a captivating throwback RPG that respects your time

Co-developed by Group Asano (a workforce inside Sq. Enix) and Claytechworks, The Adventures of Elliot seems like enjoying a misplaced SNES or PS1-era basic for the primary time. I can’t say that it does something notably revolutionary by the requirements of 2026. However the pacing is tight, the boss fights are splendidly different, the puzzles are simply crunchy sufficient, and the music and visuals recall to mind a fairy-tale storybook. Whereas the sport spans 4 distinct time durations, the compact map and 25-hour runtime invite exploration with out ever feeling daunting.

There’s a Ghibli-esque earnestness to the storytelling in Adventures of Elliot, which comes off a little bit hokey at first however gained me over finally. The story opens within the Kingdom of Huther, and Elliot has volunteered to retrieve a “worthwhile merchandise” for an older gentleman. (Seems, it’s only a misplaced comb from his deceased spouse.) Elliot could also be an adventurer by commerce, however we quickly be taught he’s way more of a boy scout than a treasure-hunting rogue. He’s a kindly big-brother determine to the residents of the city orphanage, alternating tales of derring-do with cautious classes about weapon dealing with. The story kicks off in earnest when the King asks Elliot to analyze some newly found ruins, after which to thwart a villain who travels again in time to grab the forgotten energy of magic.

Our hero accepts the duty with out hesitation. “My household believes me to be the best adventurer on the earth. I’d hate to disappoint them,” he says. It’s a second that units the tone for the sport the entire approach by means of. In case you’re searching for a 2deep4u protagonist within the vein of Last Fantasy 7’s Cloud Strife, you’re not going to search out that right here. The Adventures of Elliot is an unambiguously chipper expertise, the place even seemingly calamitous plot twists might be overcome by chatting with cordial townsfolk or revisiting a well-recognized dungeon.

The Adventures of Elliot is Group Asano’s first motion RPG. (The workforce has principally caught to turn-based video games, although it took a swing on the ways subgenre with 2022’s Triangle Technique.) Just like the SNES-era Zelda video games that partially impressed it, there’s a heavy emphasis on exploration, notably utilizing new abilities and weapons to discover areas that had beforehand been out of attain. Elliot can break open conspicuously cracked partitions with a well-placed bomb, whomp stakes into the bottom together with his hammer, and set off distant switches with a fastidiously aimed arrow or boomerang.

Elliot’s fairy sidekick, Faie, has a number of nifty methods of her personal. (You could have already heard that she yaps lots, and mercifully there may be an choice within the settings menu to make her discuss much less.) These skills embrace lighting fires to light up darkish areas, warping Elliot over huge gaps, and creating an illusory double of Elliot, which can be utilized to resolve puzzles in addition to in fight.

Because the story spans 4 time durations, you’ll be revisiting the identical places lots, they usually’re all populated by the identical handful of enemies. The overworld map is essentially similar between time durations, and dungeons have solely minor variations. And all of these dungeons are fairly brief, since you may go to them greater than as soon as. This works out much better in observe than it sounds on paper, because of a beneficiant fast-travel system each inside and out of doors dungeons that makes the repetition lots much less irritating than it might be in much less thoughtful palms.

As an illustration, if a dungeon has a story-essential merchandise in a single time interval, returning in one other period would possibly yield a pleasant non-obligatory merchandise, like a weapon improve or Shard of Life (i.e., a legally distinct Zelda coronary heart container fragment). Within the different two durations, partitions may have collapsed, stopping you from venturing deeper. If there’s nothing to search out in a given location, Faie will let you understand as quickly as you enter or when you’ve reached a useless finish, so that you don’t whip your self right into a lather trying to find a puzzle resolution or key that doesn’t exist. The few occasions I felt irritated by having to retrace my steps — or “rediscover” a spot I’d already visited in each different time interval — it hardly ever took greater than 10 or quarter-hour.

