Adventures Of Elliot Shows How Flexible HD-2D Can Be

HD-2D, the retro-cool art style spearheaded by Square Enix and imitated by many others, was originally built as a way to pay homage to classic Super NES-era role-playing games while also making them look distinctly modern. And to that end, it's been used exclusively for RPGs like the Octopath Traveler series and the Live A Live remake. The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales, then, represents the next big evolution of this concept, showing that the art style can just as easily apply to other classic genres--this time, the top-down action-adventure game.

I played about two hours of The Adventures of Elliot in a demo that takes place about 3-4 hours into the game. At this point in the game, the main quest was to seek a magical shield, but I was given freedom to roam almost anywhere in the open world across two distinct time periods. Square Enix noted that this build of the game has incorporated some feedback from the public demo released last July--faster movement speed, a weapon-shortcut menu, and a selection of difficulty levels. The difficulty was set to Easy by default in my demo, but I switched it to Normal and kept it there without too much trouble.

On the topic of menu options, I should mention one more. Your fairy companion, Faie, is very chatty. Her voice is cloying, and she talks frequently, with an odd babytalk affect. It's a lot. Players of the 2025 demo must have given feedback on this too, because the build I played had a menu option devoted to Faie's chattiness. Her default is set to "Chatty" but you can switch her to "Reticent," which tones her down, a little. I played the majority of my demo with the default Chatty option but switched to Reticent to see the difference, and she still chimed in quite a bit. I have a high tolerance for these things but even I found Faie a little offputting, so I imagine some players will have a stronger reaction.