Adventuring with pixelated 2D characters in this day of high-def, lifelike video gaming graphics will likely feel pretty antiquated and retro to some players. But The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales handles its HD-2D play—a visual style that merges old school 2D pixel art with rich, three-dimensional environments—very nicely.
And developer Team Asano has also made its newest title surprisingly approachable for a younger crowd of gamers.
As you may have already guessed, an adventurer with a perfectly canted cap named Elliot is the hero here.
It seems that King Hichard of the Kingdom of Huther has recently become aware of mysterious ruins just outside the kingdom’s boundaries. Not only are these ruins populated by hostile beast tribes, but they might potentially hold a source of great power.
However, the king is far less concerned with power than he is the protection of the realm. And so he calls in Elliot to investigate this dark and mysterious place and report back with any findings. In addition, the magic-imbued Princess Heuria—who protects the kingdom with a magical protective barrier—casts a spell on Elliot’s earrings so that she can listen in on his adventures and offer Elliot advice and healing if he needs it.
Little do these three central characters realize that the king’s adviser, Minister Kaifried, is actually a mustache-twirling sort who’s pulling strings behind the scenes. Kaifried plans to snag a powerful sword from the ruins and gain access to something called the Doorway of Time. And with these newfound powers he can betray the crown and take control of man and beast through brutal power. Brouhaha!
Gameplay-wise, players are called upon to investigate dungeons and temples, hunt for treasure chests, break deadly spells and take on monstrous beasts. Because of that Doorway of Time, Elliot’s quests and battles stretch through four different ages over the course of a thousand years. And along the way, Elliot makes a friend in a butterfly-like fairy named Faie, who serves as Elliot’s magical sidekick, offering both narrative guidance, psychic abilities and attacks.
Faie offers Elliot cheery advice with puzzle solutions, she helps him in battle when he needs it, and she also nudges him in the right direction at times. That little extra can help younger players avoid getting lost or bogged down in any given timeline or dark forest. (You can adjust the companion “chattiness” in the game menu.)
Elliot also gathers something called Magicite, an element that can be used to create special gems that modify his weapons and mix up his gameplay—boosting his sword’s critical-hit ratio, for instance, or adding flames to his arrows. Eventually these tweaks and boosts offer gamers a fairly deep and customizable combat system.
The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales is a three-quarters-overhead perspective, single player title. However, it does offer a local two-player co-op mode after the introduction of Elliot’s fairy friend, Faie. The game does not require an online connection to play.
The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales is all about standing up to evil, finding true friendship and seeking out a pathway to peaceful coexistence with those who are unlike you. The game also lauds giving and seeking forgiveness and redemption, even after someone makes terrible choices.
The Adventures of Elliot is appealing. And the adventure, while dense with an abundance of fully-voiced character interactions, is relatively brisk and active.
While The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales focuses on a lot of character interaction and exploration, fantasy battles with beast folk, monsters and glowing-eyed, demonic-looking creatures are a constant. (One human character appears to be possessed by an evil entity.) Elliot draws from an arsenal made up of a sword, a bow, a spear, a hard-hitting hammer and a boomerang. He can also throw bombs and swing chains and a sickle.
Elliot fights against werewolf-like creatures, golems, dragons, giant fish-like foes, lava beasts, mechs and warriors riding savage animal mounts. Some foes slash with large swords or shoot flaming or icy projectiles. Some enemies cast blazing magic spells or launch forth waves of water or laser beams.
The clash between these sharp-bladed and explosive forces can sometimes splash a bit of blood, but the battles are gore-free. There are cries of pain, explosions and screen-shaking effects. When the foes fall dead, they break up into a spray of Magicite that Elliot can collect and use. (The game menu offers gameplay settings of Easy, Normal, Hard and Very Hard.)
When Elliot dies, he can be quickly revived by Faie for an amount of in-game currency. Early on in the game, Elliot is killed by a powerful villain, and he slips down into a watery depth that is supposed to represent death. He then meets and gets resurrected for the first time by Faie.
In the course of the game, Elliot must face friends who have been cursed or injured. A dear companion dies.
After playing through the game chapters and ages, Elliot can reach both good and bad endings to his story. If, for instance, Elliot doesn’t find and acquire some optional items during his travels, he can defeat the final boss but still lose a dear acquaintance who’s been cursed.
The game dialogue is relatively problem free, and the game characters generally are kind and positive. But you can find rare but coarse uses of “b–ch” and “pr–k” in some interactions. There are also a few inebriated individuals in the mix.
The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales sets players loose on quests full of treasure hunting, dungeon roaming, monster slaying and princess saving. But there are a few fantasy-world thumps to be wary of.
After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.
