Grade: C
A hunter has the karmic retribution of having to survive as a deer.
The Deer God is a niche pixel-art rogue-lite game. The story starts with the main character hunting a deer and then being eaten by wolves. They are reincarnated as deer and have to avoid enemies while gaining powers. As you progress through the game, you start as a fawn and eventually grow into a stag.
The game is a 2D endless side scroller, and you move forward until you die or you win the game. There are multitudes of enemies everywhere as you progress. From snakes to foxes to hunters, there are many ways to die.
Rogue-lite that’s static and doesn’t evolve from run to run
The highlight of The Deer God is that the pixel art and music are pretty to look at. But I didn’t feel engaged as a player over a few playthroughs. The story doesn’t evolve on each rogue-lite loop, and you have to reset on death back as a baby and start from scratch.
I’ve become a fan of rogue-lite games where the story and abilities evolve over each run, but a rogue-lite that starts you over from scratch gives you the same cutscene at the beginning and doesn’t give you anything to get further on each run. It just didn’t hit the mark for me.
So The Deer God is a pretty game but an overall pass for gameplay and mechanics.
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