While I’ll admit to having struggled with certain rogue-lite dungeon-crawlers in the past, this Stupid Never Dies review has shown me that the right amount of style is enough to break through that barrier. Does that mean the game was enough to keep me interested the whole time? Read on to find out.

It's a zombie-vs-monster brawl with a lot of chowing down.

At its heart, Stupid Never Dies is a rogue-lite dungeon crawler where you control a zombie who is tasked with taking down a variety of classical monster archetypes to defeat KOM (the King of Monsters). To do this, you’ll need to fight your way through the same dungeon over and over again, slowly but surely getting better until you can make it far enough down to take down your big bad. It was developed and published by GPTRACK50, a Japanese-based subsidiary of NetEase, the guys behind Marvel Rivals.

Plot-wise, Stupid Never Dies concerns Davy, a teenage/young adult zombie who ran away during the human vs monster war. Considered a coward by other zombies, and trash by everyone else (because everyone hates zombies, I guess), he hides in a mall and comes across a frozen teenage girl. Davy accidentally consumed a phoenix egg, making him able to fight and consume the cores of other monsters, so on a mission of love to revive his girl, he journeys into the dungeons to defeat KOM and restore his love interest and, as an added bonus, the rest of humanity too.

Flushed Away yet again The environments are a mishmash of disparate elements that, nonetheless, work well together. 

During my playthrough of Stupid Never Dies, I kept thinking of the works of Suda 51 and Platinum Games, though the development team is actually made up of ex-Capcom team members according to the Steam page. It feels like a combo between Let it Die, No More Heroes, and Hades, with a dash of classic Universal Monster Movies thrown in. It’s a hack-and-slash dungeon crawl where you swap between the forms of the different monsters you defeat and devour, with an 80s-style mall as a hub world and a toilet you get flushed down acting as your portal into the mall, hence the Suda 51 comparisons.

The hot-swapping between monsters adds to the chaotic freneticism that characterizes the game. The entire vibe feels like a teenager hopped up on energy drinks and sugar, with splashes, scratches, and swipes making up the UI elements, dungeon levels made up of avalanches of random objects, and the constantly changing combat style keeping you dialed in the whole time you’re playing. Between each journey, you stop back off at the mall to respec your character and unlock new buffs and upgrades.

Rogue Zombie Times There are various activities to take part in back in the mall, including giving gifts to your love interest. 

The important distinction that makes this a Rogue-lite and not a Rogue-like is that you get permanent upgrades that stay between runs, as well as the upgrades that you have to unlock each time you dive into the dungeon. During the dungeon runs, you unlock temporary upgrades like the Monster styles as well as buffs, ranging from doubling damage to increasing stats like defense and attack by varying orders of magnitude. Out of the dungeon, you can apply new weapon skills as well as unlock permanent stat upgrades and the potential to unlock new temporary upgrades for your dungeon runs.

It’s a nice and varied array of buffs and things to manage, but it’s not the thing that prevents Stupid Never Dies from becoming repetitive. By nature, it’s a game where you’re technically running the same early levels of the dungeon over and over again, but it’s the pace that the game introduces new combat styles that keeps things interesting. Just as you’re starting to get bored of the combat, you’ll unlock some new monster to try out, and it’ll keep you coming back. You’ve also got the benefit of your EXP multiplier jumping up insanely quickly each time you die, reaching into the x1000 pretty quickly, as well as the dungeon letting you skip floors based on how strong you’ve got.

Musical Focus You might not be able to tell what's going on here, but trust me, it was really cool at the time. Fairy vs Fairy.  

Another big part that Stupid Never Dies focuses on is the music, with each boss you defeat providing you with new remixed tracks to listen to as you explore the dungeon. There’s also a fair few extra bonus tracks available that provide a nice selection of pretty enjoyable music, but unfortunately you can only listen to these back in the hub world, rather than being able to add them to your dungeon-crawling playlist.

Most of the music is genuinely well-made and has a lot of variety, but it mostly leans on the alt end of the spectrum; lots of full studio drum kits, screeching guitars with modification and frequent use of synths and over-the-top fills. The only major downside is the fact that you can’t add the tracks to your playlist outside of the handful you get from bosses, and when listening to the music in the mall you have to keep the DJ tab open, or the music changes back to the laid-back beats of the mall itself.

Substance Over Style, Over Substance (Over Easy) It's a good thing I'm level 38 already or this would be really intimidating....

It’s somewhat strange in an action-heavy game for the story, characters, and overall style to be the biggest draw, but they provide most of what makes the game attractive. Stupid Never Dies has a surprisingly earnest and heartfelt story, and even the characters were zany in a fan way, rather than an annoying way. Combined with the extra flair and style that has been thrown into the presentation, and you’ve got a very magnetic package. While the core-eating mechanic is interesting and unique and does help to keep the tempo up, the rogue-lite nature of the game does come with the pitfall of having you run the same rooms, bosses, and enemies a fair few times by the end.

There is an added bonus in the “Go Nuts Mode” mechanic. If you’re getting a bit fed up of fighting the same werewolves and vampires over and over again, or if you feel the enemies have become too tanky, you can flip this switch in the options, and it rebalances all of the enemies to make Davy way stronger. With this thing, you can practically burn your way through the enemies, and it does completely change the pace and feel of the game. It might be enjoyable to use for a while, but it also makes the game way too easy, so it’s best used sparingly, rather than as a way of playing the entire game.

Final Thoughts Flip him the other way up and it'll basically look like he's flying.

Stupid Never Dies has a lot to offer to the right person. If you don’t mind getting a bit stupid yourself and throwing yourself into the same dungeon over-and-over again and just enjoying all of the chaotic fun, spurred on by the anarcho-punk visual design and remixed music, then you’ll have a great time. The combat is fun, and the ability to switch up your style so frequently does keep things fresh for a lot longer than you’d expect, but you might find the gameplay about as stale as our zombie protagonist is if you binge the entire thing. Still, the story, characters, and overall design are so appealing that they might keep you sticking around anyway. 

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Stupid Never Dies was reviewed on PC via Steam with a game code provided by the publisher - All images were taken by the reviewer over 21 hours of gameplay.