We looked inward, not across the street
When a new game arrives wearing a familiar silhouette, the question of origin becomes more than trivia — it becomes a statement of identity. Square Enix's upcoming action RPG, The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales, has drawn immediate Zelda comparisons, but its creators point not across the aisle to Nintendo, but inward, to their own 35-year lineage in the Mana series. The distinction matters: a work shaped by its own heritage carries a different kind of meaning than one built in another's shadow.
- The moment footage surfaced, players and critics reached for the same shorthand — it looks like Zelda, it moves like Zelda, and Square Enix's own HD-2D aesthetic only sharpened the resemblance.
- Producer Naofumi Matsushita stepped forward to redirect the conversation, crediting the 1991 Game Boy title Final Fantasy Adventure — the seed of the Mana franchise — as the game's true creative ancestor.
- The tension isn't just about credit; it's about whether a game can carve its own identity when it occupies the same genre territory as one of gaming's most iconic series.
- Square Enix is leaning into its own action RPG DNA — real-time combat balanced with narrative depth, now dressed in HD-2D visuals, a fairy companion, and a time-travel story — to argue that lineage and resemblance are not the same thing.
- A Steam demo is already live and the full release lands June 18, giving players the chance to feel for themselves whether this reads as echo or continuation.
When The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales began circulating, the Zelda comparisons arrived almost instantly. The HD-2D visual style — Square Enix's own retro-modern signature, honed across Octopath Traveler and its successors — only deepened the sense of déjà vu. The developers, for their part, saw it coming.
But producer Naofumi Matsushita wants to redirect the conversation. In a recent interview, he acknowledged the Zelda talk with genuine warmth while making clear that Nintendo's franchise was never the creative compass. The team looked instead to the Mana series — and specifically to its 1991 origin, Final Fantasy Adventure, a Game Boy title that predated Mana's identity as a standalone franchise. What drew them back was something elemental: Mana had solved a difficult balance, weaving RPG storytelling into real-time action combat without either element overwhelming the other. That equilibrium is what Elliot is built to recapture, now layered with HD-2D presentation, a controllable fairy companion, and a time-travel narrative.
The irony is that Mana itself has long lived in Zelda's conversational orbit — the two franchises have always shared territory in gaming history. So the comparisons greeting Elliot carry a kind of inevitability. But Matsushita's point stands: where something comes from shapes what it becomes. The full game arrives June 18, with a demo already available on Steam — an invitation to judge the lineage for yourself.
When Square Enix's new action RPG, The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales, started circulating among players, the comparisons came immediately. It looked like Zelda. It played like Zelda. The HD-2D visual style—that distinctive retro-modern aesthetic the studio has perfected across games like Octopath Traveler—only deepened the sense of familiarity. The developers saw it coming from a mile away.
But here's what they want you to know: Nintendo didn't inspire this game. Square Enix looked inward instead, dusting off its own 35-year-old action RPG lineage to build something new.
Producer Naofumi Matsushita laid this out plainly in a recent conversation with Polygon. The team anticipated the Zelda talk, he explained, and they're genuinely honored by it. But throughout development, the creative north star wasn't Hyrule. It was the Mana series—specifically the original Game Boy entry, Final Fantasy Adventure, which launched back in 1991 as a Final Fantasy spin-off before Mana became its own franchise powerhouse.
What made Mana worth returning to, according to Matsushita, was something fundamental: the series figured out how to marry RPG storytelling with real-time action combat in a way that felt balanced and alive. You got the narrative weight of a role-playing game without sacrificing the immediacy of moment-to-moment action. That equilibrium—that's what the new Elliot game is chasing. The team took that foundation and layered on their own contemporary flourishes: the HD-2D visual treatment, a controllable fairy companion, a time-travel narrative spine. The result, Matsushita suggests, is something that feels distinctly theirs, built from their own DNA rather than borrowed from someone else's.
It's worth noting that the Mana series itself has long drawn comparisons to Zelda from players and critics alike. The two franchises occupy similar territory in gaming history—action RPGs that blend exploration, puzzle-solving, and combat. So in some sense, the Zelda comparisons that greet Elliot are almost inevitable, a kind of gravitational pull that any game in this space experiences. But the lineage matters. Where a game comes from shapes what it becomes.
The full game arrives on June 18, with a demo already live on Steam for anyone curious to see how it actually plays. Matsushita's framing suggests a team confident in what they've built—not a Zelda echo, but a continuation of their own conversation with themselves, one that started three and a half decades ago on a Game Boy screen.
Notable Quotes
We anticipated that some players might be reminded of The Legend of Zelda series when playing this title, so we're truly honored to receive comparisons like that. However, throughout development, we were consistently inspired by Square Enix's own action RPG heritage, such as the Mana series.— Producer Naofumi Matsushita
The Mana series was groundbreaking in how it blended RPG elements with real-time action combat, striking a balance between the thrill of action gameplay and the memorable storytelling of an RPG.— Producer Naofumi Matsushita
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why did the team feel the need to clarify where the inspiration came from? Couldn't they just let people enjoy the game?
Because lineage matters in game design. When you're building on 35 years of your own work, you're not just making a game—you're saying something about who you are as a studio. Letting people assume it's Zelda-inspired erases that history.
But doesn't Mana itself get compared to Zelda all the time?
Constantly. Which is exactly why Matsushita's point is interesting. He's not denying the resemblance. He's saying: yes, we know what this looks like, and we're okay with it, because we're building from our own foundation, not copying someone else's.
What's the practical difference? If both games feel similar to play, does the inspiration really matter?
It matters to the people making it. It shapes decisions you make when you're stuck. It tells you what risks are worth taking. And it matters to players who care about where games come from—who want to understand the conversation happening across decades of a studio's work.
So this is about respect for the Mana series?
Partly that. But also about being honest about what you're doing. The team could have let the Zelda comparisons stand unchallenged. Instead, they said: look at where we actually came from. That's a choice.