The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales Revels in its Game Boy Roots but Makes One Mistake

The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales Revels in its Game Boy Roots but Makes One Mistake

Legendary swords? Eh. Chain sickles? Now we're talking. Mom-cam on drone? No thanks.

The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales, an action RPG developed by Team Asano and published by Square Enix, features pixel-based sprites, rendered and brought to life in Team Asano's now-iconic "2D-HD" art style to create a world that's beautiful to look at. It's even better to travel through and smack up the beastly enemies that aim to mow down Elliot on his quest to untwist time.

There's a lot of gaming DNA in Elliot, from Nintendo’s Zelda games to any number of top-down sword-swinging adventures that followed. But going by Adventures of Elliot's rich visuals, you might never guess that the biggest contributor to its genetic structure is a wee Game Boy cartridge: 1991’s Final Fantasy Adventure. It doesn’t help that Final Fantasy Adventure’s title makes it a confusing animal that goes by many names, e.g. Seiken Densetsu, Sword of Mana, or Adventures of Mana.

It's hard to pin the little wriggler down with all those name changes... well, maybe not, since it's still very easy to find and play Final Fantasy Adventure in most of its forms. But when you do, a quick study reveals that Team Asano clearly wanted Adventures of Elliot to share most of its blood with Final Fantasy Adventure. Positively, in case you're worried. At least for the most part. Adventures of Elliot does make one big, hilariously ironic mistake. But if you're the type of person whose life lights up a little brighter at the words "chain sickle," you might find you're onto something with Elliot.

There's our hero himself, the titular Elliot. He dresses in the suave attire of a Red Mage, a trademark Square Enix character class that debuted in the original Final Fantasy and looks pimp as hell. This is a nod to Final Fantasy Adventure’s Julius, an enigmatic wizard who muddied his identity with the help of Red Mage getup that matches Elliot's. And, like his Mana series hero predecessors, you can select Elliot’s weapon at any time by bringing up a wheel-style menu. Sometimes a fight is better handled with a spear or a boomerang than with a sword. Even if that sword is magical, of course. It's always magical.

Another big tell on Elliot's roots is his signature weapon, the chain sickle. Swing this baby in an arc around your head and the Beast Tribes will regret even waking up that morning. The chain sickle was—yes—the signature weapon of the hero in Final Fantasy Adventure, though it has yet to make its way to other Mana games. Elliot might be the first adventurer to pick it up in a long time. Yeah, maybe a chain sickle is, by design, about as safe as a lawn dart tourney for toddlers, but it's pretty freakin' sweet. It deserves to be wielded by more heroes, so you go, Elliot.

Finally, like Final Fantasy Adventure, The Adventures of Elliot isn't too bothered about you wandering off the beaten path to explore whatever caves and life-boosting shrines you can find with your current toolset. Wow! Cool!...except The Adventures of Elliot gives you companions that assist in battle (another Adventure of Mana staple). They talk your ear off to make sure Elliot is always reminded of his mission and where he must go to complete said mission. It's like trying to explore a pristine but rugged new part of the world while your mother watches over your shoulder on a drone and randomly tosses you advice. (And then repeats that advice ad nauseum.) You can turn off voices, which isn't an ideal solution for this kind of game, but the compromise doesn't seem so bad once The Adventures of Elliot's music washes over you and cleanses your soul of weariness.

Still, and it's heartening to see such a new, shiny game pay tribute to Final Fantasy Adventure's humble Game Boy beginnings. Even if it picked up some bad habits along the way. Let's hear it for Team Chain Sickle!!