Fresh off this week’s launch of the Prologue Demo for The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales, Square Enix and Team Asano have revealed some fresh details about the game’s story. The new information centers around the game’s earliest time period, and elements of it might sound familiar to fans of the classic ’90s RPG Chrono Trigger. Sure, any RPG with a time-travel element is inevitably going to invite that comparison, but the analogy runs deeper than usual here. The Adventures of Elliot team describes the period as follows:

“The Age of Budding is the period furthest back in time in Elliot and Faie’s adventure. Here, at the dawn of civilization, humans use weapons of their own making to keep the beast tribes at bay. Within the precarious balance of humans and beasts exists a tribe called the Myū that can speak the human language and use powerful magic. Does their power represent a new hope, or a new threat? In it, humanity faces the greatest turning point in the history of Philabieldia.”

That description is quite a bit more detailed than what we’d heard previously. In an interview with Polygon earlier this month, Adventures of Elliot producer Naofumi Matsushita shared the following description of the Age of Budding: “A time before humanity had acquired magical powers. During this era, the primordial races lived in small villages, cooperating with one another to survive. They, too, faced constant threats from beast tribes, and life was both harsh and modest.”

Based on both these descriptions, the Age of Budding has common ground with two Chrono Trigger time periods: the prehistoric era (65 million B.C.) and the Dark Ages (12,000 B.C.). In the prehistoric era, the humans of the humble Ioka village fight against a tribe of lizard-folk for survival. The humans ultimately emerge victorious, but not without a little help from our intrepid time travelers. In Chrono Trigger‘s Dark Ages period, the civilization of Zeal is ruled by an elite few that have harnessed the power of magic through sinister means. While the magic users live on a lavish floating continent, humanity’s underclass is stuck in freezing caves on the surface. It’s not a one-for-one homage, but there are a few notable common elements between the two games here:

• Prehistoric war between humans and non-humans
• Magic as a civilization-altering source of power
• Early humans being miserable in the snow

But wait, there’s more! The most significant new addition to The Adventures of Elliot‘s lore here is the Myū, which appear to be a hybrid species with cat-like ears. The character depicted at the center of the image above is Lyudmila, who is described as “A woman of the Myū who lives in the snow field away from Hitoyori. Through a certain course of events, she comes to teach magic to the humans. She possesses a strength of will that never gives in, never losing hope even in the face of the cruelest circumstances.” Again, if you’ve played Chrono Trigger, it’s all giving big Princess Schala vibes. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I only mean that this woman has a long life and a very happy ending ahead of her. Yep.)

Square Enix and Team Asano also shared more details about two human characters Elliot and Faie encounter during the Age of Budding.

• Kai is “the chief of Hitoyori, the earliest human settlement. As the village’s young leader, he is most concerned with the beast tribe threat and feels he must protect the village at all costs. To Kai, the Myū are nothing more than another beast tribe, and their magic a threat to the village’s safety.”
• Hirk is “a woman of Hitoyori who has spent years studying magic, but has yet to be able to put it to practical use. She believes magic is the key to Hitoyori’s future — a means by which the village’s children might live to see adulthood — and she seeks to establish relations with the Myū in order to learn from them.”

I came away from an hour-long demo of The Adventures of Elliot impressed by its mix of Zelda-like exploration and Mana-inspired combat. Adding a bit of Chrono Trigger-flavored storytelling to the mix? Oh no! My steak is too juicy, my lobster too buttery! The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales launches for Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X on June 18.