HD-2D, the retro-cool art style spearheaded by Square Enix and imitated by many others, was originally built as a way to pay homage to classic Super NES-era role-playing games while also making them look distinctly modern. And to that end, it’s been used exclusively for RPGs like the Octopath Traveler series and the Live A Live remake. The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales, then, represents the next big evolution of this concept, showing that the art style can just as easily apply to other classic genres–this time, the top-down action-adventure game.
I played about two hours of The Adventures of Elliot in a demo that takes place about 3-4 hours into the game. At this point in the game, the main quest was to seek a magical shield, but I was given freedom to roam almost anywhere in the open world across two distinct time periods. Square Enix noted that this build of the game has incorporated some feedback from the public demo released last July–faster movement speed, a weapon-shortcut menu, and a selection of difficulty levels. The difficulty was set to Easy by default in my demo, but I switched it to Normal and kept it there without too much trouble.
On the topic of menu options, I should mention one more. Your fairy companion, Faie, is very chatty. Her voice is cloying, and she talks frequently, with an odd babytalk affect. It’s a lot. Players of the 2025 demo must have given feedback on this too, because the build I played had a menu option devoted to Faie’s chattiness. Her default is set to “Chatty” but you can switch her to “Reticent,” which tones her down, a little. I played the majority of my demo with the default Chatty option but switched to Reticent to see the difference, and she still chimed in quite a bit. I have a high tolerance for these things but even I found Faie a little offputting, so I imagine some players will have a stronger reaction.
It does fit within the overall spirit of the world, though, which is very heartfelt, even to the point of melodrama. At one point I accepted a side quest to find a missing token from a woman whose lover, another adventurer like Elliot, had been lost in a dungeon. It was clearly meant to be emotional, but the voice performance was so heightened that it was hard to feel very moved. Likewise, Elliot’s reaction when he found an engagement ring from her betrothed–proving he intended to marry her–was extremely earnest.
My time with the demo wasn’t enough to get a good sense for the overall story, which spans four time periods and promises to let you see how the world developed through different ages. The real draw during my time was the dungeon exploration and combat gameplay, which was very fun and more than enough to pull me through. This is a classically styled action-adventure game like The Legend of Zelda or Illusion of Gaia, with some smart modern enhancements. In other words, this appears to be to those games what Octopath Traveler was to the RPGs it emulated.
Elliot had seven weapon types in this demo, giving me a good variety of options for speed, range, and power. Some were expendable like a bow and arrow or bombs, while others were permanent like a sword, mace, or a giant hammer. I could equip two at a time, which made combat nicely versatile, and it felt like I had lots of options for crowd control versus high-damage attacks against tougher enemies. Combat feels good and snappy thanks to the weapon variety and a shield-block to defend against oncoming attacks. And at one point when I found a better sword, the game informed me that it auto-equips better weaponry. If you happen to die, you can cash in some currency to revive instantly, but the cost will increase each time within a single dungeon.
Combat is enhanced by Magicite. These offer passive buffs to certain weapon types or special abilities like Success Streak, which increases your critical rate after defeating an enemy. You can buy Magicite at shops but there is randomness involved. Instead of simply eyeing a piece of Magicite you want, you spend to generate several pieces of it, with random effects. That means you’ll probably have lots of different options at your disposal at any given time, and you may be able to generate especially powerful Magicite that totally change your build.
The dungeons I saw came in two varieties. A smaller standalone temple would offer a combat or puzzle challenge that resulted in a new magical ability for Faie or enhanced a current one. Exploring one temple gave Faie a fire ability for lighting torches–a mainstay of classic adventure games that could be used from that point to solve puzzles, but in a pinch it could also be used on enemies. Faie is mapped to the right stick, so while she floats around you all the time, you can take direct control of her whenever you want to aim her at torches, enemies, etc.
Then there was a larger interconnected dungeon, which transported me back to my days of playing games like A Link To The Past. It was dark and spooky, and was mostly straightforward with a few sidepaths that would loop back around as you open new passageways. In what I can only interpret as intentional homage, it centered largely around mirror-beam puzzles, but even this packed a clever twist. One of Faie’s most basic abilities is a teleport, which opened up new puzzle opportunities for getting around obstacles to move the beams. It took me a moment to remember that teleporting was an option, for a nice “ah-ha” moment–the lifeblood of classic Zelda dungeons.
The dungeon culminated in a massive boss battle against two creatures simultaneously, testing my abilities to keep one occupied or distant while I focused on the other. Beating them opened up a new Doorway of Time, which I was told not to enter in this demo session.
I didn’t, but I wanted to, because what I had already played was propelling me forward. The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales has some elements to overcome–a chatty companion character and, let’s be honest, a clunky title. But it also showed that HD-2D can be applied to other genres that we remember fondly from decades ago. And more than just empty nostalgia or homage, it looks to build on those elements. Like the visual style itself, it’s recognizably familiar but also feels fresh and exciting.