On condition that The Adventures of Elliot invitations Chrono Set off comparisons with its era-hopping, I hoped that will open up some fascinating potentialities the place exploration was involved. In case you drain a flooded dungeon previously, will new areas open up sooner or later? Properly, no. There’s probably not any of that. Your actions previously don’t have a tangible affect on future exploration. It seems like a serious missed alternative, particularly when the maps are so comparable from period to period.

Time journey actually solely serves a storytelling function in The Adventures of Elliot, and it does so very merely. Our hero eagerly blabs about his era-hopping to actually everybody he meets, together with quite a few individuals who change into consequential historic figures. Nobody appears to assume him meddling with the previous is an issue, and it by no means truly is. I can see why it might not be an amazing match with the story’s sunny vibes, however I’d have appreciated extra consideration to the unintended penalties of Elliot altering the previous — even when it was dealt with in a lighthearted approach.

Secret of Mana and The Legend of Zelda: A Hyperlink to the Previous provide extra flattering factors of comparability. Like these video games, The Adventures of Elliot doesn’t have an experience-based development system, which suggests random encounters are principally breezy and even fully skippable in a while. Alternatively, you’re inspired to combine up your methods and assume creatively in relation to boss fights. Generally you’ll have to deflect assaults again towards your opponent together with your defend. Different enemies is perhaps weak to bombs, however you’ll need to watch out about your timing. Fortunately, the sport by no means locks you into a method of doing issues.

It helps that your weapons aren’t the one instruments at your disposal in a difficult battle. One boss encounter pits Elliot towards a snail in an icy shell. Completely by chance (I had meant to make use of the sprint means), I spotted that Faie’s torch-lighting ability may very well be used for small however constant chip injury towards the ice-elemental baddie. Once I struggled to time my bomb tosses to crack its shell, I used Faie’s duplication ability, permitting the boss to sidestep (side-slime?) my projectile and bumble straight into the trail of my doppelganger’s explosive. When different bosses began throwing huge area-of-effect assaults my approach, I tailored by leaning on Faie’s warp ability to rapidly get behind the enemy and whale on its unprotected rear. Fairly than simply spamming my strongest spells or assaults, I got here away from these battles buzzing with kooky new concepts I needed to attempt.

The magicite system additionally opens up a ton of fight customization choices, permitting you to lean into the strengths of your favourite weapons and discover new makes use of to your backup choices. You should utilize magicite shards to create randomly generated equipment for every weapon, and to extend what number of of these equipment you may equip. I most appreciated the magicite that provided new riffs on acquainted skills, like rising the variety of boomerangs in every throw, making bombs take longer to detonate, or including elemental attributes to my hammer and sickle. Every weapon has 15 varieties of magicite that principally increase stats, like elevated essential price, greater base injury, or decreased cost time. However by mid-game, I’d just about tinkered with all of them and settled on a constant loadout. After that time, including extra magicite capability felt good to have, however not important.

Whereas a pair late-game aspect quests overstay their welcome, an enormous a part of this recreation’s attraction is that it might probably simply be loved in shorter classes. You may’t actually drop in on Tears of the Kingdom or Persona 5 for half-hour and make significant progress, however you completely can in The Adventures of Elliot. Although the scope of the story is compact, I used to be pleasantly shocked by the best way the stakes ratcheted up over time to achieve an exhilarating conclusion. Whereas I do want the time-travel points had extra depth, in case you have fond reminiscences of Secret of Mana and/or A Hyperlink to the Previous — or are merely craving a satisfying RPG expertise that gained’t take over your life — you’ll have a unbelievable time with The Adventures of Elliot. It’s a simple recreation to select up and a tough one to place down.

The Adventures of Elliot involves Nintendo Change 2, PlayStation 5, Home windows PC, and Xbox Sequence X on June 18. The sport was reviewed on Change 2 utilizing a prerelease obtain code offered by Sq. Enix. Yow will discover extra details about Polygon’s ethics coverage right here.