Adventures of Elliot for me was a bit of a U-curve. I started off quite excited with the game, then at some point in the middle it started to get a bit tedious and I found myself a little less engaged and excited to play, only for the final quarter or so of the game to get a big boost and end very strongly, leaving me with overall, a pretty positive reception on Elliot's adventure!
This is Team Asano's first foray into the action RPG genre, hearkening to classics such as the older Ys titles, Zelda games and even stuff like The Adventures of Alundra. The action combat honestly feels pretty good! The hits feel impactful, your movement and animations are pretty fast and fluid, and the mix of weapons and upgrades you get allow you to find your combat niche. The boss fights are also very solid, with all the main ones feeling pretty distinct and well designed.
So where does the action gameplay falter? Well in despite of the weapons and upgrades you get, I hit a certain point in the game where I felt like my combat approach wasn't really going to be changing much. This, combined with the relatively limited monster variety (you'll have seen most of the monster types in the game from a relatively early point), means that the dazzle and shine the combat has initially, becomes more of a going-through-the-motions, sort of thing. Still fun, but I felt that a lack of meaningful permanent upgrades or character development options halted the chance of combat maintaining that early excitement.
On the topic of the limited monster variety, I will also throw out my main complaint with the game, and that's that the area variety does not feel varied enough for how much it wants you to explore. Despite the gimmick of the game being that you travel through different ages, the actual ages themselves don't feel distinctly different a lot of the time, which can lead to the feeling that you're just doing the exact same areas multiple times, and it's a bit of a dampener. It's probably the main factor that led to the middle-game dip of enjoyment that I had. This is mitigated a little once you start to just beeline for the main points of exploration for your upgrade hunting, but yeah, it is what it is.
And also in relation to upgrades, there's one item you can buy from a shop VERY early on that I cannot imagine playing the game without. I had this accessory equipped for the entire game as soon as I got it, and it feels like you can do a whole bunch of platforming skips with it, use it to improve your overall mobility, and just strikes me as something that should be built into the overall kit of Elliot, instead of taking up one of the three limited accessory slots. This isn't really a negative, but just something that I kept thinking about.
Without going too much into spoilers, I would say that the story starts off relatively straightforward. You'll get to meet a handful of likeable characters, and felines, but it feels like the plot meanders a bit at some point and loses the traction that it sets up. This might also be hampered slightly due to the side quests which can appear in rather large abundance, so if you're dead set on keeping up with them, as well as exploring all the maps, the pacing of the story can feel a little off. However, as previously mentioned, I felt that in the last quarter or third or so of the game, the story got much better. Things start to come together, revelations are had, everything feels collectively more engaging and it culminates in a finale that imo was pretty strong. The kind of finale where it makes up for the weaker paced parts of the story, and I'm glad it went in the direction that it did. I also in general appreciate how the game manages the endings, and the information that they reveal.
Also, I've seen people complaining a bit about Faie. I can appreciate that some may be irritated by the very talkative and suggestion-giving companion, but she never bothered me that way. I had a particular source of enjoyment just watching her portrait change whenever Elliot was going through story dialogue with someone, and seeing her swap from her many poses of smugness, shock, and ganbare-ness, honestly always made me smile even 40 hours in. She's just really cute, and a nice companion to go with Elliot on his adventure.
Related to Faie's portrait, the portrait art in general for the game is just really pretty. The character art is striking, and even has some little mouth animations for an extra touch in dialogue. There are moments too where a character may have a brand new portrait pose for just a couple of dialogue lines, and then it's never used again, and I personally always appreciate things like this. It feels like the developers care about making small moments feel polished and special, instead of just relying on the same stock poses/portraits/etc for the entire game.
Oh and the music is also solid. The soundtrack is actually surprisingly large, with you being able to unlock a sound gallery of sorts by playing some cute little minigames with Faie. Outside of the main theme, I'd say the town themes and dungeon themes got stuck in my head the most.
I think I felt this way about Triangle Strategy. Team Asano made big strides going from Octopath 1 to Octopath 2, and I suspect if they ever do a sequel to TS or Elliot, the same level of advancement and quality improvements will be felt. Even in spite of the faults from their first foray into a different genre, there's a lot to like in the game, and depending on your tolerance for certain gameplay elements or design choices, there's even a lot to love.
For me, I ended the game with the feeling that I can largely overlook the negatives, thanks to the positives having a much more lasting impression on me, which is an attitude I've tried to approach more games with in recent years. I'm hopeful for a sequel one day that improves the formula even further, now that Team Asano have the foundation for their action RPG series!
