Stupid Never Dies first caught my eye with its explosive, colourful art style, but there’s plenty of pedigree behind it, too. Published by SEGA, the game was developed by GPTRACK50, a studio headed up by former Capcom producer Hiroyuki Kobayashi.
On paper, it certainly sounds like an interesting prospect. This action roguelike puts a rather silly spin on the end of the world, throwing zombies, werewolves and all manner of monsters into the mix.
The combat also has an unusual twist, allowing you to steal the abilities of your enemies and transform into their monstrous forms. But does it deliver on its wonderfully silly concept, or does the novelty wear off before it really gets going?
What is Stupid Never Dies?
With monsters ruling the world and humanity on the brink of extinction, you play as Davy, a timid zombie who’s too afraid to even feast on humans. While wandering through an abandoned shopping mall, he stumbles upon a mysterious Phoenix Egg and accidentally devours it, granting him extraordinary powers and the ability to steal the abilities of other monsters.
Now, with hopes of bringing Julia, the frozen girl he’s fallen for, back to life, Davy must venture into the depths of a monster-infested dungeon, growing stronger with every run as he takes on KOM, the King of Monsters, and fights to save humanity.
While I found the story a little clunky and slow to get going during its early stretches, there’s no denying that Stupid Never Dies has personality in spades. I particularly enjoyed the juvenile touches, such as new enemies being introduced like villains from a 1950s monster movie.
This colourful personality extends to its visuals, too, with vibrant environments and eye-catching cel-shaded character designs giving the world plenty of charm. The guitar-driven soundtrack also absolutely slaps, with plenty of tracks that wouldn’t feel out of place in Jet Set Radio.
Into the monster world
During each run, you descend deeper into the monster world, taking on increasingly challenging creatures as you collect materials, gain experience, and build Davy’s strength. Clear each area and make your way to the next portal, and you’ll eventually reach a Landing Area where you can choose which layer to tackle next. These branching routes offer different rewards, environments and enemies, giving you a choice between playing it safe, hunting for better loot or pushing further into the unknown.
Thankfully, the materials you collect during your runs don’t go to waste. Back at the abandoned shopping mall that serves as Davy’s home base, you can visit various vendors to spend your hard-earned spoils. Bessie’s Burgers lets you whip up some rather questionable-looking meals to expand your perk pool, while a Were-Chihuahua helps you customise your loadout with new active and passive tech. There’s even a DJ booth where you can kick back and enjoy the game’s soundtrack between dungeon dives.
Biting back
Of course, you’ll need to make good use of those upgrades if you want to survive the increasingly dangerous monsters lurking below. Combat gives you access to light and heavy attacks, alongside a mechanic known as the Stupid Parry, which lets you counter an enemy’s attack by pressing L2 at just the right moment.
Adding another layer of pressure to encounters is a ticking clock, with your run ending if it reaches zero. This forces you to balance speed with precision, as taking too long to deal with enemies can be just as dangerous as rushing in without a plan.
Landing attacks builds your Bite Gauge, which you can use to bite enemies, recover some of your lost health, and, when consuming the cores of stronger monsters, steal their abilities. This is where things get interesting, as you can transform into monsters you’ve defeated.
The Harpy, for example, gives you the ability to fly and unleash ranged attacks, while the Werewolf favours fast, close-range combat with its powerful claws.
You can carry multiple transformations and switch between them, but each has a limited lifespan across dungeon layers, so you’ll need to think carefully about which forms to use and when.
In addition to these abilities, Davy also earns XP by defeating enemies, allowing him to level up and choose from a pool of upgrades at certain milestones. These range from fairly standard boosts to your attack, health and defence to more specialised perks that can influence how you approach each run. As with many roguelikes, you’ll want to shape your build carefully, picking upgrades that complement one another or help create a more balanced approach to combat.
Although transforming into different monsters initially adds some welcome variety, it doesn’t take long for the novelty to wear off. Combat lacks the weight and impact to make each encounter satisfying, often descending into little more than button mashing. Defensive options are also fairly limited, with no dedicated block or dodge mechanic, leaving Davy to rely almost entirely on his Stupid Parry to reduce incoming damage. This often left me feeling like I was constantly on the back foot, with little room to escape danger and the best I could hope for was a reduced hit when facing enemies head-on.
The Verdict
Stupid Never Dies has plenty going for it. Its monster transformations offer an interesting twist on the roguelike formula, while the colourful visuals, daft sense of humour and energetic soundtrack give it plenty of personality. There’s a decent amount of variety in how you can approach each run, too, with branching routes, unlockable upgrades, and different monster abilities giving you plenty to experiment with.
Unfortunately, the fun doesn’t last as long as it should because the combat becomes repetitive and lacks the weight and defensive options needed to make encounters feel consistently satisfying. There’s the makings of an enjoyable monster-slaying roguelike here, but Stupid Never Dies struggles to make the most of its best ideas, leaving that initial promise feeling a little undeveloped.
Stupid Never Dies is out now on PC (Win) and PS5. I played the game via access kindly provided by the publisher and their PR friends.
