Test The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales - HD‑2D finally takes risks on Switch 2 according to GameBlog

With The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales, Square Enix is trying to push HD‑2D out of its comfort zone. With this new action-RPG created by a team of former Octopath Traveler and Bravely Default developers, we discover a more high-strung adventure. Let's now go into a bit more detail on the analysis by the GameBlog journalist.

The first pleasant surprise, according to him, is the gameplay. This is a real-time action-RPG, with a foundation of dodges, parries and charged attacks, reinforced by the powers of the little fairy companion who follows Elliot. These support abilities, mapped to shortcuts, allow you to slow down time, put up shields, or exploit enemies' elemental weaknesses. The dynamism of the game's progression is clearly remarkable: new equipment and abilities to unlock, secret areas, mini-bosses and more, creating that famous feeling of "always gaining something" after every fight or turn in a corridor.

On the narrative front, the demo's prologue sets up a classic but well-paced fantasy world, with an Elliot less naive than one might have feared and some flawless dialogue that plays on irony rather than pathos, with a desire to preserve small local stories, in the manner of a fragmented millennial saga, rather than throwing everything into a grand save-the-world narrative right from the start.

Visually, HD-2D reaches a new level here, GameBlog tells us, between depth effects and volumetric lighting, with certain towns teeming with detail. On Switch 2, 60 fps is generally well maintained, aside from a few rare drops during moments of overload or big spells. Loading times are very short, and the soundtrack, blending rather mournful strings with sharper percussion in combat, accompanies the action fittingly, even if, like many others, the themes turn out to be less memorable than those of Octopath.

Expect a solid thirty hours or so to finish the main adventure, more if you're interested in side quests and build optimization. While the writing may still be a bit too formulaic, the combination of fast-paced action and HD-2D presentation makes Elliot one of the first true "system seller RPGs" on Switch 2. And that's GameBlog saying it!