The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales review – It’s Always Sunny in Philabieldia

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A star rating of 4 out of 5.

Square Enix is widely recognized for creating some of the most popular role-playing games ever made, including classics like Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and Kingdom Hearts.

Although major companies often grab all the attention, one of SE’s smaller teams has been steadily gaining recognition for its work.

Team Asano, with the talented Tomoya Asano at its head, created popular games like Bravely Default, Octopath Traveler, Triangle Strategy, and their newest title, The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales.

Unlike Asano’s traditional Japanese role-playing games, Elliot takes a different approach with fast-paced action and gameplay similar to classic top-down Zelda titles.

You’re Elliot, an adventurer who comes from Philabieldia – a kingdom that isn’t as bright and cheerful as its name suggests. Your mission is to break the curse affecting Princess Heuria.

The game takes a basic fantasy story and makes it much more complex with its clever use of time travel.

As you play, you’ll travel through four distinct periods in Philabieldia’s history, experiencing times of darkness and prosperity, and even witnessing the very beginning of its civilization.

Time travel isn’t just crucial to the plot; it also lets us really delve into the world through Elliot, which is one of my favorite parts of the story.

Across all four eras of the game, the overall layout of the world remains consistent, featuring familiar caves, dungeons, and challenges. However, the specific details within each location change with each era.

Each dungeon changes depending on the Age you explore it in. The enemies, puzzles, and challenges you face in the Age of Safekeeping will be completely different from those you encounter in the Age of Magic.

Although this game shares a lot of features with Zelda, it stands out due to how it handles weapons and special skills.

You’ll quickly unlock every weapon in the game – including swords, spears, boomerangs, and bombs – letting you experiment with different combat styles right away.

You gain new skills through your fairy friend, Faie. As you play, she’ll learn abilities like setting enemies ablaze, illuminating dark areas with lanterns, and even giving Elliot a short burst of flight.

Players usually pick up these skills right before entering a dungeon, as that’s when they’re most helpful. While they don’t seem essential, it’s hard to see why anyone would choose not to learn them.

This choice to front-load weapons and make abilities missable has two major impacts on the game.

One of the best parts of the game is starting from the beginning. You get to experience a vast world—or even multiple worlds—with complete freedom, experimenting with how you fight and discovering hidden areas.

Generally, you can complete most dungeons with just a sword and good jumping skills. There are only a handful where you’ll need to come back later once you’ve unlocked a special ability.

In Zelda games, finding a new item during a dungeon usually unlocks solutions to puzzles and helps you defeat the boss. Elliot doesn’t follow this pattern, so after playing for a while, its dungeons start to feel repetitive.

Exploring these dungeons is still enjoyable and relaxing, but around the middle of the game, the easy difficulty started to feel a little repetitive.

Although it looks and feels a bit like A Link to the Past, the game’s exploration actually feels like a blend of Breath of the Wild and the very first Legend of Zelda game.

Despite my complaints, I never got tired of discovering the beautifully detailed maps in each new time period. Elliot consistently creates a sense of wonder with this aspect of the game.

Elliot’s gameplay feels fresh and original, even though you can definitely see where it gets inspiration from other games. However, I don’t feel the same way about its story; it doesn’t stand out as much.

This game tells a classic ‘save the princess’ story and was enjoyable enough, though it didn’t quite reach the same level of quality as other games from Team Asano.

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The story began really well, immediately drawing me into its world, characters, and the idea of time travel. However, it lost a little momentum around the middle, and I found myself feeling less engaged.

Thankfully, in its final third, Elliot regains its footing, building to an excellent finish.

The game’s approach to time travel is unique, but it mainly influences the overall story rather than being a core gameplay mechanic.

Elliot’s story adapts to each time period, focusing on helping the people living then. This creates four distinct, yet connected, narratives.

Although I really liked Elliot and Faie, I didn’t connect with the other characters in the game as much.

I also felt the people of Philabieldia were a little too pleasant. With the exception of the villains, nearly everyone – from main characters like Elliot and Faie to the everyday citizens – was overly kind.

The story feels overly sweet and flawless. I believe the characters would be more believable if they had some flaws—even if that meant making a few of them genuinely unpleasant.

I realize I’ve been critical of the game, and I have been, but that doesn’t mean Elliot is a poorly made game.

Elliot establishes strong potential for an excellent RPG in many ways, but ultimately doesn’t quite deliver on those promises.

I absolutely love this game, it’s fantastic! But honestly, I’m still a little bummed out. I get the feeling it could have been something truly special, and I can’t help but wish we’d gotten even more out of it. It’s like I’m a little sad for the amazing game it almost was.

Despite everything, the game shines because of its incredible world, built by some remarkably talented, yet often overlooked, designers.

The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales isn’t a game for those seeking difficult, strategic battles or a profoundly moving narrative. It’s not focused on those elements.

Rather than focusing on challenges, this game presents a stunningly immersive world that truly makes you want to explore. It consistently brought a genuine sense of joy to my experience.

Authors

Alex RaisbeckGaming writer

Alex Raisbeck writes about video games for TopMob, covering both big-name titles and smaller independent games. He’s also contributed to well-known gaming publications like VideoGamer, GamesRadar+, PC Gamer, and PCGamesN.

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2026-06-17 15:37