The Deer God (Nintendo Switch) Review

The hunter is now known as a "Trans-Human" and begins its journey to redemption within a little pixelated forest where some of the simple aspects of the game are established. As a young deer, the Trans-Human can head-butt other animals to death… because that's what you want in a game preaching morality. Killing predators gives "Light" energy, while killing herbivores or "friendly" animals gives dark. Generating dark energy is a bad idea. Whenever the Trans-Human dies over the course of the game, the Deer God will punish evil players by reincarnating them as a fawn, making it harder to progress and having to grow older again.

Outside of this simple starting area is a procedurally generated world that regularly drops in key locations, making it a strange take on an endless runner. The fawn grows as time goes on and gains extra strength for its slaughtering. While running through the various environments, the deer will encounter the occasional random humans that need helping out, simple side-quests that consist of collecting items or completing basic tasks. There are also a scattering of giant animal bosses hidden away across the world. These are usually just little side activities, but there are actual objectives to complete, too. Collecting relics for a huge monument to the Deer God is the actual aim of the story, but there are also little shrines with stupidly simple puzzles to take on, like pushing blocks around. Each of the side activities grant items to use or some special abilities to help massacre innocent little animals and completing tasks for Elder Deer give key skills to progress.

The skills include double jumps to make it over bigger gaps, strong attacks to bust through boulders, downward stomps to break through the floor, and dashing to speed through the various areas. The special skills consist of abilities like pulling blocks, shooting flames, and summoning lightning. Not to mention there is a huge catalogue of items to utilise, too. Creating giant toadstools to bounce on, dropping hives to send bees at enemies, or just recovery items for the three bars that have to be maintained (health, food, and magic).

It sounds like all the building blocks are here for a decent game, yet The Deer God is anything but. Every aspect is riddled with flaws. The endless-runner version of the world just becomes annoying, as having to run and hope that certain key areas will eventually reappear gets very old, very quickly. It would have worked much better to just implement a huge overworld with a map that could be explored and traversed. Within this world are plenty of enemies, but it's far too easy to take them out simply by jumping over them and attacking, then repeating ad nauseam. The story is obnoxiously preachy; the weird pixelated art style is not particularly inspired; it all just falls rather flat. There's three-to-six hours' playtime here for those who can stomach it.