Two of my favourite games growing up were The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Secret of Mana. Lush green worlds, curious — and sometimes cute — enemies, and fluid action combat for the time; as someone who had largely only played turn-based RPGs for the first eight years of their life, the SNES era of action RPGs showed me a glimpse of what video games were capable of. These games in particular made me feel bold and adventurous, and whenever I revisit them as an adult, they fill me with a childlike sense of wonder.
So I am very much the target audience for the upcoming action RPG, The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales. I adore HD-2D, and Octopath Traveler II is one of my favourite Switch games and RPGs of all time. But at the same time, I wanted Team Asano and Square Enix to do something a little different with this beautiful art style; I was a little worried about the direction it seemed to be taking.
Still, I wasted no time downloading the demo after the July Partner Showcase, and even after spending two hours with it, and recognising a few kinks that need to be ironed out, The Adventures of Elliot feels like a shot in the arm for this aesthetic style, and I’m itching for more.
Like Octopath before it, The Adventures of Elliot is aiming to recapture some of that SNES magic, but in the action department rather than the turn-based. Think Illusion of Gaia, Terranigma, Ys III, Beyond Oasis; all of that ilk feed into top-down Japanese-developed action RPG history, and it’s on show here. But the Zelda love is overwhelming — after all, the eponymous hero is wearing red instead of green, he has a fairy companion, you can throw pots… it’s all here, just with a few unique wrinkles.
The best part of the Debut Demo is the world itself. Exploring this small corner of Philabieldia (not a typo) is extremely moreish for me, and gives us a little insight into what’s to come. Of course, the first thing I did was cut some grass, but while mowing the lawn, I ignored my quest marker and headed south towards a desert area, where I found cracked walls to bomb and shrubs to remove. I found a challenge tomb which gave me a health increase along the way, too. Eventually, I stumbled into a cave, which acted like a miniature dungeon.
There are combat rooms to clear and a few puzzle-platforming sections which forced me to consider the dungeon’s layout; dropping down certain sand dunes took me to lower floors, but certain areas were only accessible by dropping down certain holes. The last dungeon of the demo does something similar with lily pads and switches. All standard stuff, but made more fun thanks to your fairy companion.
No, Faie isn’t Navi; she might speak a little too much, but Faie is a necessary part of Elliot’s adventure because she comes with the ability to fight enemies, gather items. She spends most of the time following you around, but you can also move her by using the right stick. Alternatively, you can command her to fly ahead, stop, disappear, or come back to you. Or, if you want a little Secret of Mana magic, a friend can join you for some couch co-op and take control of her.
Faie’s best assets come from her skills, however. One of these is a dash that allows you to run at an extremely fast speed for a limited time, crucial for getting around fast or for traversing crumbling floors. The other is a warp which is extremely useful for getting across larger gaps. It makes dungeon exploration genuinely interesting, going beyond just walking through caves and corridors and fighting enemies.
It’s a similar story with combat, which has a few little touches to make Elliot’s adventure feel a bit unique. The basics are familiar — you have standard and charged attacks, but variety comes in from weapons and upgrades you can equip and acquire. Along with a sword and shield, you start with some bombs and a bow (see the Link here?), though my noodling around the map and an optional boss led me to a brand new weapon: a chain and sickle.
The chain and sickle rules and was immediately more powerful than my sword. A tap of the ‘X’ button and the sickle would swing around me in a wide radius. Hold it down, and it spins around Elliot a short distance, effectively acting as a shield. Charge the sickle up, and you can pull enemies towards you. It’s so satisfying to pull off. Except when you manage to pull a big enemy with a club towards you just as it’s about to bonk you on the head.
There’s actually a lot of risk-reward stuff going on here, which made the otherwise simple combat that little bit more engaging. Before I even left the opening town, I bought an accessory that increased my movement speed slightly, but also meant I took some extra damage from enemies. Couple that with diving into the thick of it with the sickle, and it meant I had to be a little more cautious on how I took out big groups of enemies.
Magicite, equippable gems that provide stat increases and weapon buffs, also come with various help-and-hinder effects. One piece of sword magicite increased my base attack power, but at the cost of slowing down my shield recovery time. Another allowed arrows to pierce through enemies, but reduced the damage they did. It meant I had to weigh up my equipment options more carefully and — like badges in Paper Mario — I also had a set amount I could equip.
I’m not much of a blocker in video games, which probably explains my rusty fighting-game skills, but in The Adventures of Elliot, blocking is pretty important. There’s no dodge, which took me a minute to adjust to, but a perfectly-timed block stuns an enemy and gives you a few free hits. For an action RPG, it pays to be patient and think things through, especially in the boss fights, which are effectively like little puzzles. Just like many, many Zelda bosses, there are semi-obvious weak points that you have to exploit with all your tools and then strike away to win. The two I fought weren’t challenging, but they did make me smile.
There are a few things that Square Enix and Claytechworks need to iron out, but that’s what this demo is for; the frame rate is a little inconsistent, out in the open world, things are a little blurry, and the quick menu isn’t exactly zippy. But, as an appetizer for things to come, it’s the perfect start to whet my appetite. Even with a new Octopath announcement during the Direct, The Adventures of Elliot was the standout reveal for me, and playing it has only cemented it as one of my most-anticipated games for Switch 2 in 2026.
Have you tried The Adventures of Elliot: The Millenium Tales demo yet? Surprise us in the comments with your thoughts.
