When Square Enix first announced The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales during the Nintendo Direct: Partner Showcase, I reacted with an audible groan: why does Square continue to saddle interesting, smaller RPGs with the absolute goofiest names? Triangle Strategy. Octopath Traveler. Bravely Default. Come on!
Although Elliot isn’t releasing until next year, Square dropped a short but sweet free demo exclusively for the Nintendo Switch 2. The demo showcases a vertical slice of the gorgeous HD-2D world, featuring real-time combat, weapon upgrades, faerie assistance, and dungeon delving. If we can look past the dumb name, The Adventures of Elliot (uggghhh) will be an absolute gem.
The Streets of Philabieldia
The Millenium Tales is set in the fantasy world of Philabieldia (uggghhh), where the last bastion of humanity lives behind the walls of a single kingdom, protected from bestial humanoid creatures and other roaming monsters.
Elliot, a seasoned adventurer wearing a rather dashing red cape and hat, is hired by the king to investigate some nearby ruins.
The demo kicks off within the town of Huther, which features a few shops to purchase ammunition for the bow and bombs (staples of any Zelda-like adventure), as well as Magicite.
Magicite act as equippable upgrades for Elliot’s gear, such as speeding up his sword charge attack, or causing his arrows to pierce through enemies. Each Magicite has an equip cost, limiting how many upgrades he can wield, and forcing some tactical decisions. Thankfully, Magicite can be switched on the fly (including from a handy radial menu) to suit his needs.
Swapping between bow and bombs is also relatively easy, though the bow seems to lack any kind of auto-targeting, often embarrassing myself in front of my foes.
After filling my empty vials with some healing potions (this isn’t my first adventure, after all), I head out the gates to explore.
Hey Listen
The world pushes the HD-2D art style into an impressive array of rich colors and fun animations, while still retaining the look and feel of a 16-bit era RPG. Older games were quite flat, but Philabieldia is anything but, with dramatic cliffs and multiple stories of forests, fields, and swamps.
Traversing becomes even more interesting with the help of Faie, Elliot’s faerie companion. Faie follows behind Elliot, annoyingly alerting me to every little thing (treasure! an enemy! look out, Elliot!), but she does have some nifty abilities. By tapping a button, Elliot can use Faie to quickly dash in a straight line. Or, swap to a different ability, move Fae across a pit, and teleport right to her.
I can also directly control Faie with the second stick, which takes some getting used to, and she hits enemies just by knocking into them. It’s a fun little wrinkle that has a lot of interesting applications in combat, travel, and puzzle-solving.
But, my goodness, is she incredibly annoying. I’m shocked that the developers looked at Navi from Ocarina of Time and thought, yes, that, but more childish and annoying.
Enemies include lurching animated armor that must be killed twice, singing frogmen with deadly music notes, and tenacious death snails.
While the full game will feature multiple melee weapon options, only the sword was available in the demo. Elliot’s charge-attack is powerful, but must be properly aimed. I found myself relying on his shield-counter when facing multiple enemies. By tapping the shield button at the right time, Elliot deflects the blow, staggering the enemy, and opening up for a follow-up attack.
The demo culminates in a classic Zelda-like dungeon in the swamp area. The dungeon is crawling with frogmen and snails. I need to explore the dark waters to find switches and activate floating lily pads to get around. Vacuum-like wind traps teach me to throw bombs to destroy them (or rather, Faie yells at me), a tactic I’ll soon use when I face off against the giant, frog-like boss.
It’s a classic video game boss, with a weakness I need to exploit — tossing bombs when it opens its mouth to suck me in.
But after the first two successes, things start getting really difficult, with regularly spawning frogmen, and tornadoes that grab the bombs out of my hands. I experience several deaths, but the game (or perhaps the demo) takes it easy on me, with a simple revive system using some currency that I have hundreds of (there’s also a checkpoint right outside the boss room).
After finally defeating the boss, the demo ends, and I’m left with profound sadness at having to wait for the full meal.
I’m continually impressed with Team Asano’s HD-2D look and feel, and the willingness to tackle different RPG subgenres. The Adventures of Elliot isn’t just a fancy Zelda-clone, but a proper evolution of A Link to the Past, and easily one of my most anticipated games of 2026.
Now, is it too late to change that name?
The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales will launch in 2026 on PC, PlayStation 5, Switch 2, and Xbox Series X/S.
