Time spent with cats is seldom wasted.
Square Enix’s Team Asano is a bit of a darling among those, not unlike myself, that desperately wish and have wished for many years now that Square return to form in being something of a creative juggernaut in both means of creative storytelling and engaging gameplay in the medium that it undoubtedly was in the 90s. This isn’t rosey-eyed nostalgia or base pessimism, it’s a consistently observable failing on Square’s part ever since it merged into the cartoonishly inept conglomerate known as ‘Square Enix’ ever at the whims of it’s oligarchal and increasingly out-of-touch shareholders and the long-since departure of it’s then creative figureheads (Sakaguchi, Uematsu, Matsuno, Yoshida, etc.). Long have they chased trends, alienated their core consumer-base, and failed time and time again to recreate the same creative dynamite that quite literally made it into what it is today, and the very body of work they continue blood-letting through mobile games, remakes, merchandising, and nauseating diversification into just about every avenue imaginable to try and stay financially and culturally relevant amongst the battlefield of failed imitations and amalgamations of recent make.
But Team Asano feels different in many ways. The early makings of Team Asano actually had their hands in the creation of the majority of the modest DS and 3DS Square Enix successes – Final Fantasy III’s 3D Remake, Final Fantasy IV’s 3D Remake, Final Fantasy: The Four Heroes of Light, Bravely Default, and Bravely Second. However (and lamentably) it wasn’t until the Switch’s launch lineup of games revealed a new project – ‘Octopath Traveler’, that many North American players would start taking notice of them and their newly minted ‘HD-2D’ style of games, after which they cemented themselves firmly as a creative and business unit within Square Enix that knew what players wanted, and wanted to give it to them. People often feel split on the HD-2D games, many adore them, while others think they’re an eyesore, and an ever-multiplying one at that. In many ways, the HD-2D titles evoke the same visual response as games that aim for ‘realistic’ graphics and art direction. Too much effort is placed on making things look ‘realistic’, a ‘realistic’ pixel-tree. A ‘realistic’ pixel-house. A ‘realistic’ pixel-waterfall. Not enough effort is put into making a tree or town or environment look unique or stylized, and this has led to most of the games having the same overly-produced, unimaginative, visual style. And one can only imagine this is also a thinly-veiled cost cutting technique, to be able to share as many assets from game to game as possible – but five seems to be the upper limit, especially when those assets are being shared in completely ‘new’ worlds with ‘unique’ identities. One of their stronger HD-2D styles to date has been their remake of LIVE A LIVE – but of course in this case much of it’s base sprite work had already been made and lifted/emulated from it’s 1994 original. LIVE A LIVE has always been a source of inspiration for Asano, and that is always plain to see in the way the Octopath games are built and paced narratively.
To be sure, Asano has made some incredible titles, all of those I’ve named so far are excellent games, and I frequently revisit them yearly with great enthusiasm. However, in recent years Asano seems to be showing signs of the same fatigue and ‘economical’ corporate ubiquity that has hung around Square Enix the better part of 20 years. The Adventures of Elliot: The Millenium Tales feels like a culmination of Team Asano’s repetitive foibles, missteps, and sub-par Switch titles of the last decade.
Narrative Design
Story, Themes, and Conflicts
Elliot’s story is from the outset a very clear cut and dry fantasy-melodrama. ‘Melodrama’ doesn’t even quite do it justice, it’s something twice as melodramatic as any Soap Opera or Direct-To-Streaming cozy Hallmark Holiday movie. Elliot is an Adventurer (go figure), who is an orphan who loves helping people. Adventurers in this world aren’t suave or flawed – they don’t chase thrills because of some adrenaline addiction or for fame or notoriety or money or something interesting, they do it to ‘help people’. Every other Adventurer you meet in the game either quit being one after they deemed it ‘too difficult’ or because they ‘grew out of it’ and took on other responsibilities. Pretty milquetoast, sobering, reasoning.
Elliot’s ex-adventurer friend Euygene recommends Elliot to the sovereign of Huther to investigate the land and uncover ancient ruins and artifacts to the end of bettering their understanding of the ancient world and eventually in aiding his daughter Heuria in her duty of protecting the Kingdom from invading Beastmen – feral beast creatures who occupy the greater part of ‘Philabieldia’, a name which unsurprisingly but also maddeningly they give no reason for sounding like someone with a cold saying ‘Philadelphia’. Over the journey, Elliot discovers ruins that allow him to travel back in time to four separate ages and follows his good-natured adventuring across them all with the main objective being to make the modern age a better place for everyone.
