What is The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales?

The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales is an action-adventure RPG developed and published by Square Enix. This game is the first action game to feature Square Enix’s HD-2D style, which has always been reserved for turn-based experiences such as Octopath Traveler, Live A Live, and Triangle Strategy.

Upon its first reveal last year, The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales invoked the same kind of awe and wonder the old-school Zelda games gave us. Sure, there has been no shortage of Zelda-likes over the years in the indie sphere. But it was refreshing to see a major publisher take their own take with a clear nostalgic angle. The experience the game offered is nothing short of fantastic as well. Nailing the game feel of the days of old, where it matters most. I found only a few problems in my 20 hours of playing that keep it from truly shining as a flawless experience.

Developer & Publisher // Square Enix
Platforms // Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, Steam, Xbox Series X|S
MSRP & Release Date // $59.99, June 18th, 2026
Reviewed On // PC/Steam Deck

PC Specs:
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600G
GPU: AMD Radeon RX6600
RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB DDR4 3000Mhz

A Humble Adventurer in a Tale Across the Ages

The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales puts the players into the boots of Elliot. Elliot is an adventurer who is tasked by the King and Princess of Huther to investigate some ruins that hold an ancient power. After finding said ruins, Elliot discovers a magical doorway through time that lets him go to a different place in time. From here, he is tasked with finding the one responsible for placing a curse on the Princess and saving the Kingdom of Huther.

As far as stories go, The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales has a very simple one in its pretty basic fantasy setting. Where things truly shine is in the characters and their dynamics with each other. For example, Elliot and the Princess, Heuria, become very good companions over the course of the story. Heuria has never adventured outside and instead experiences the world through Elliot’s earrings. Her personality is charming and delivers dry humor very well in moments that bring out genuine laughter. She is only replaced by a mysterious fairy, Faie, partway through the story as Elliott’s companion.

Faie brings a more child-like naivety to how she reacts to everything in the world as the story goes on. Comedically disregarding any time Elliot falls in combat due to how she can always revive him, which makes Elliot have to elude to the fact that dying hurts (no, I’m not joking). The story itself brings Elliot to pivotal moments in history. Where things that seem like minor story beats actually become extremely important to the overall narrative, all of which culminate in a very epic grand finale that wraps up every little thread in a satisfying way. The only problem with that grand finale is that you need to do very specific things to unlock it, with some steps being left up to interpretation.

Moreover, my favorite story involved the budding romance between a pair of lovers from different tribes in the Age of Magic. Their story led to places I did not see coming and was genuinely heart-wrenching at times. And speaking of the Age of Magic, there are four Ages in The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales that you can experience in the game world, with big pros and big cons.

Philabieldia in The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales

The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales takes place in the fantasy world of Philabieldia. It is a world that is compact, varied, and layered. The game world is big, but it doesn’t look it on paper. But it does not take very long to get from one area to the next. There is a lot of variety in the locales as well. From a typical forest, swamp, icy, and lava-covered landscapes, and a ton of caves and dungeons littered throughout. My favorite sights included a giant Lotus flower near the center of the map and the Age of Magic’s main capital.

As mentioned before there are four different Ages you can travel to. Each Age offers different side quests, main story moments, and different treasures in the overworld, dungeons, and caves. This leads to a lot of backtracking for completionists. But the backtracking isn’t too annoying due to the many fast travel points in each Age you can go to without having to manually go to those specific doors in time.

The different Ages do not offer too many differences in locales, however. I can only remember two houses in the overworld, either still standing or destroyed throughout the different ages. Outside of that, the main difference will always be the bottom right corner of the world, where different settlements take place.

The highlight of what you can collect in the game is cats. I originally thought they just existed as part of the game world. But you can collect 50 cats throughout all four ages to get some neat rewards. Such as more capacity for your bombs and arrows, and even an accessory that doubles the money you collect. It’s a great incentive to explore, it’s fun, and honestly, pretty cute to chase down cats.

Exploring Philabieldia across all four ages is just simple fun, like the combat in the game.

Simple Combat with Simple Weapons

The combat in The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales is, as previously mentioned, simple. Elliot starts with a sword and a shield, then slowly acquires others along the way. You can get a bow that allows you to attack from afar, a chain and a sickle for circular attacks in crowds, a boomerang, a spear, and a hammer. You also unlock bombs to use, which have a dual purpose for exploration. Bombs can break cracked walls, and the hammer can knock down just nails blocking paths.

There’s also a “charge” feature for each weapon that changes how they work for a single attack. The sword has a long-range attack, the boomerang circles Elliot for a moment, and the bow can fire 3 split arrows in a direction. It makes certain situations really fun. For example, at one point in the game, you have to guard a location and use the hovering boomerang with the sword to clear out the crowds that spawn. In addition, Faie also has some uses in the gameplay department as well. Notably, the feature to revive Elliot as many times as you need her to…for a fee.

