The Deer God Reviews
The Deer God is, sadly, a mediocre game suffering from an identity crisis hiding inside of a grandiose shell.
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 technical problems that plague the game can make even the most casual player a bit leery. Even if we give the benefit of the doubt and assume that the bugs from previous versions are fixed, the problems that do exist in the Switch version are enough to make someone think twice about spending time and money in the game. And that's unfortunate because this debilitating blemish prevents The Deer God from realizing its true potential.
The Deer God is a good exmaple of good intentions not coming to fruition
Summary The Deer God seems to be content with being below average and makes no effort to convince you it’s worth any of your time.
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.
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.
The Deer God is beautiful. Sadly, that beauty is only skin deep. Poor design choices take away from fantastic visuals that really have to be seen. With the right level of polish, this could have been one of our favourite indie games on Wii U.Instead, clumsy quest design, repetitive environments and poor performance ensure The Deer God will be remembered as little more than eye candy.
Instead of being truly interesting and worth your time, however, each individual part falls flat, resulting in an disappointingly poor overall experience.
The Deer God may be a great visual experience to unwind with, and it has a spiritual message to match. But when it comes down to the actual gameplay, the game just feels too stiff and uninteresting. Despite an almost enchanting presence, the actual mechanics of The Deer God will do as much as possible to push you away.
The Deer God is promising on a first look, thanks to its unusual premise and to a visual style that stands out. Once that impression is surpassed, however, the game quickly falls into a tedious repetitive experience that makes it lose its potential interest, which is a shame as The Deer God had some potential to be much more captivating than it is.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
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
The Deer God aims high with its breathtaking visuals, sound, and narrative, but it's just not entertaining enough to actually make you want to pick up your Joy-Con controllers.
Beautiful but boring, a failed experiment
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 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 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.
I stared deep into the eyes of the deer, waiting for it to speak. There was no grass, no trees; just a white void surrounding me and her heavenly grace as she judged me and my actions. But she did not speak. She did not even blink. As the silence dragged on, I grew more desperate, bargaining with her to just make sense of this, please! What should I be feeling? What should I be believing!? Deer God, what lesson do I need to learn? She screamed, for she did not know. I screamed, for I did not know. Perhaps that was the lesson to learn, that there is nothing to know. Don't buy this game.
The Deer God is a 2D platformer that aside from pretty looks offers next to no substance and isn't engaging at all.