will see the same trees and shrubs regardless of when you find yourself. Stranger still is the lack of any sort of evolution or development in the settlements of the beastmen tribes you frequently visit. You’re telling me that the wolfish Ulfur, even in a thousand years, never figured out how to set up a few more tents?

On the topic of those pesky beastmen, the enemies of the various ages don’t change, either. Whether I was exploring dark caves in the present day or the ancient sands of the Age of Budding, I was swinging my sword at the same slugs, rat people, and weird flying things. You can at least skirt around them pretty easily if you just want to get somewhere in a hurry (with the exception of the occasional room that requires you to clear out all the enemies before moving on), but the lack of variety does mean that after the first few hours, you will have seen a majority of the foes you will face on your adventures. The best Elliot offers in terms of age-exclusive enemies is a palette swap for the robotic automata units, with their once-shining chassis becoming caked with an aged patina in the years that follow their invention during the Age of Magic.

This world is another beautiful example of the HD-2D art style.“

But while the time travel might not alter them much, the world itself and the designs of the characters and enemies within it still make this another beautiful example of Square Enix’s HD-2D aesthetic in action. There were occasional encounters where a monster would be hidden behind a wall or other piece of scenery, but that was only a minor inconvenience and was brushed aside whenever I stumbled across the next stunning landmark. The drooping indigo leaves of Grandree, the crown of the Mount Phoenix volcano, and the glistening structures of the grand city of Weyzn are just a few such places. Not to mention the creative boss sprites, such as the laser-shooting lava lizard Salathmadra, or my personal favorite, a frog don that rides a turtle around. All of this and more shines on Nintendo Switch 2 where I did my full playthrough, nearly as well it did during my tests on the PC build, with only slight slowdown and longer load times being the main noticeable differences with the former.

Crystal Combat

Much of what The Adventures of Elliot does feels very familiar, but equipable Magicite buffs and the “crafting” system you can use to make more of them is one of the most interesting twists it introduces. You would be forgiven if you assumed Elliot to be an RPG upon hearing it was developed by Square Enix and Team Asano, but it actually has very little in common with the genre those teams are best known for. Instead of gaining levels to become stronger, your growth is tied more to Magicite that you slot into your weapons, granting different modifiers and enhancements.

These crystals can be found in chests or crafted at a special shop using shards that are dropped by enemies. Coming in progressively rarer and stronger tiers, each of the seven possible weapons has a whopping 15 unique Magicite options that can be swapped in or out at any time, even during combat. Perhaps enemies are moving around a bit too much, so you want a stun effect that will let you land hits more easily – just hop into the pause menu, equip the Magicite that does that, and get right back into the fight. That flexibility is empowering.

There are also some awesome combinations of crystals that turn Elliot from an adventurer into a weapon of mass destruction. For example, the bow’s Fire Shot Magicite will give its arrows a chance to light a target on fire, while the Explosion Magicite causes, well… an explosion when you hit a burning target. It’s exciting to experiment and find a powerful combo like this, which can melt a boss’ health bar in no time flat. Between being able to have two weapons equipped at a time (each assigned to a specific button) and the ability to swap their Magicite quickly, as well as a variety of helpful magical spells from Faie, I always felt ready for whatever encounter awaited me next.

Team Asano really knocked it out of the park when it comes to just how seamless and easy all this swapping can be, too. A convenient radial menu can be popped up at any time to swap weapons, and similar screens are used for your potion vials and Faie’s magic as well. All three are accessible from the others with a simple button press, and opening these menus freezes the action around you. During tricky fights where I needed to plan and prepare, or just stop and analyze the situation, it all worked splendidly. At the same time, though, hot-swapping weapons and guzzling potions basically became muscle memory by the end of the campaign, so I never felt like those menus slowed things down or took me out of the action unless I specifically wanted them to.

Some awesome crystal combos turn Elliot from adventurer to weapon of mass destruction.“

Combat itself is a nostalgic trip to simpler days when all that was involved was looking at an enemy and pressing a button to swing. It feels good to just walk up and spam my sword attacks to take out enemies, but there are still ways to quote “get good” for those who want to really excel. Elliot can parry with his shield, leaving a foe dazed and open for critical hits; you can cause some enemies to explode and, in the process, damage their allies; or you can just hurl some pots at their heads for old times' sake.

If you do find yourself having trouble on a boss or another annoying mob, The Adventures of Elliot is rather gracious with its revives, allowing you to pay to have Faie heal you back to full. The price doubles each time, but resets when you visit certain checkpoints (unless you are playing on the Very Hard difficulty). The best part is that this is completely optional, instead giving you the option to simply respawn at the last save point. This revive proved to be a welcome option against some of the bosses where I needed just a bit more life to come out victorious. As long as you have the money, you can just brute-force your way through anything, but it never feels like you need to do that.

However, Elliot rewards you for playing well and avoiding damage, too. Every enemy you strike down will add to a chain count, and enemies drop more goodies when they’re defeated if you reach a high enough number, making this a great way to grind for resources – but the moment you take the slightest bit of damage, the combo breaks, and you have to start all over. I had high combos break more times than I care to admit due to becoming overconfident and overlooking the dangers around me.

For those battle masters that want to really test their mettle, Elliot offers a special Temple of Trials. This pits you against not only previous bosses but also increasingly difficult mobs of enemies. The rewards are worth it, and it's a great place to test out those weapon combo ideas, but they are not for the faint of heart!

Watch Out for Pit Falls

Outside of combat, Elliot has a surprising amount of platforming. Leaping across gaps, diving underwater, and figuring out how to get up to some nearby plateau all play a far bigger role in this adventure than I had anticipated. Dungeons tend to feature at least a few sections that will test your dexterity, requiring you to maneuver around pits or over lava. Thanks to how tight Elliot’s controls are, I generally had a good time with these sections. There are some handy accessories that can help you out too, such as one that lets you briefly hover or another that prevents you from taking damage if you drop into those pesky holes. Since many areas of the map can be explored in whatever order you want, you may even encounter places with abilities like Faie’s Warp spell that let you bypass parts altogether.

The varying terrain height also allows for some fun experimentation during combat. When enemies were nearby, ledges stopped being simple hills and instead became high grounds, ripe for the taking. My go-to strategy usually involved chucking bombs down on the enemies below or sending Faie out to beat on them for a bit. Though setting them on fire or exploding nearby bomb slugs with her magic also proved devilishly effective.

Traveling through time is just as convenient as traveling across the map itself. Special guideposts are placed around the world that, once activated manually the first time, can be fast-traveled to from your map screen at any point. It doesn’t matter what age you or your desired location are in, you can get there in a flash. The maps are also covered with various markers pointing towards treasure chests, shrines to upgrade both Faie and Elliot, collectible cats, and lots more. That’s quite helpful for secret hunting, but it’s actually so much information that I wish I could filter the icons or even turn them off completely for the times I simply want to discover things on my own.

The maps inside dungeons have all of the same helpful features, with icons pointing out all the chests or cats and guideposts positioned at both the front entrance and right before the boss. You won’t be able to teleport into a dungeon from the world map, or to the outside from within one, but most of the beefier dungeons have a convenient guidepost nearby. It was always just a short detour to heal up or restock at a village if I found my resources lacking before a boss fight, which I appreciated a lot.

Link? No, I’m Elliot

Okay, it’s time to address the moblin in the room: The Adventures of Elliot shares a lot of DNA with A Link to the Past, and the Zelda series in general. It would frankly take longer to list out all the things it has in common with that SNES classic than those it doesn’t. Calling this “The Legend of Elliot: A Link to the Pasts” really wouldn’t be too off base. A lone swordsman on a top-down quest to save a blonde-haired princess, wielding the likes of bows, bombs, boomerangs, and even a dash you can use to bonk into things. You have your fire dungeon, water dungeon, and forest dungeon all checked off the list, and you get a neat glowing magic sword, too. Being so reminiscent of one of the greatest video games of all time is hardly a bad thing, and finding all the little nods and callbacks almost became a game of its own for a big Zelda fan like myself. Elliot even manages to pull off a convincing “hyah!” when he swings his sword that would make Link proud.

I am all for more Zelda-style games like this, and Elliot does a great job of recreating that formula while also introducing a few twists that help it stand out. But when you follow the overall blueprint so closely like this, it unavoidably puts you into direct comparison with what came before, and Elliot’s quality doesn’t quite reach the same lofty heights as its inspirations. The dungeons tend to lean on the simpler, more straightforward side, and I never found the “puzzles” to be much of a brain buster. (Though, also in typical Zelda fashion, Elliot’s equivalent to the Water Temple did feature water level shenanigans that made me grumble a bit.) I can only recall a handful of times where trying to figure out how to reach a specific area on the map left me scratching my head, and people who grew up with or frequently played 2D Zeldas may not find much of a challenge here in general, but I can see how The Adventures of Elliot could be an on-ramp to the genre.

Of course, Elliot differentiates itself significantly by having multiple endings to uncover, the best of which require a deeper dive into the various ages. There is a good amount of stuff to do and discover here; playing through on Hard, which felt similar to a standard 2D Zelda level of difficulty for me, it took just under 14 hours to get my first ending, and I found the rest of the endings within another 10. That was the perfect size I wanted from a game like this, and some of those endings were so good they may have had me holding back tears.