Although The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales features the iconic HD-2D style of other Square Enix gems like Octopath Traveler – it is led by those studio veterans, after all – it has not managed to escape comparisons to The Legend of Zelda series.
That doesn't mean developers drew inspiration from Nintendo's beloved franchise, however – in fact, Square Enix looked to its own games while working on The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales.
Producer Naofumi Matsushita reveals as much during a new interview with Polygon, explaining that the team actually expected comparisons to Zelda, nonetheless. Honestly, it's not hard to see why, but Zelda didn't play a role in the JRPG's conception.