The Deer God Reviews
I'm afraid that whilst The Deer God was boasted as "a breathtaking 3d pixel art game that will challenge your religion and your platforming skills", the only thing that it really challenged was my patience. It did look pretty nice though.
Beautiful but boring, a failed experiment
The Deer God ultimately lacks in impact, beyond its calming visuals and music.
The Deer God takes a somewhat strange concept and turns it into one of the most enjoyably relaxing games on the market. It combines platforming skills with a touch of action and an unbelievable amount of atmosphere.
Overall, The Deer God is a fun game with some frustrating flaws. Once its game-breaking bugs are fixed, we wouldn't hesitate to recommend it.
With quite an unsatisfying combat system that sees you charging at enemies to headbutt them, you'll be tempted more often than not to flee
The Deer God is visually stunning and creates a great environment but the game play has some bugs and isn't that engaging.
The Deer God is a tough sell, its visuals and music can't help make this game any less frustrating. If you have a lot of time and more importantly a lot of patience maybe this game is good for you, but as it stands, I would stay clear.
The blurb for The Deer God promises to "Challenge your religion and your platforming skills," but it does neither. The platforming moments are ridiculously easy, and the combat is easily abused. The worst of the game, though, is the "story," which constantly stresses a morality that makes no sense at all, all culminating in an absolutely moronic ending. There are many fantastic indie titles that have made the jump to Nindies. This is not one of them.
The art style is beautiful and it makes for some nice shots of the locations, but other than that, there is really no need to delve into this endless-platformer.
Overall The Deer God is certainly an interesting game with some very good graphics. Due to the randomization and roguelike elements, this one has a lot of replay value. Other than the problem with some of the quests, which is not a deal-breaker, you should consider this one for your PS4 collection.
Although beautiful and with an interesting theme, Deer God fails in fundamental parts, like the level design and gameplay. Frustrating, confusing and filled with bugs in every system and mechanics, it's a game with a wasted potential, due to execution problems.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
The Deer God gets points for trying to mix things up in two genres that are growing increasingly stale. It's a balancing act that the game manages to maintain, but much like the tightrope walker who never falls but is always flailing, the illusion is definitely broken. Perhaps if the formula was tweaked to make the experience a bit more fair and to have a lot more going on, The Deer God would be the game it clearly set out to be.
The Deer God will inevitably divide gamer's opinions. Some will love its pixelated art style and be carried away by its themes and the emotions it invokes, while others will find it a frustrating, boring trudge from left to right. There's no denying that there is potential here and there are some very touching moments, but the flaws are so game breaking that at times it's just not any fun to play.
[S]adly despite its lofty aims The Deer God doesn't gel, doesn't coalesce in any holistic way. Its disparate parts don't align toward the same end: the karma system doesn't mean anything here , just like the pixel art doesn't mean anything, and the roguelike bits don't mean anything. They're tangential to theme and subtext and meaning. They're words that don't string together into a coherent sentence. This is not in itself damning, but The Deer God could've been more than dumb fun, and it wants to be more than dumb fun.
The Deer God feels like a bit of a chore to play with simple missions and a lack of any interesting or varied level structure.
It's certainly worth playing - if only for the epic sense of journey that comes from crossing multiple procedurally environments - but the gameplay is sorely lacking.
In the end The Deer God plays out as an odd collection of concepts that just aren’t working together in harmony. Blend this with a spiritual theme that generally seems to be discarded quickly aside from things like when you die with bad karma you can come back as something like a porcupine and it is hard to really put a finger on what the design goals and final messages for the game are. Perhaps it is meant to be profound and leave you to ponder the question yourself further? For me I just decided to move onto something else.
If you're after a strong example of a 2D platformer with depth and challenge, you won't find it here. The Deer God may look pretty, but it's a pitiful experience that deserves no place on the Switch eShop.
The Deer God is an interesting take on the platforming genre. After an accident while out hunting, you are reincarnated as a deer and must now live out your life as one for as long as you can. With treacherous terrain, plenty of other wildlife that would eat you and more hunters that are out to shoot you, expect to restart as a fawn several times.