The Adventures of Elliot The Millennium Tales: First Impression
The Adventures of Elliot The Millennium Tales is a 2.5D retro style action RPG reminiscent of classic games of the past. There’s a heavy narrative focus with a story that jumps through time. Gameplay involves real time action combat, exploration, and puzzles. Altogether it’s a well executed adventure that is beautifully rendered in the 2.5D pixel art style.
Target Audience
Gamers that enjoy a strong narrative focus and also resonate with the retro 2.5D aesthetic and the combat system may want to check this out. This is primarily a narrative driven experience. There’s a lot of story setup throughout the adventure. Those that will likely connect with this game the most will be those that are drawn to the long form storytelling and pacing of standard JRPGs. The action combat is challenging throughout the experience as even common encounters are a potential threat. This encourages more thoughtful approaches to combat that reward defense as well as offense.
Gameplay
The story is the primary driver in this experience for all the other activities. You will generally be watching cutscenes, exploring outdoor environments and dungeons and engaging in combat with regular enemies and bosses with unique mechanics. Way points give you a general direction of where to go without displaying arrows that precisely guide you. This is a trait that helps you navigate in the right direction, but also allows you to explore. Furthermore, there are many optional exploration rewards scattered throughout the world that often require you to maneuver around traps or complete a series of jumps. This makes getting to the actual treasure feel rewarding.
Combat encounters fall into the real time action genre. This style is very reminiscent of classic action RPGs of the past. The overall experience is quite smooth. You have 2 weapon types, which can also be modified through the itemization system. Some weapons can be charged for an alternate attack mode/pattern. You have access to both melee and ranged options. Furthermore, enemy design overall is also well executed. Even regular enemies can be a threat due to their movement and attack patterns. Bosses also have unique mechanics that need to be understood to defeat them. This makes every encounter in the game threatening keeping the player vigilant throughout the experience.
Story
The overall narrative is well executed with a nostalgic vibe of classic RPGs of the past. You act as the main protagonist Elliot on their journey to investigate the world of Philabieldia as requested by the king. Along the journey you are accompanied by a companion, Fay, as the pair jump through time to uncover the mysteries of what has happened to the world. Similar to many JRPGs its a narrative focused long form storytelling that is a significant part of the overall experience.
Art & Design
The 2.5D aesthetic feels right at home here in this style of game. Everything is beautifully rendered with modern lighting effects and animations we have come to expect in the 2.5D aesthetic to give it a retro pixel art style mixed with features that provide a unique look to the game. It channels the past, but also incorporates contemporary touches that elevate it to another level.
Challenges
One of the core challenges is whether you resonate with the heavy narrative focus of the game. If you do there’s plenty of story beats that drive the entire experience. If having a strong narrative focus is not your preference, you may feel that in some aspects there are too many story sequences. This is common especially in JRPG style games where the ratio of gameplay to narrative usually leans more towards narrative.
Another challenging aspect is how well you perform in jumping puzzles. There’s nothing that is extremely elaborate in the introductory sequences; however, some of the jumping sequences (some of which are optional) can take a few tries to complete. This isn’t inherently a flaw, but it is something to be aware of especially if you struggle with them.
Finally, there are some quality of life options that make certain aspects of the game feel clunky. This includes swapping weapons, which you have to navigate through menu systems. It interrupts the overall flow of the game and discourages players from switching weapons even though different weapons are tailored towards certain enemies.
Closing Thoughts
The Adventures of Elliot is a well crafted narrative focused 2.5D action RPG experience. If you are looking for a nostalgic style game and you enjoy an experience that is more narrative focused this may be a game to put on your list to check out.
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GAME DETAILS
PLATFORMS: Ps5, PC, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch 2
RELEASE: 2026
DEVELOPER/PUBLISHER: Square Enix
GENRE/TAGS: Action RPG, Adventure, Story Driven, JRPG
TARGET AUDIENCE: Fans that enjoy narrative focused action JRPGs
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