Ari Buktu and the Anytime Elevator Shows A Lot of Promise As a Fast-Paced Platformer - Preview

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When I first saw Ari Buktu and the Anytime Elevator, the first thing that came to my mind was back to the future. A high school student is taken along on a time-traveling adventure by an intelligent and crazy professor; it all reeked of Marty and Doc Brown’s adventures. It has a wonderful charm to it and with the great visuals and fast-paced platforming, this could be a 2.5D platformer you should check out for yourself.

I have had the pleasure of trying out the Ari Buktu demo ahead of its debut, and I really loved it. The first cutscene there happens after Ari and the professor have traveled back to ancient Egypt, and I love how the two interact with each other. It feels organic, with a nice splash of comedy that really elevates any moments where I have to sit back and watch the characters. The characters also seem to break the fourth wall slightly, like whenever the professor just makes it across obstacles without actually going through them, Ari will continually comment because it's weird.

I also really enjoy the visuals. The colors were vibrant and the models are nice to look at and overall simple. The detail pops in how all of the set pieces rest on each other instead of how detailed each model is, and I think it works especially well with the cartoony vibe. The characters are also similar looking to Rayman without arms and legs and just having hands or feet, which gave me a bit of nostalgia as well.

However, what surprised me the most was the gameplay. I was expecting a 2.5D platformer, but there is a bit more to it than I initially thought. Ari Buktu is way more fast-paced than I was expecting, making jumping and swinging more engaging overall. Being able to go fast may feel a bit weird at first, but I started getting really into it, and I appreciated the speed of traversing across wooden beams, pillars, and rocks. I didn't feel like I overshot my jumps either. It was a nice balance.

The demo was a bit on the short side, and I finished it in about 30 minutes, but what I played was really sound. The only thing that really stuck out that I disliked was the climbing. It felt a bit clunky and overall slow, and the mechanic to climb faster feels a bit obnoxious. You climb the walls one little space at a time and going faster means timing your movements with the glimmers. If you miss them, you climb significantly slower, and you have to move the joystick in the corresponding direction each time. You can hold the joystick in one direction to automatically move, but it is slow, and you need to press the "A" button to jump to another spot if there's a gap. It can just feel oddly slow and cumbersome when the rest of the gameplay is faster.

However, I really liked the camera angles and how they can change as you are running around. The game is a 2.5D platformer through and through, and it shows. The angles really hit me in the last section of the demo, where you are on a minecart dodging obstacles. The way the camera changes throughout that entire section while trying to duck and jump over debris is engaging.

And the game is running wonderfully on the Steam Deck so far! With the default settings, which had a mix of medium and high-quality settings, I was able to stick above 60 FPS the entire time. This is just a slice of the game, which means the full version should have even more optimizations, and I loved it. If all goes well, this should be a wonderful title to play on the go.

Overall, I do have a lot of optimism for Ari Buktu and the Anytime Elevator. I loved the visuals and characters, the interactions had a good mix of humor and seriousness, and the general gameplay was wonderfully faster-paced. I do wish the climbing was a bit less obnoxious, and the demo was a little longer as I would love to see more of the 6 different environments that will be included, but there is still time before release, and I look forward to hearing more closer to release.

Ari Buktu and the Anytime Elevator can now be wishlisted on Steam.

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