The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales

GOOD

Simply the best non-zelda zelda-like I ever played....

Juego precioso al estilo de los zelda clasicos.

在打真结局之前，除了美术和音乐，当时玩的感觉就是这游戏做的一无是处，无论战斗、养成，地图。 打完之后释然了，如果能把战斗和养成做得更适合，那这游戏可以到9分。 希望，自在“彼处”[spoiler] ，是亲情，是爱情，更是未来。 [/spoiler] [spoiler] 还是要吐槽这游戏地图本身四个时代，但是套用的是同一张图的素材，不仅如此，后面还需要强行去找猫来延长游戏时长的做法，完全是日本人奇怪的想法做出来的。 [/spoiler]

This review comes after completing the game 100%, including all achievements. The main and most-discussed qualities of Elliot are apparent right from the very first hours: beautiful art, an outstanding soundtrack, solid controls and combat clearly inspired by the best entries in the Ys series, fun Zelda-like exploration, and a stellar cast of voice actors (that is, if you play with Japanese audio). Many reviews here already cover these strengths. I would like to highlight what I personally enjoyed the most, which I haven’t seen discussed nearly enough: the worldbuilding and narrative. I can only assume that people complaining about the writing haven’t properly engaged with the game or only looked at it superficially. There is an incredible amount of precious information to discover and piece together by talking to characters across all four ages. Basically every named NPC (and even a few generic ones) can be connected to a particular family lineage, and every minute I spent trying to figure it out was pure joy. Sure, it’s not overly complicated, and the most important connections are eventually revealed through the main story or manuscripts, but there’s a real sense of satisfaction in discovering them yourself first. And not every connection is covered by quests. Off the top of my head, I can think of a few cases where understanding how different characters are related across eras (and within the same age) requires going out of your way to talk to them in town at specific moments. Sometimes, this might even trigger a hidden short cutscene! Trying to predict and connect the pieces of this intergenerational puzzle was one of the most memorable experiences I’ve had recently in a game. The side quests are a big part of that experience. I’ve seen negative reviews call them busywork or shallow, but I disagree. Yes, there’s a fetch-quest element, but the game respects your time. The brief gameplay loops serve to tell incredibly personal stories that tie directly into the overarching plot. These quests are far from filler. In fact, many were actually my favorite parts of the adventure. They flesh out important side characters and their contributions to a better future. Most importantly, every interaction pays off. The writers built this world so carefully that, if you pay attention, not a single thread is left hanging by the end. There is another common complaint I would like to address, and that is performance issues: While I believe Square should be more proactive in recognizing and addressing them here on Steam, I’d encourage anyone reading this to try the game for themselves before writing it off. Despite many reports of problems with Intel 13th/14th-gen processors, I experienced zero issues on my 13700KF across roughly 40 hours of play. That said, I recommend capping the game at 60fps at 2K resolution and using Lossless Scaling for additional frame generation if you have similar hardware, as Elliot does not seem particularly well-optimized for PC. All in all, I cannot recommend this game enough to fans of the Ys series, top-down Zelda games, and other Team Asano titles. It’s easily a personal GOTY contender for me, and I hope the developers are proud of the amazing world they’ve created. With such a perfectly-tied ending it is hard to imagine any kind of sequel in this same universe, but I’m still very excited to see what Team Asano does next in the action RPG genre!

白金了，挺復古蠻好玩的