Octopath Traveler features a story that is equal parts melodrama, fantasy, and a fairly engaging mystery a la LIVE A LIVE that bleeds into every chapter on reflection. It’s very well built, and while made of grosser clay comparatively to the likes of LIVE A LIVE, Bravely Default, or most Final Fantasy titles, it’s characters still contain some fleshiness to them – some verisimilitude that goes beyond melodrama. My favorite story in Octopath is Alfyn’s. What starts as a fairly cloying narrative about being a rookie alchemist who wants to travel the world helping as many people as possible, soon turns into a moral dilemma – do alchemists (doctors) have an ethical imperative to help ALL people, regardless of who they are? Of what they’ve done? Of what they’re going to do? It subverts expectations by taking a fairly lighthearted fantasy premise and then proposing a very serious real-world moral obligation on the protagonist that also asks of the viewer – what would you do? It’s very well done and is one of the reasons why I regard Octopath Traveler as their strongest (original) HD-2D title. Elliot doesn’t do this. Neither did Octopath Traveler II, Octopath Travler 0, or Triangle Strategy. There are no great moral dilemmas or ethical quandaries in these titles. There is only preening – posturing. Lip-service being paid to being ‘good’ and doing ‘good’ and always finding the ‘good’. They don’t even struggle to write true villains – every villain is secretly a good guy. They were secretly philanthropes with hearts of golds who just had bad attitudes. Or they had a tragic past that we can now change with our time-traveling gateways so that everyone can have a good ending and be thought of as good people. It’s the most spineless, maudlin, uninteresting, conflict-absent writing and premises that has ever been imagined. So cloying and saccharine and taking-for-granted of basic human intelligence that every character, every story beat was just a predictable plotless mess of pointless repetitive dialogue and skin-curdling doo-goodery that even mildly educated children should take offense to it.
Every character has a dead dad. Or a dead mom. Or a dead fiance. Or a sick uncle. Or a sick ancestor. An uncle thrice removed with a bad arm and two left feet who was struck blind in a hailstorm. And this isn’t a steep exaggeration, Elliot bombards the player with the same sentimental plot-fodder over and over and over whether it’s in the main story or 30-something side quests over the course of it’s 30-40 hour run time. Asano has been writing these same schlocky plots with no substance since Octopath Traveler II and they have only gotten worse, more bald, more protracted, more sickly sweet ever since. I’m not sure what the inspiration here is – to be sure, the fault could lie with the additional writers they’ve pulled in, such as Naoki Yamamato who’s main credits beforehand are from the ‘Tales’ series – all equally dripping with the same lack of verisimilitude and rank ‘anime’ schmaltz. They certainly aren’t emulating any of the well written character narratives from classic RPGs like Final Fantasy IV or the exciting adventure-heavy yet still poignant character dramas of something like Final Fantasy V. The only resemblance to similar RPG narratives come from the same Asano titles mentioned here from the past decade.
Elliot makes some feeble attempts at world-building and plot consistency in it’s late and closing hours, but keeps the player in the dark on the finer machinations of why ‘Philabieldia’ even exists, where it is, what the beast tribes even are, and why there’s no trade or farms or industry or any sort of practical human ingenuity in this otherwise benighted age. It also fails miserably to make good sense of the time-traveling component of it’s bulk narrative. When traveling to various eras in time, time doesn’t stand still – Elliot isn’t visiting an anchor point, the doorways he utilizes seemingly aren’t connected to ‘set’ periods of time, the character Mao (later revealed to be Elliot’s own mother, naturally) goes from being zero to nine months pregnant after visiting the same time period doorway she’s in twice. By the end of the game she’s even given birth – all this only to justify the ‘paradox’ of Elliot (of course) rescuing his own mother and father in his time. It’s sophomoric and disjointed narrative theming too, because Elliot never once bemoans being an orphan. The game never touches on any real-world societal pressures or hurdles from lacking parents or family. He isn’t treated poorly or ostracized for being an orphan, he has a great relationship with his foster mother and fellow fosters, and is painfully well-loved by everyone who lays eyes on him. The writing has nothing to tell you about orphans, or family, or relationships – only that it’s ‘good’ to have them and ‘great’ to be them.
Elliot also tries to emulate Octopath and LIVE A LIVE here as well with it’s ‘everything makes sense and pays off at the end’ sort of conceit that here is absolutely miserable to navigate through. It consists of hours of dialogue and cutscenes tacked on at the very end of the game by traveling directly from one age to the other. Instead of trying to organically tell a cohesive narrative across Elliot’s entire runtime, they made the bizarre decision to tell the bulk of the story at the very end, making for a horribly paced and grueling last few hours where your time is mostly spent listening to dialogue and fast traveling.
