Final Fantasy meets Zelda? Yes, please

Let’s be real: There’s no shortage of Zelda -style games to play right now. That’s true even if you’ve exhausted all there is to see in Tears of the Kingdom or Echoes of Wisdom . Indie developers keep finding new ways to refresh the formula, whether it’s fusing it with a Soulslike , making it cozier , or simply shrinking it down into something more manageable. Now we have Square Enix and The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales , a curiously named RPG that mixes the classic Zelda structure with something that resembles Final Fantasy . And it’s a combination I can’t seem to get enough of. The Adventures of Elliot is the latest in Square Enix’s “HD-2D” line of games , a loosely collected series defined largely by their visuals, which reimagine pixel art for modern audiences. The other defining trait is every game has an incredibly weird name , so Elliot fits right in. Many are more traditional JRPGs, like the Octopath Traveler series , some Dragon Quest remakes , and an actual Final Fantasy game . But Square Enix has also grown the HD-2D style to encompass more genres, like Triangle Strategy ’s, well, strategy, and now an action-adventure game. As you can probably guess, Elliot stars an adventurer named Elliot in a world of magic and monsters. In Elliot’s time, most of the land is a dangerous place, with only a single city free from the beast tribes, as it’s under the magical protection of a young princess. …