The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales - Digital Deluxe Edition (2026)

So, I expected this game to be much more than it actually is. It's by Square, it features a protagonist whose design I'm a huge fan of (you can tell by my profile picture) and it features time travel! I dove into it, expecting it to be some sort of spiritual successor of Chrono Trigger. I thought to myself "if it can be 20% of what Chrono Trigger was, it's going to be a great game!"

Well, needless to say, it wasn't good. Before reading on, please note that there will be spoilers in this review!

As soon as you start the game, you'll realize that the protagonist is a goody two shoes generic JRPG guy. But not only that, you'll soon realize that every NPC is just that, too. Except, of course, the obviously evil one. Everyone has an extremely bland stock personality. That, combined with the fact the dialogues seem like they were written by a bunch of first-graders makes it impossible to actually connect to or even like any character. They're just... there. Ready to spout the most generic goody nonsense and annoy you.

In the beginning of the journey, one such character gives the protagonist a set of magic earrings which allow her to communicate with you. If she wasn't annoying enough before that, she definitely becomes annoying afterwards. One thing or the other happens in the story, and she is replaced by another, even more annoying sidekick. They constantly have to vocalize everything ("Oh look, a treasure chest!", "That enemy is dangerous!", "I wonder what we'll find in here"...). I never understood what's up with games who do this.

Anyway, near the beginning of the game, time travel is introduced. You travel into the past, where the world map is... almost exactly the same. Then later on, you travel further into the past and discover that the world map is... almost exactly the same. Later, you travel even further back, and, surprise surprise, the world map is exactly the same! Four different ages, nearly identical map. Same dungeons, same caves, same layout, same enemies. Oh sure, the dungeons and caves slightly differ between ages, which makes it all the more annoying because you have to visit them in every age and collect the meaningless treasures scattered inside! Oh, and you have to unlock all the fast travel checkpoints in every age individually, despite them all being in the exact same place across ages. Really, the only exception to this sameness is the one human settlement there is in the game.

To make matters even worse when it comes to the time travel, nothing you do in one age affects anything in a different age. Which is disappointing when it comes to the environment and extremely stupid when it comes to the characters. There are characters you meet across ages. Ones whose lifespans are longer than normal. Not one line of dialogue has been written for those characters that acknowledges your meeting in the distant past!

Finally, we come to the story. If I were to open up any AI chatbot right now and give it the prompt "generate a stock JRPG story about saving the world", it'd spit out a better one than whatever this game had going on. Sure, at one point it derailed into something else which wasn't actually half bad, but then it just immediately returned to the generic "save the world" plot. Lazy and bad writing at best.

One would expect a JRPG to have great music, as most do. That is not the case here. It's repetitive and extremely bland, which ironically fits the game perfectly.

The only redeeming factors this game has are the graphics (it's pretty) and the combat (it's fun). Overall, would not recommend.

Went through the demo and I'm astounded at how much nothing this game seems to be. It feels like a game that was made purely for the sake of a game being made to make a buck with absolutely no passion behind it. Of course, why should I expect passion from the HD-2D engine that Square prides itself in so much despite being the very definition of passion-less. In fact, the short Steam description they provided makes zero mention of the actual game and instead writes "The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales combines stunning HD-2D visuals and exciting action-adventure gameplay for the first time!", as if they needed to really drive home the point of how much they have their head up their- let me stop there.

So what exactly is wrong with the game? That's the thing, there's nothing really wrong with it, but it offsets this by doing it's absolute best at providing nothing interesting of the sort to the genre, except the HD-2D graphics of course. Can't forget that. There's no character dynamics between anyone. Everyone is so incredibly polite to the point of it being unsettling. The plot is there only to remind you that a plot exists in the first place. And said plot purely amounts of the very obvious and comically evil guy doing the evil thing and literally everyone going "Oh no! I never though he would do this." It's actually a little funny how the villain happens to be the ONLY person who's not polite. As for the gameplay, it's... Fine. Probably the most lukewarm fine I could give. Enemies exist for you to beat around but rarely pose a threat of any sort. Bosses at least seem like they could be fun or interesting. The actual world leaves alot to be desired considering it shares the same open map across each Time Era you'll be traveling to. Literally the same map. Really, I should be way more critical of this because this genre has already been defined by countless other games like the Ys series. Or any of the action RPGs by Falcom. Or perhaps something more recent like Mina the Hollower, though not exactly the same genre but pretty close I'd say. But of course, this one has HD-2D so maybe you should give Square 60$.

That's the real kicker, a 60$ price point. At the very least they were kind enough to provide a 3-4 hour demo to encourage me to save that money. Anyway, I recommend people play Ys Origins instead. Or Xanadu Next. Any Falcom action rpg that strikes your fancy really. Unfortunately, they aren't HD-2D but I can vouch for them nonetheless.