My initial impressions of Stupid Never Dies were pretty good. I didn’t play the demo, and jumped into the campaign fairly blind. I didn’t know the premise, the story – hell, I didn’t even know the genre. My first tangles with the simple but effective combat system yielded positive results, and I was into the silly narrative hook right away.
It’s a world where humans have lost a war with monsters (and for that read any cliche monster you can think of with little rhyme or reason – kind of a logical evolution of the end of Cabin in the Woods). Now the last few survivors seek a way to destroy the King of Monsters, for which eccentric scientist Frank Steiner has a plan: if he can get a zombie, the lowest form of monster, powered up enough to eat the King of Monsters, they can extract his power and reverse the apocalypse. It’s a, well, stupid premise, and one that sets the backbone for a game that seems intent on not taking itself seriously.
The problem, it’s a premise that quickly wears thin as you embark on a sort of rogue like adventure, plunging through layers of a dungeon that exists within the realm of Monsters via Dr Steiner’s specially modified toilet. Holed up in a mall with his few allies, including fellow zombie Bessie and Steiner’s Chihuahua, Acelino, his primary motivation isn’t the restoration of the human race, but rather Julia, a teenage girl who froze to death while hiding in the freezer whom Davy has fallen madly in love with.
It’s problematic in a number of ways, many of which might have been allayed had Davy been an item with Julia before the war. The fact that he has fallen in literal love with an actual corpse is kind of accepted as he’s a zombie, but Julia’s lack of agency and the fact that you can slowly unlock her mobile to stalk her via photos, texts, and videos is a bit weird. So is the shrine Davy builds around her that grants him skill points.
But of course it’s weird. This game wants so hard to be mistaken for a Suda51 joint that it borders on embarrassing. At first glance you could easily confuse it for Romeo is a Dead Man, which I feel is absolutely deliberate. It’s quirky to the point of farce, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I chuckled when Acelino’s secret was revealed, and the fact that both Davy and Bessie revert to their pre-death levels of intelligence when they go into the Dungeon tickles me.
The reason Davy is humanity’s only hope is down to him accidentally eating an item of ridiculous rarity that gives him the power to “Style Eat”, the clumsy name for stealing the powers and forms of Monsters he consumes with his zombie bite. Combat is built around simple combos and eating whenever his Bite Meter is full, granting him small powers from lesser monsters and the ability to fully transform into larger ones like Werewolves, Liches, and Merfolk.
Taking their forms grants Davy their powers and abilities for a time. There are 10 forms to collect, with various abilities and affinities tied to each. It makes a big deal about some of them having traversal abilities, but these are rarely used and don’t often yield great rewards anyway. You can also collect body parts from enemies to generate “Overtechnology” which allows Davy to equip gear that grants multiple buffs and bonuses. Add to this the three-choice roguelike progression as you move through the Dungeons, and Stupid Never Dies offers a pretty robust build system. Or at least it appears to on the surface.
Under the hood I’m less convinced it makes all that much difference compared to the levelling system. Each dive you make, Davy levels up faster than previously, which means you will hit max level in no time after a dozen or so forays. Obviously this has the benefit of speeding you through Dungeon Layers, especially once you unlock the ability to skip layers in chunks. Your aim is to beat the bosses gating each new layer, propelling the story, and Davy, onwards.
The problem is that what feels fun and frictionless in the early stages starts to feel like a grind as you get further and further in. Davy gets stronger faster, you constantly level up and improve gear, but you never feel like you’re actually tougher, and the repetitive nature of the combat and environments starts to take its toll far sooner than you’d expect. The zaniness can only salvage so much, and the clunky combat and unresponsive controls soon start to spoil the fun.
With bosses that go from falling over in a stiff breeze to wiping you out in a few hits, the difficulty also feels incredibly uneven at times. Again, what starts off as pure adrenaline soon becomes an uphill battle when you’re contending with awkward controls and relentless repetition. Having a ten minute timer on each run adds a sense of urgency that rewards offensive play, though, which at least means you’re rarely bored during a dive.
Uncomfortable core conceit notwithstanding, Stupid Never Dies is a game you can have fun with in short doses but are unlikely to want to spend too much time in at once. It has some jokes that land and a lot that don’t, and while Davy is likeable with his skater-punk get up and his (slightly rheumy) puppy-dog eyes, there’s little here to recommend Stupid Never Dies as a must-play experience.
