The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales. Tales as new as time.

I had a lot of thoughts after finishing the first demo of The Adventures of Elliott: The Millennium Tales. Most of those thoughts centered around the demo’s similarities to Nintendo Game Boy’s Final Fantasy Adventure. The titular character looked like the “mystery man” the hero encountered, who’s original design was inspired by Final Fantasy’s Red Mage. The titular character had access to similar weaponry that the hero from FFA acquired. There were other little characteristics that brought me back to playing that Game Boy classic. One thing that did not remind of FFA was the companion that was at Elliott’s side the when the demo started. On the bottom, left corner of the screen was a fairy companion named Fae. A loquacious pixie if there ever was one, I felt like I was playing a modern version of Ocarina of Time. I’ll cover more of that later. I think the most important takeaway upon completing the demo was, “I can’t wait to play the full version!” Whether the inspiration from Final Fantasy Adventure was intentional or not, The Adventures of Elliott: The Millennium Tales is a fresh, modern take on a classic formula in the visual style of Octopath Traveler.

Taking place on the monster infested (and ridiculously named) continent of Philabielda, the game puts you in the knee-high boots of an orphan-turned-adventurer named Elliot. During one of his fetch and retrieve adventurers, Elliot gets a new request from the palace in the kingdom of Huther. King Hichard asks Elliot to investigate new ruins. It’s a simple task that Elliot happily accepts. To add some extra flair to his quest, Elliot gets the help of Princess Heuria. The princess can communicate and offer aid to Elliot thanks to the blue-crystal earrings that Elliot wears. The journey to the ruins and the journey within the ruins is standard until he discovers a massive door. The door takes Elliot to the past. A massive discovery, Elliot steels himself for a massive adventure through the ages. Of course, the fate of the continent hangs in the balance and only Elliot can keep hope alive.

Elliot’s adventure starts simple enough. It mostly maintains that simplicity throughout the journey, even with the time traveling aspect. Truths about the time traveling, Elliot’s parents, and other plot points get revealed at a nice pace. From my experience, adventure games are usually light on the story department. I think of games like Soul Blazer, Neutopia, and of course, a few Legend of Zeldas. These titles had a clear plot that often took a backseat to the action. In Elliot, things are more involved. There’s a lot of dialogue, plenty of NPCs, and tons of places to visit. It all comes together nicely in a 30-hour story that, despite having multiple endings, doesn’t outstay its welcome.

But the gameplay is where the game truly shines. The surface level shows a straightforward, HD2D adventure where Elliot goes around the world knocking out monsters, getting money and item drops from them, and exploring various caves and ruins. A chunk of the world is inaccessible until Elliot acquires items or techniques (i.e. diving underwater) to overcome obstacles. The top of the screen displays his health. He’ll get fragments of health as a reward by completing trials found throughout the world. Like a certain pointy-eared adventurer, earning four of these fragments will increase his health. Something that’s a lot of fun specific to this game’s combat is killing as many enemies as possible without taking damage. A bigger kill count means better rewards. Seeing your kill count and the rewards that follow just feels great. Combat starts strong, continues strong, and ends strong – if not stronger by the time Elliot is fully loaded and upgraded.

At the start, Elliot comes with equipped with a sword and shield. Overtime, he’ll get a bow, bombs, a chain-sickle, a spear, a boomerang, and a giant hammer. Each weapon except for the bombs will get upgraded versions of themselves as the quest continues. The higher the upgrade, the more powerful. Most weapons can be charged for explosive results. To take things further, weapons can be equipped with various magicites that provide tons of options for your fighting style. My favorite weapon was the spear. The magicite I equipped to it caused the charge attack to fire three additional spearheads, increased its attack power, and probably more because, as mentioned, there’s lot of these. One amusing magicite causes bombs to freeze enemies on impact which guarantees they’ll be caught in the explosion. Also, as a fan of archery, the bow and arrow got decked out so arrows could pierce enemies and charge quicker. The variety is plentiful. Elliot can swap weapons with a simple push of the button.

Rounding out his capabilities, Elliot can use restorative or stat-boosting items and equip a variety of accessories. Finally, Elliot gets access to magic. At the start of the game, Princess Heuria will provide healing. It doesn’t take long for Elliot to meet Fae, a fairy on a mission that grants Elliot an arsenal of magics. A second player can control Fae if you want someone to play alongside you. Her spells are used for puzzles, combat and getting around quicker. Like the weaponry, magic gets upgraded and can be easily swapped with the push of a button.

Unfortunately, using magic means hearing Fae. Truthfully, doing anything means hearing Fae. My biggest complaint – the complaint I had when I played the demo and that I lightly touched on during the review’s intro – was that there was a fairy in the bottom, left corner talking, talking, talking non-stop about everything. Think Ocarina of Time, but in the human tongue. By the time this review is up, the game will be patched with an option to turn off her chattering commentary. For me, it’s too little too late. This “feature” was so bad that I ended up turning off all voice acting. It was the only way to not hear her. I want to know why anyone thought this was a good idea. Clearly, it wasn’t in hindsight because it got patched a month or so after the game’s release.

The voice acting was muted, but not the music. The soundtrack worked. I don’t recall a single track from it but I remember never feeling like I had to give the music the same treatment as the voice acting. Graphically, the game was a masterpiece. The HD2D look has worked since the jump and it works here. I have to give a shoutout to the bosses. They look awesome. They’re intimidating since they triple Elliot’s size and scale, and they’re satisfying to take down. Every location looks amazing. You see a lot of the same places depending on the era you’re traveling, but they’re always crispy and clean. It’s clear that a lot of thought went into the finer details of each sprite and location.

I mentioned the 30-hour playtime. This could fluctuate depending on how much extra content you opt out of (side-quests, trials, extra challenges, etc.) I did just about everything to reach 100 percent completion and still landed on that playtime. I was on the regular difficulty the entire playthrough. Viewing all endings doesn’t require playing from the start, which is nice. Depending on your point of view, the playtime might be a good or bad thing for those that want to go through it again. Unlike shorter adventures, Elliot’s takes longer to finish. So, it’s hard to gauge whether another playthrough is in the future. That said, my time with it was both enjoyable and memorable. I’ve fallen off the Octopath Traveler train for a while so being able to enjoy another game with a completely different setting from the creators was great. I think all gamers would enjoy The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales. It’s easy to pick up and play, its story is easy to follow, and it has a satisfying gameplay loop to keep you playing until the end.

Overall, 8/10: If not for a certain winged woman’s constant clamoring, this would have been a perfect game. Oh well. I still recommend playing The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales.