The Deer God Reviews
The Deer God ultimately lacks in impact, beyond its calming visuals and music.
Beautiful but boring, a failed experiment
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.
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.
A pretty but boring infinite runner ported from mobile to console continues to be pretty and boring, only at an even deer-er price point
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
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.
[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 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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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 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 Deer God is visually stunning and creates a great environment but the game play has some bugs and isn't that engaging.
I did enjoy this game but the longer I played the more bored I get. Running and jumping from platforms was fun but seeing the same platforms gets dull.
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.
The Deer God had me saying “Oh Deer.” A game this artistically beautiful shouldn’t be so lifeless and outside of its opening moments I really can’t think of many redeemable segments of the game. It’s slow, repetitive and has no clear direction for where it wants to go or what it wants to be. Not only is it not worth your money, it’s certainly unworthy of your time.
The Deer God is a good exmaple of good intentions not coming to fruition