The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales
Developer: Claytechworks
Publisher: Square Enix
Platforms: PlayStation 5, Switch 2, Xbox Series X/S (Reviewed), PC
Release Date: June 18, 2026
Price: $59.99 USD – Available Here $99.95 AUD – Available Here
Overview
Perhaps one of the most interesting ideas that Square Enix has had over the past decade, at least presentation and design wise, has been embracing the HD-2D art style. While many indie developers thrive in the pixel based market, Square Enix has taken the experimental design and ran with it, producing hits such as Octopath Traveler, Bravely Default, and even reviving Live a Live. Now the very same development team behind those turn-based JRPGs is looking to take their skills and offer something a bit different with The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales. Rather than being a turn-based game like their previous offerings, this one is an action adventure title focused on exploration and live combat. The question is, has the company made this transition successfully?
Story
Found as a baby with a dead man of unknown origin holding him, Elliot was taken into the Huther orphanage and grew up never knowing a family but the one he has found and the best way to provide for them was to set out on a life of adventure beyond the safety of the Spell of Safekeeping that prevents beasts from entering the kingdom. Even if it meant braving the wilderness filled with the various beast tribes and other dangers, the years passed and Elliot became known as one of the best adventurers the Kingdom of Huther has. As such, when a new ruin is discovered by the King’s scouts, at the behest of one of Elliot’s old adventuring buddies now turned King’s advisor, the King has given Elliot the chance to uncover the secrets of these ruins.
To help in this journey, Princess Heuria, whose magic maintains the Spell of Safekeeping, enchants Elliot’s earrings to allow her to see the world alongside him since she has never once left the walls of the kingdom due to her diligence. With Heuria in his ear, Elliot manages to find that not only are these ruins real, they are unlike anything anyone has seen before, a doorway that connects to a different era in time. Fearing the repercussions that time travel might have if misused, King Hichard orders the ruins to be sealed immediately but before that can happen his own minister by the name of Kaifried betrays that order. Instead, he sneaks out with a soldier to travel through time on his own, seeking glory of the ages past and looking to capture a legendary item once thought to have brought peace to the kingdom and wield it as his own.
With things escalating quickly, Elliot pursues Kaifried through the doorway to find that he is indeed in a different time, hundreds of years earlier in the past during the Age of Reconstruction. After managing to track down Kaifried, Elliot is just in time to witness the man withdraw the powerful weapon from where it was embedded, imbuing him with godly strength that was unrivaled, leaving Elliot with no hope but to fall to his blade. Despite this, Elliot finds that he has survived the ordeal through the help of a fairy named Faie, who only he can see and talk to but is eager to help him on his journey for she herself has been given an important task that she has forgotten. Now with Kaifried possessing power beyond anything they can counter, Princess Heuria suddenly falling ill, and more disasters springing up on the horizon, it will be up to Elliot and Faie to travel through the ages to save not only their current age, but perhaps undo the mistakes of the past as well.
Introducing time travel into a storyline almost always means that there can be some rather drastic twists and turns thanks to the way things are usually handled but for the most part The Adventures of Elliot handles itself quite elegantly with certain events in the past only making minor changes in later ages while more significant events do play a bigger role in how things change and it is nice to say that Square Enix has handled the storyline exceptionally well here, especially when it comes to the major revelations happening in the latter half of the storyline and the final few encounters in the story. While we won’t spoil it here, there are a lot of unique details that players will catch as they journey further back in time and see the way attitudes change towards certain things and people as well as how they change later on after the player completes various quests.
The best way this is marked is through a simple system that quickly becomes quite useful. When talking to NPCs, any NPC that players have already seen the dialogue for will be shown with a checkmark but when players complete either a major story quest or even one of the many side-quests there will be NPCs with completely different dialogue, especially since sometimes it can entirely change the course of history for someone’s ancestry. The fact that the side-quests can show off such unique changes in the character reactions and even unlock additional options here and there is a real nice touch especially since most of the side-quests’ general objectives are rather basic. They tend to involve either traveling to and from certain places or ages, collecting items, or slaying enemies, but the actual writing and results of these side-quests are often incredibly heartfelt and emotional. Rarely can one say that a side-quest can make someone feel for a character, but The Adventures of Elliot pulls it off multiple times. That being said, not every side-quest is a big hit but most of them are and the game makes it incredibly easy to locate NPCs in need of help.
It is interesting to note that while players will be accompanied by the voice of Heuria for the beginning of the game followed by Faie for the rest of it, the developers have provided an option to allow them to be as chatty or silent as players want. This isn’t a bad thing to give players the option but we never found them to be annoying while chiming along during our time fighting or exploring. In fact, they will often chime in and mention that players cannot continue further into a dungeon without a skill or during a certain age, something quite helpful. Combine these helpful companions with a strong storyline and extremely satisfying side-quests and players will find themselves enjoying nearly every story-driven moment of The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales.
Gameplay
The largest divergence The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales takes from the developers usual fare is the fact that players will be exploring the world in active combat and Elliot himself only has a limited number of HP “gems” that he loses when hit by enemies. Players will explore the world, tackling dungeons, enemies, and taking on various ruins and challenges to expand both his and Faie’s powers along the way. Elliot himself can equip two weapons at a time, one to X and one to Y, with each weapon having a basic attack and charged attack. Faie can be controlled using the right analog stick, using her various abilities to either damage foes or solve puzzles as needed.
