Platforms: PC, PS5, Nintendo Switch 2, Xbox Series X|S
A wandering adventurer aided by a mysterious fairy finds himself swept up in a desperate quest to protect a princess, aid a struggling kingdom, and defeat an ancient evil, all while travelling through time. No, it’s not a new The Legend of Zelda game – well, not quite.
This is The Adventures of Elliot, Square Enix’s latest action RPG, and while it’s undeniably built in the image of Nintendo’s classic 16-bit era Zelda outings, it also draws heavily on developer Square Enix’s own heritage — chiefly the Mana series and Chrono Trigger — and throws in a dash of the Ys games for good measure. It’s all presented in Squeenix’s gorgeous HD-2D aesthetic – the same style used on the likes of Octopath Traveler and Star Ocean: The Second Story R, evoking SNES-era pixel art visuals with modern depth, scale, and lighting. The result is a sprawling epic that looks and feels both nostalgic and modern.
At the outset, it all really does feel like a Zelda clone. Elliot chiefly brandishes a sword, simplistically slashing away like a Link cosplayer, and can have up to two weapons active at once. The rest of his arsenal is made up of familiar tools like bows, bombs, and boomerangs, all of which are better suited to taking out certain enemies than others or blasting open suspiciously cracked walls. There’s plenty of dungeon crawling – the kind of dungeons where you need to solve a bunch of puzzles and find a key to a challenging boss chamber – and a sizeable world map to uncover, clearing a fog as you go. So far, so familiar.
Then, after a few hours, everything shifts. Elliot falls in battle. Dies, even – only to be brought back to life by Faie, an amnesiac fairy, and gifted the key to time travel. From here, amidst a rapidly thickening plot that sees its hero diving further and further into the Kingdom of Huther’s past to uncover the dark powers impacting his relative present, Adventures of Elliot begins to forge its own identity.
Where Link may hop between a couple of eras in Ocarina of Time, Elliot navigates four distinct ages, each exploring how society rises and falls over the centuries. It subverts expectations – one of the past eras is more advanced and peaceful than the time Elliot starts in, rather than showing a linear march of progress – and packs in plenty of secrets you’ll need to think temporally to uncover. A cave might hide a treasure chest in one era but not another, or a sturdy house in one age might have collapsed to form a bridge decades later. Simple but smart stuff.
It’s like fantasy-themed Quantum Leap, with Elliot and Faie travelling through time, putting right what once went wrong.
Each period is also populated by an expansive cast of delightful characters. Side quests Elliot completes build a real sense of familiarity with them across the ages, building a sense of how the world’s history intersects. Even seemingly inconsequential bit-players may add some deeper meaning and continuity. It’s like fantasy-themed Quantum Leap, with Elliot and Faie travelling through time, putting right what once went wrong.
Faie also proves integral as you progress, helping Elliot stand apart from Zelda. Far from merely offering an annoying “hey, listen!” like a certain other fairy companion, Faie can be controlled independently, and gains genuinely useful powers over the course of the game. Some are directly useful in combat, like her signature ability to set herself on fire like a tiny Human Torch, or to create an inescapable vortex to suck in enemies and objects. Others start out as purely environmental aids, such as helping Elliot run at super speed to complete puzzles, but all can be upgraded into more useful or powerful versions by seeking out challenge temples. Eventually, you’ll be wading into battle with a burning fairy of vengeance doing a heap of damage to far-off foes while Elliot takes out up-close enemies, or sending her ahead to dispatch trickier ones before they spot you. It’s a dual-pronged approach that feels fantastic and really elevates combat.
Unfortunately, Adventures of Elliot does suffer from some repetition. The same enemies appear in the same places in every era, and what few new monsters that do get scattered in as you progress are just variants of the ones you’ll have slashed away at a thousand times before, undermining an otherwise wonderful sense of mystery and exploration to the world. Elliot’s power-up system, gems known as Magicite that offer upgrades and bonus attributes to his various weapons, also slightly underwhelms due to a lack of variety and plenty of grind in acquiring the in-game resources to craft them. And, towards the end of the game, there’s a sense that you’re running around checking off chores and errands before moving on to a final act that can block out certain events if you’ve not completed them first.
Still, it all combines into an effortlessly charming game, one that draws players in with cosy familiarity but keeps them around thanks to it surprisingly satisfying combat and unexpectedly poignant writing. Even seasoned players who can pick out every other title that’s influenced The Adventures of Elliot will find this far more than a nostalgic throwback.
