Experiencing The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales - Aka "The Legend of Zel...liot"
TL;DR: Adventures of Elliot feels like it wants to be an homage to many other games, but at times comes across as a cosplay. Story is the main sell point, and we're not sure it's enough to warrant the price. It's a good game, it's not a $60 game.
One of those games where you're just not sure you actually "liked" it. Inoffensive...but not necessarily spectacular. Frankly, it was plagiarizing so many games that near the end, exhaustion was all that was left.
Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom
Heart Containers? Check.
Boomerangs? Check.
Bow/Arrow? Check.
Fairy? Check.
Mystical light sword that can shoot beams? Check.
Breakable pots? Check.
Bombs? Check.
Shrine puzzles? Check.
Princess communicating to you through mystical artifacts? Check.
Princess in eternal sleep/coma/frozen/etc.? Check.
The dungeons aren't nearly as annoying as the Shrines. They're much shorter and get to the point, plus there are way less of them. The reuse of enemy sprites got annoying though.
Chrono Trigger
You're like, "huh?"
Well, if you remember that game, much of what happened there, happens here, except that Adventures of Elliot isn't nearly as structured or refined about it. But Chrono Trigger is specifically what came to mind by the time the final credits rolled, in conjunction with the Zelda gameplay.
For brevity let's just call it "AOE". And we'll try not to spoil.
AOE is actually a single thread game, but does a bunch of branching in the middle and culminating into four (officially 3) endings. There isn't really a central theme to the game, but yet there is. This is the problem.
See, Elliot being an adventurer is true. But that's not all he is. To find out the truth, you basically have to do the side quests (which is ironic given the criticism that games like Torna: The Golden Country get for doing the same). You can beat AOE without the sidequests, but it's an unsatisfactory cliffhanger that constantly tugs at your strings, getting you to see it through and find the truth.
If you do the sidequests, know that basically all of them are part of the bigger story. That bigger story is actually somewhat interesting, but as is the case with time travel games, stuff starts to not make sense.
For example, an NPC leads some town members away from the town under seige; it's reported all but he died. But (as far as we could see) there's never any resolution as to what happened to this person that apparently survived.
Another example is with the various items and artifacts you'll find across the lands. The different eras play a part in this, and you're expected to mentally tie it all together, but because it's not presented linear, you're given some 'ah ha' like this NPC is the descendant of someone you did some random quest about in the future. Because it's so separated and disconnected, some of these fall flat instead of having impact.
Impact is the main complaint here. The eras all look largely the same, and what happens in one only impacts others in a very tertiary way, instead of actually making a notable difference. For example, one tower gets destroyed in a cutscene (it's still standing but you're no longer allowed to enter); yet remains the same structure in the time zone after it. It's a bit jarring; this is where Chrono Trigger truly excelled.
We keep referencing Trigger and it's because, while the gameplay screams Zelda, there are clear overlaps with Trigger. An era dominated by magic where a rogue association wants to perform unholy rituals that end up causing major issues. A bunch of robots and machines. An era that's way behind the times. A 'great tree'. And of course...well, The Ayla/Marle connection and Lucca's mom - but in Trigger's case, it wasn't anywhere near blatantly obvious during the game like it was here.
In terms of story, it's up there with Triangle Strategy, but Strategy did a much more focused job of telling its story, even though it wasn't nearly as good as AOE's. It's not even the main thread; that was fine. It's all of the small side things you learn (unfortunately locked behind random events like walking near a building to trigger a cutscene). For example, the rogue association mentioned above? The leader of an opposing association shows up to confront and suppress what's happening, gets injured in the Tower mentioned above. When you walk near the main association building, it shows a cutscene of that leader being stretchered in. It's a small but cool thing that few games get right.
So...Was Anything Good?
Again, the story itself is decent, just poorly told. It plays like a long-running 90's cartoon; very similar to PoPoLoCrois, in fact.
Age of Restoration's overworld music is amazing.
Summary
Bottom line: AOE is overpriced. It's a $30 game. For that price, you're getting a decently fun (but gets old) adventure game with a very intriguing story and characters. Under no circumstances is it a $60 experience, at all.