As players progress through the game they will start with a standard sword and shield but eventually Elliot will gain access to his sword, a spear, hammer, and chained-sickle. Other weapons come in the form of bombs that can be used to deal massive damage to enemies and blow up rocks or cracked walls, like the aforementioned hammer can also nail down pedestals. As far as long range goes, players can utilize a boomerang to hit multiple enemies both on the way out and coming back in as well s firing arrows using a bow. Any enemies hit without noticing Elliot are instantly critically hit making long distance weapons very effective. Players can also se their shield to block attacks but it does have a durability meter and leave players open if depleted. It is interesting to note that after a certain point in the game players will also be given the ability to perform a “perfect guard” that can stun enemies as well as reflect projectiles, making guarding a valuable skill to utilize.
Similar to Elliot and as mentioned earlier, Faie eventually gains her own special magical attacks alongside her generic electric attack. These are hidden away in shrines, usually on the story path, and do things such as ignite Faie, giving her the ability to light torches to illuminate the dark or open puzzle doors and set enemies on fire, a dash that speeds Elliot along for timer based puzzles, teleporting Elliot to locations only Faie can reach, a vortex to suck enemies and puzzle switches alike together, and even a doppelganger clone of Elliot that can also trigger switches. Faie is as helpful in combat as she is vital in solving the many puzzles in Elliot’s way.
Throughout Elliot’s adventures he’ll come across health shrines that when completed award health shards, with four giving the player an extra health jewel, challenges that allow him to equip more accessories which feel far too limiting considering the amount of accessories available, and even shrines for Faie to upgrade her magical powers to give her even more of kick. Players will also find various improved versions of Elliot’s core weapons that automatically swap to their stronger versions when found. Where the true customization lies however is with the game’s unique Magicite mechanic.
While defeating enemies, especially bosses, and opening some treasure chests, players will either obtain Magicite Fragments or complete Magicite for every type of weapon and these Magicite offer various ability upgrades for the weapon they apply to. Some of these are as simple as increasing damage or crit chance while others can make the boomerang larger in size at the cost of being slower or having the chain and sickle inflict freeze chance with every hit or even throw fireballs while using the charge attack. Every Magicite has a certain cost to equip and players can use Tul (money) to upgrade their Magicite box to allow their equipment to be even further customized to fit their playstyle. As for the aforementioned fragments, players can use the Magicite shop to convert 5 shards to a random Magicite with the shop upgrading in level the more Magicite made. After reaching level five, players can opt to focus on a specific weapon Magicite but at the cost of 10 shards each instead.
Any Magicite that players obtain that they already have will be converted into a single Magicite Fragment which is alright in concept but terrible in execution when it comes to exploring the world and dungeons. Now many of the game’s dungeons are entertaining in concept but unfortunately the time traveling system makes it so most dungeons only feature a few rooms accessible in any given age and generally the treasure inside is either Tul or a Magicite piece and when exploring into a dungeon only to get a duplicate fragment, it feels like a waste of time. Thankfully, Faie will comment that players have either found everything they can at the moment or are lacking an ability to advance further in a dungeon but it is still tiresome, making backtracking and keeping track of specific locations far more annoying than they should be.
Thankfully there is a mechanic that does allow players to keep track of some collectables, though most players will likely obtain it after already gathering a part that will leave them confused as to whether something is glitched or not. Eventually Elliot will obtain a magical compass that will highlight certain things on the map depending on if players have obtained the compass pointer required for it. Ironically, one of the first pointers players will likely obtain will relate to gathering and saving cats that are scattered through time and since the pointer is unlocked upon obtaining five, it will seem glitched at first since the actual compass arrives later. Similar pointers include things such as missing weapons and weapon upgrade locations to help keep track of where players may not have visited and can still power themselves up, helping avoid at least some of the backtracking.
Audio & Visuals
With The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales featuring the HD-2D art style that the company has grown well accustomed to using the game looks absolutely wonderful and seeing the way the environments and town changes from age to age is a real sight, especially since players will literally be able to see what became of certain locations or what that wreck ended up actually was in a time more civilized. The character sprites and enemy sprites are highly detailed though the game does have a few issues when it comes to actual enemy variety with standard enemies only coming in a few different flavors a piece. Thankfully the boss designs are exceptional and the same can be said about the character portraits as they are incredibly detailed during any story dialogue and most side-quest dialogue.
Speaking of which, it is nice to note that a large portion of the game is entirely voiced by either English or Japanese voice actors depending on the player’s preference. All story scenes and side-quest scenes are entirely voiced, even if a minor character is appearing in it which is a nice touch given how impressive the voice cast is. Similarly, as we mentioned before, both Princess Heuria and Faie will often chime in during gameplay and their voicework is similarly top notch, especially when they are commenting on a completed quest or giving advice. The soundtrack also must be given quite a bit of praise as there are an absurd number of background tracks that play throughout the game, so many in fact that the developers even made an optional mini-game to unlock songs from the OST by using Faie’s abilities to obtain high scores and unlock songs to listen to at will.
Overall
The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales is a wonderful looking game and an enjoyable storyline that has plenty of little revelations and details buried within. The combat feels tight and offers plenty of variety even if the actual dungeon exploration and enemy variety leave a bit to be desired and a bit too much backtracking at times. This results in a game that adventure fans will enjoy even with its flaws, especially since there is just something so charming about the whole adventure of Elliot, Faie, and those they help across the ages.
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