Character Design
Design, Development, and Dialogue
This will probably sound more scathing than intended, but Square Enix’s in-house Akihiko Yoshida ‘Naoki Ikushima’ does a great job with Elliot’s character designs and portraits. What the characters lack in actual personality or depth, Ikushima makes up for with highly-detailed illustrations that drip with individual personality, if not admittedly a soupçon plain and routine. His work is good, great, even but perhaps becoming a bit too formulaic and tired considering he’s been tapped for every Asano game since Octopath. His work pales in comparison to Yoshida’s, and it’s frustrating that he’s almost coopted this style straight from the man once he left Square Enix and they’ve run rampant with it ever since like they’re getting away with something.
As I touched on, Elliot isn’t a particularly engaging or interesting protagonist. He has no faults, no foibles, no endearing flaws of any kind – he’s perfect. Immediately loved and trusted by everyone, the best at everything he does, going from age to age fixing everyone’s problems and uniting everyone under how great he is. Completely pathetic. He has no character arc, he doesn’t’ change, he doesn’t improve – how could he? He’s almost christ-like in his characterization. Even his real name – ‘Lawei’ is suspiciously similar to ‘Yahweh’.
Faie is the only fairy-character Asano has created that I actively despise. This includes Airy – who is abominable, but a great villain. Faie is nothing. She is a ridiculous navigator character who adds nothing of import to the plot (characters cannot see or hear her) and who turns out to not be anything interesting in the grand scheme of things (unlike past Asano fairies) – just a little companion made for Elliot by the Phoenix Credel. It’s like they said ‘How can we make this journey even more grating? Let’s give Elliot a floating baby only he can see and hear to narrate his every action like a dementia patient.’ I can appreciate them wanting to add a fairy companion as sort of a hallmark of their games, but when she stops becoming an interesting foil or character to the main party and instead becomes some sort of crutch for attention-deficit cozy-game players I think they’ve lost the plot entirely.
There really isn’t any other characters to mention or bring up that don’t suffer from the same ailments – they’re all one-dimensional, maudlin, self-important dialogue vehicles to move the plot forward. Some are more grating than others, but none of them are so unique or valuable to the plot to bring up any further.
Gameplay
Influence, Mechanics, and UI/UX
Ever since Elliot was announced and people managed to put a few hours into it’s ‘debut demo’, the comparisons to ‘The Legend of Zelda’ have been almost nonstop. Team Asano themselves were also surprised at these comparisons – because (as they themselves say) Elliot pulls directly from the Secret of Mana series (Seiken Densetsu), Final Fantasy Adventures, and older and (somewhat) more obscure Action RPG titles like Ys more than anything else. Of Zelda there is precious little in relation to Elliot here outside of the same ubiquitous Action RPG elements like swords, bows, keys, potions, and dungeons. Even fairy companions have been done to death in and outside every genre and medium imaginable at this point – they’re certainly not a hallmark of Zelda. Comparing Elliot to Zelda is like comparing Kingdom Hearts to Dark Souls just because you level up and visit different worlds in both of them (and really just does everyone involved an injustice).
The base gameplay loop is Elliot’s strongest and certainly most important (although when compared to the bulk of story and side quests I’m not sure if Asano would agree) aspect. Excursions begin in town where you can buy accessories, arrows, bombs, potions, and draw magicite. Then, into one of the four overworlds (that regrettably share the same locations, ruins, caves, and secrets in the same locations, just refreshed with new enemies and items in each age) fighting enemies for Tul, chaining kills to increase the drop rate, and exploring the dozens of ruins, caves, and dungeons scattered across the world for Tul purses, magicitie, new weapons, weapon upgrades, accessories, and more. The dungeons and ruins generally lack any sort of nuance (or any of the complex puzzle solving of Zelda for that matter) – and are for the most part straight shots from chest to chest to boss, something in the same vein as Mana or Ys. The boss variety isn’t great, but they are fun to fight for the most part and some of them actually do require you to learn their movesets and phases a bit before you can attack them. Some however don’t, and you can drink an attack up potion and wail on them until they’re dead pretty instantly. Base difficulty is pretty genial, and death will likely be an extreme rarity for most players – on top of that, there’s Faie who will instantly revive you after death for a small fee, and a sword later in the game that gives you a free revive to boot. It’s a bit much, and further distances Elliot from being likened to a more serious Action RPG of any kind.