Faie also has certain abilities, like lighting herself on fire to deal damage over time to enemies struck by it, allowing Elliot to sprint, teleport, and spawn a clone of himself. My favorite ability of hers was the “Vortex” that you can use to drag enemies off edges, but that also had the downside of losing any money they dropped. Some places let you put skills to the test, like temples that have trials against waves of enemies and bosses. It made the combat really engaging and fun, while never being overly complex. Not unlike some of the bosses and temple puzzles you can run into.

Fun Dungeons, Simple Enemies, and Frustrating Bosses

The bosses in The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales can be a bit of a mixed bag. The early game bosses are simple and fun. Like the Rathomobile that drops bombs to break its shield so you can deal damage to it, and an angler fish, you need to drop bombs for it to swallow and get stunned to then damage it as well. It starts off simple and fun, of course…

Then some bosses can really shake things up, notably one that was a flying eyeball encased in ice that you needed to break ice pillars to grab little blocks of ice and throw at it to have it drop down to do any damage to it…for five seconds. In one of the trials, you have to face this boss, and it is given a generous timer to beat it because of how tedious the mechanics of that boss are compared to those of other bosses with much stricter timers.

But outside of the bosses, the little enemies in between offer a breath of fresh air. You have slugs, bats, rats, and beastmen. As well as hulking elephant men with hammers and shields. I loved the toads that sang music to shield enemies due to the jazzy tune, and honestly hated the elephant enemy that throws giant rocks that create waves of fire where the rock lands. I always focused on them because they are nasty in certain enemy groups.

Speaking of little breaks, various temples in the game have puzzles that never got on my nerves. You have simple laser puzzles, floors that move Elliot in certain directions, that you need to jump at times to get to where you need to go. Then others where you have to push iceblocks around or use the vortex ability to carry orbs to certain buttons to progress.

Each temple either rewarded more health for Elliot, unlocking abilities for Faie, or enhancing those abilities. One upgrade that I loved was the one that gave her teleport the ability to cloak Elliot for a few seconds to make a hasty retreat! Suffice it to say, the gameplay experience in The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales is very fun and kept me engaged in my playthrough.

Slick UI, Inventory, and Lacking Accessibility Settings

Final items on the gameplay experience are a very simple-to-navigate UI and the inventory in between. It all rolls out like an adventurer’s bag, which fits Elliot. Each menu is simple to get to and change through as well. The settings menu is also very easy to get through.

The only setting I didn’t really like was the one for modifying the frequency of companion chatter. Not because I don’t think it’s needed, it’s just that the game only offers a “chatty” or “quieter” option, where even the quieter option is still too chatty. I would have preferred the companion chatter to just be a toggle in this respect. I do not need Faie reminding me that treasure chests have treasure and that temples with health shards have health shards all the time.

The game also lacks general accessibility settings, including ones for color blindness. You can change text size, but that’s about as far as it goes.

Finally, when it comes to the inventory, there are these things called “magicite”. Magicite are little crystals you can acquire to imbue weapons with little passives. Stuff like more damage, faster charge times, and big changes to how weapons function. I found a hammer Magicite that adds more damage to enemies that get launched against walls or other enemies, and one for the bow that more than doubles their damage, but replaces the arrows with health. You can get more space to install more Magicite by just buying upgrades with money.

Grand, Ambient Music, Decent Voice Acting, and Flawless Performance

On the technical side of things, The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales works flawlessly on PC. I had absolutely zero problems playing it. Whether it was bugs, freezes, stutters, or crashes, no problems were present. I consistently got to and above 80-120fps at the highest settings as well.

The Steam Deck version, on the other hand, is a little lackluster. You may have to turn everything down to the lowest setting and cut the “rendering resolution” to 60% to just have a consistent 50-60fps at 720p.

On the audio side of things, the music in the game is a blast. The ambient tracks flow well with little orchestral touches, and some dungeons even have more energetic tracks, with one in a volcano having a very rock-heavy track that was just awesome to stand still and listen to.

The voice acting in the game is mostly good. Some characters either sound “decent” like Euygene (not a typo), the king’s scribe, or Hichard, the king himself. Then you have amazing voice acting from characters like Heuria, and even the aforementioned couple from the Age of Magic. The only slightly annoying voice acting was from Faie herself. She had way too many voice cracks and low-energy lines in some parts of the story.

Closing Remarks on The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales

The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales is a great nostalgic-themed action-adventure game from Square Enix. The HD-2D style shines in its action-adventure debut. It is not without some problems, but it ultimately delivers 20+ hours of fun and a wonderful story to experience. The combat is simple, the world is layered and very rich in a variety of locales. Not to mention the music being just as good as every HD-2D thus far. This game is absolutely worth every second you play in it. I could not recommend it enough, as it offers just a simple, warm, and fun adventure.

Disclaimer – Square Enix Provided a Code for Review Purposes.