The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales

When the exclusive Switch 2 demo came out, I tried it out. The game looked cool and, why not? I did enjoy the demo greatly and I bought the game as a birthday gift for myself, yay!

Now the demo has been some time ago, so I do not remember everything clearly, but I do remember somehow liking the dungeons that were in there. They felt like true dungeons to explore and not one long path that you just follow. The dungeons were my biggest let-down in the final game because they didn’t match those memories. They are just one big path to follow. I always wanted to play the demo again to see if I misremember or not and if they have toned down t he difficulty of the game. But alas, life is too short to reply a demo.

Despite this, I did find the game enjoyable despite its flaws and simplicity. The simplicity is, indeed, what I enjoyed most. Everything felt like a nice thorw back to the SNES area where games were simplier. We all do remember Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VI, but not your average game, and I made me happy to have a game that didn’t try to emulate the mastepieces of the time but some overwall feeling with some easter eggs.

Some people do complain about the price, which, I guess, is fair. Games are becoming more and more expensive and in a world were GTA6 costs $100, things are getting out of hand. Nonethless, it is not because the game is “only” HD-2D that it is worth less. The art direction in this game is solid. It is “too” short. I don’t know, I had around 40 hours of playtime to 100% it and I did not find t his very short at all, when we have other games that costs the same and give you 10h at most. “But Silksong is 20!” Yes, it is. And the damage this has done is incredible, actually. Look, I’m happy for the devs that they could price it so low knowing that they will sell like crazy. But I’m tired of people using this argument for the price of other game. Especially indie games. I get it for developpers like Square Enix. There is an argument to be held if the price needed to be this high.

The companions are too chatty, another complaint. You can put change how much they will talk, but not shut them down completely until a later update and for some reason people go crazy. Let the poor princess and the poor fairy talk to you. It is nice not being alone on a route. It would have been great if they added some more voicelines though, because Faie’s sentence when you hopen to map is getting old quick. Or even the teleport. I played it with voices in japanese, at least the teleport one was very short, but the “私たちのいる所は” gets old very very fast if you’re like me and open the map often since there is not a good mini map.

Anyway the story is very light-hearted and has several endings which was a great surprise for me. They add to each other so you can’t really miss, there only will be more to do. The gameplay is simple but can combine the different weapons to make some great combos, so there is a lot to have fun with in the end. Is it Dark Souls? Of course not. It is a simple action rpg that does what it wanted to do well. The time travelling mechanics are a bit sad, though. There are not really many changes throughout the ages, and it would have been great to see more differences outside of the main city. Everything is contained and linked to the main story. Exploring the same caves over and over again can get old, even if I enjoyed exploring the same map 4 times.

The characters are all very cliché, but in a good way. The whole story as a fairytale feeling, which is great. Elliot is a kind-hearted and optimistic adventurer and I’ve the feeling that I hadn’t seen an simple character like this for a while. Some people will argue that Elliot is an over-powered character that manages to do everything, but the story doe make a good point and… how this is not so. How he did become and adventurer to help out the orphenage he grew up in, he fuckes up badly in the story. So, eh. I enjoyed Elliot, I want more of good Elliot with is heart of gold.

I don’t know, I just enjoyed the game for what it wanted to be. One of my best time this year with a major developper’s game.