Square Enix's HD-2D games like The Adventures of Elliot are a stroke of genius

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I'm not sure the marketing brains at Square Enix intended HD-2D to become a brand when they first used the term to describe the sophisticated, emotive pixel-art aesthetic of the 2018 role-playing game Octopath Traveler. But they've certainly seized on the opportunity to turn it into one since then. This week sees the release of the ninth official HD-2D release, The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales — the latest entry in a loosely related catalog of games, fairly evenly divided between originals and remasters, that seeks to keep the spirit of 1990s Super Nintendo role-playing games alive.

HD-2D has proven to be a genius invention on several levels. First and foremost, as an aesthetic and rendering technique, it's beautiful. In HD-2D, simple but expressive 2D pixel-art sprites plucked straight from the 1990s take the stage in 3D environments that are presented from an elevated camera angle and drenched in modern dynamic lighting and depth-of-field effects. The result is a rich, diorama-like experience that preserves the nostalgic charm of 16-bit pixel art in an immersive, luxurious, but not completely modernized presentation. It's like looking down into a shoebox-sized, living 16-bit world.

Secondly, the aesthetic approach and the engine tech have proven adaptable and portable while offering a reassuring consistency and quality across titles. Working with small developers like Acquire, Artdink, and Claytechworks, Square Enix's Team Asano — the internal outfit led by producer Tomoya Asano — has been able to birth a major new RPG series in Octopath Traveler, tackle remakes of early Dragon Quest games and the cult classic Live A Live, and branch out into tactics (Triangle Strategy) and action-RPGs (Elliot). None of these games has been bad, and several of them have been excellent. Octopath Traveler 0 and the upcoming Final Fantasy Resonance have even found a way to critically resuscitate mobile spinoffs for a more discerning audience.

Over and above this, the HD-2D initiative works brilliantly as a way to sustain retro gaming styles and even move them forward into new territory, without messing with their purity or relegating them to a second-string niche. These are full-price releases, and they feel like it, but they're also exploring game design ideas and storytelling styles that would be a tough sell in a completely modern game. The remakes are lovely, but it's the new releases like the Octopath games and Elliot that are a true breath of fresh air, not so much harking back to the 1990s as asking what the RPG genre would look like now if it had never abandoned that style.

Finally, as HD-2D has evolved into a brand, it has become joyously self-sustaining. With enough hits to its name, and associations with RPG royalty like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy, HD-2D provides a great platform for completely original work like Elliot that would never get the same attention otherwise.

The HD-2D style itself has inspired studios outside Square Enix, like Rabbit and Bear Studios with its Suikoden-inspired Eiyuden Chronicles. But this kind of imitation is missing the point; it's copying the work rather than the principle. Imagine if other developers and publishers could come up with their own distinct aesthetic and technical platforms that could help preserve, uplift, and evolve other kinds of retro games for the future. That would be something to get excited about.

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