Level Up: The Deer God
By Samual Cale on September 12, 2015 from Level Up
Recently, I played a game that I would say is among the worst I have ever played. If you’d like to learn more about this poor excuse for a game, read the rest of the review. This insult to gaming is called The Deer God, and if it wasn’t released for free on the Xbox One, I likely would have never bothered with it. The Deer God is done in pixel art, and the graphic design is actually not bad and is one of this game's few redeeming qualities.
The premise of The Deer God is that you are a hunter, and you had an adult deer in your sights. Then you were attacked by a wolf, and you accidentally kill a fawn. You wake up on a pedestal in front of massive deer with glowing blue eyes, and it tells you that you must live as a deer to atone for what you've done, and that failing to do this would have “even greater consequences.” You awaken again, and you are a fawn that can somehow jump higher than the trees.
As far as gameplay goes, I find The Deer God to be mediocre at best. It is a 2D scroller with very detailed backgrounds and foregrounds. You have to eat food to keep your hunger up, and you have to eat a lot of it. You can run extremely fast, and as I mentioned earlier, you can jump unrealistically high. You aren't really given a clear objective until you encounter this old man in a brown robe that asks you for help finding his monocle. Strangely, as you run through the woods and across fields, you are attacked by animals that are usually peaceful, like foxes and porcupines. Your primary attack is a headbutt, which can topple almost any foe after a few hits.
There is a karma system that records good deeds and bad deeds. Sometimes, if you die and have done more bad than good, you will come back as something that is not very mobile, like a porcupine, at which point you have to wait until you starve to death to come back as a deer again and actually be able to progress. Also, along with generally peaceful animals trying to kill you, there are pitfalls with bloody spikes at the bottom, and in some places, the forest is randomly on fire, both of which I find quite odd and out of place.
I give The Deer God a rating of 2 out of 10. I can tell that they tried, but the story is just lacking. It's a kind of cool idea, but it just doesn't work for a 2D platformer. I do give the designers credit, however, for the beautiful pixel art that makes up The Deer God. The graphics unfortunately do not make up for the low quality of the story and gameplay. I'm glad it was free at the very least.
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