Magicite draws are fun and unobtrusive despite being gacha, and while some weapons seem to benefit far greater from magicite than others (bow), in general it’s a pretty fun and unique system that made returning to town extra exciting to see if your luck might net you a handful of extra strong and rare stones.
Combat is simplistic, and while Elliot’s story certainly evokes an RPG feel (in form if not function), it certainly can’t be said that Elliot is much of an RPG mechanically in any sense. There is no experience gain, no weapon affinities, no weapon combos, nothing that adds a great deal of depth to battle aside from mashing buttons and occasionally drinking a potion to heal. There are some elemental affinities like burn, shock, and freeze that can halt enemies briefly or cause chip damage, but these rarely affect bosses. Elliot could have benefited greatly from some more traditional RPG elements like mentioned – enemy resistance to certain weapons could have incentivized switching up your arsenal instead of just sticking to a single set, and make the player put in more thought in general to their magicite set ups and accessories. Even Faie’s fairy abilities feel generally pretty out-of-place in the middle of combat, and don’t feel like they were fine-tuned to be used frequently during a brawl so much as when exploring.
The menu and hud is surprisingly charming, feeling like a mix between a chess board and a rolled satchel – and is a nice change of pace from the typically minimalistic huds found in most games today (and Octopath Traveler Series’ generally plain and ugly menus). Echoing Mana, the overworld menu is a ring system, and feels pretty great in general to select new weapons and items on the go.
Elliot’s gameplay ails from repetition, and many ruins and dungeons feel that they would have benefited from slightly more complex layouts, additional traps (which only appear in one dungeon?), more puzzle-solving elements, greater enemy variety, among others to keep things feeling fresh.
Sound Design
Acting, Soundtrack, and Effects
As is a common complaint with recent Square Enix localizations (usually with Team Asano) the voice cast is a pastiche of mediocre performances and baffling direction. Economic and mostly unknowns or anime-only performers. Philip Reich who voices Elliot does a suitable enough job, but plays Elliot so plainly and stilted that he hardly sounds human most of the time, he has no rising inflections or emotion of any kind behind any of Elliot’s dialogue and it makes his already ghostly personality even more translucent. Heuria voiced by Sura Siu, although fairly unknown, provides a great performance – when her character isn’t frozen. Brent Mukai too as King Hichard is a fantastic cast, only held back by the repetitive drivel that is the dialogue. Of the main cast, the best and most natural performance comes from Willow Engel as Euygene. He feels like a real character – he emotes, he reacts, his voice has real range to it, and I personally would have loved to hear Engel as Elliot instead of Reich.
Out of the smattering of better voice actors playing bit rolls and complete unknowns playing secondary characters, no performance was a consistently irritating and generally repugnant as Brenna Larsen as Faie. A voice I can only describe as a mix between a tik-tok obsessed middle aged woman with a little fetish and a starbucks-addicted physically abusive girlfriend who proclaims ‘I’m just a small gorl…’, it was a performance so unwelcome, so distracting, and so genuinely abrasive that I think Geoff Keighly should open votes for a golden-raspberry adjacent vote at his nauseating game awards for ‘Worst Voice Performance’ just so we can properly shame Square Enix into opening their pockets just a little for a presentable and unoffensive localization in 2027.
A further regret is that I cannot find anything positive to say about Tomohiro Nakamachi and Yuto Moritani’s soundtrack other than it was at least capably made. They are the next in a long line of composers brought to gaming that are not great students of game soundtracks – they’re outsiders with fledgling careers composing suites and performing classical concerts who don’t know anything about writing a good ‘Boss’ soundtrack, or Character themes, or Leitmotifs, or even experimenting with other genres in the work. Without this education, this basic understanding of game soundtracks and their history, and how they move hand in hand with narrative and gameplay, all they can ever create are unremarkable ambient soundtracks that would be better off in a dramatic anime or movie of some kind.
Last Judgement
Pros, Cons, and Verdict
Team Asano is, despite The Adventures of Elliot, the most promising creative unit in Square Enix at this point in time. However, they cannot rest on those laurels – that isn’t the glowing commendation it might sound like, considering their best original works are still post 2016. It isn’t wrong to expect and look for poignancy or basic cohesive narrative structure that acknowledges basic human emotional intelligence in even a simple Action RPG. In fact, that is where a unique and robust narrative that’s been written with care and intention can truly shine – and make an impact outside of gameplay alone.