The Deer God Review

About

Release date: February 27th, 2015.

Developers: Crescent Moon Games, Cinopt Studios.

Publishers: Crescent Moon Games.

Platforms: PS4, PS Vita, Xbox One, Windows, Android, iOS.

Genres: Indie, platformer.

Modes: Single player.

Introduction

The Deer God was the first game I played on the vita. I got it in 2020 and loved it ever since. It surprised me to see it was not getting much love. In fact, all I saw were complaints, which is why I decided to make a review for it—this is also my first post for this gaming blog. Let’s begin!

Story

The player, a human hunter, shoots a deer, only to then get eaten by wolves. Reincarnated as a fawn, the protagonist will get to experience what it means to live and die as an animal. This is a story of—you guessed it—karma!

The plot is straightforward, which works perfectly for these types of games. There are few characters you can talk to, those being humans, for short quests—and elder deers, for unlocking abilities.

Gameplay

I would describe this game as a running simulator with survival elements. The concept is simple, but it works well. You are likely to die often at the beginning—being a little fawn and all—but as you get older and stronger, you will begin to master the environment and decide who lives through another day. Killing rabbits and cows? You get dark karma. Killing bears or foxes? You get good karma. Killing deers? You get the ‘Psychopath’ trophy.

Powers

Now this is where it gets interesting. The game has a total of ten puzzles, which appear randomly. Upon completing them, you unlock a new power. These powers make the game quite fun!

There is, however, an issue with one of the puzzles. The Thunder Strike Puzzle is very glitchy. I had no problem on the vita, but when I tried the game on the PS5, I simply could not solve the puzzle without going out of my way. This would not be much of a problem if I was not going for the Platinum. Sure, having the power of lightning sounds great, but it is not a necessity—unless you need the ‘Powers that be’ trophy, then it does make an impact. This is by far the biggest downside I could find within the game.

I started a new game in hopes the glitch would be gone, but I had no luck. Then I jumped on the PS4 to see if it would change anything—it did not! I still struggled, until I finally found the solution. I say 'I', but this was all thanks to my gaming partner—huge thanks to ye and yer awesome ideas!

Thunder Strike Puzzle Solution

I tried the following: Use the Growth power to lift up the little blocks before moving them to the side, allowing the lightning to hit the ground and activate the statue. Not sure why this worked, but it did.

It is also worth mentioning that, if you struggle with any of the puzzles, you can simply pause, quit to the main menu, and continue. The puzzle will then be reset and ready for you to try again!

Art

Pixel-lovers, rejoice! The art in The Deer God is beautiful. I found myself stopping just to admire it. With eight different biomes to dash through, there is much to enjoy. My favourite biome was the snow one; it had the strongest enemies in the game, but the good views overpowered the risks—plus, you could see cute little penguins! Sunsets and sunrises were a delight—kudos to the team!

Music

Distinctive, calming, and atmospheric, the tracks are good! Most of them had rather catchy synth vibes. Two of my favourite themes were Hooves to the Wind and Porth (the links will take you to SoundCloud). I especially liked the latter, which had a more traditional tone to it. I feel like it matched the nature theme perfectly.

Replayability

Since the RNG factor is heavily present, starting a new game means rolling the dice again and seeing what you get. You might find new bosses—excluding the final boss, which appears automatically when you finish all quests, there are four bosses which may or may not appear. They can be shy too!

When you complete one playthrough, you can choose to reincarnate either as a human or a deer. If you choose to be a human, the game will end and show a beautiful background along with prose poetry about the journey you just went through. On the other hand, you choose to be a deer, you will be reborn as a powerful elder, which will make the trophy cleanup a fun breeze.

Overall Thoughts

The Deer God is a journey, one I thoroughly enjoyed. It might not be a flawless game, but hey, game development is way harder than it looks. I love this game for what it is, and I am sure I will remember it for years to come as ‘that deer game in which I died from spikes every few minutes, and loved it’. If you like pixel graphics and indie games, it might be worth checking it out.

Its asking price for the PS4 is $9.99, but it goes as low as $1.99. If you wish to see the price in different regions, I recommend psprices.com. Check out the page here.

Shad’s Rating: 7/10

Thank you very much for reading my first review. Best wishes, and happy playing! 💙

Wishing you a great day,

Shad.