Stupid Never Dies Review

Pseudo-51.

No, you didn’t miss the announcement of a new Suda51 game or some Hi-Fi Rush spinoff. Stupid Never Dies is the debut game from freshly formed studio GPTRACK50 Inc., and they’re swinging for the fences with this one. The game screams pop-punk 2000s absurdity in every screenshot or trailer. It’s easy for a modern Japanese action game to fall into a sort of Genshin Impact-influenced collage of overly familiar anime-fantasy vibes. Fewer and fewer games these days, particularly on the big double-A and triple-A scale, take a risk with their aesthetic. Even fewer studios swing for the fences with a weird and bizarre style that it’s hard not to compare Stupid Never Dies to the handful of other games and developers who incorporate the fringe, the punk and the cartoon-y into the DNA of their games. As striking as the style of Stupid Never Dies is on the surface, though, it lacks the punch to leave any kind of lasting impression – and the sub-par gameplay doesn’t help much, either.

I really appreciate Stupid Never Dies for how earnestly it leans into a weird, silly, and, well, stupidpremise. But I say that with so much love. The game is set in a world where every kind of fictional monster becomes real, and an all-powerful being called KOM equips them with the tools to instantly wipe out almost all of humanity. Lowly zombies become the new common folk, but a particular zombie in a fitted baseball cap and baggy hoodie named Davy has a secret in the mall he frequently groans and shuffles through. There’s a human girl frozen in place in the back of a store, and he’s head over heels for this stranger. Well, hungry zombie Davy eats a glowing phoenix egg that gives him super strength and a half robot scientist named Dr. Frank recruits him to dive into the deepest layers of the planet to defeat KOM to end his reign and potentially unfreeze Davy’s mystery girl.

On the surface, the cast of characters in Stupid Never Dies are so fun and charming. Like, there’s a were-chihuahua named Acelino and a headless horseman rockstar named Bob Dullahan. Those are amazing. But what disappoints me is that these characters never really shine beyond their wacky appearances – the moment to moment dialogue in this game is just very basic at most times and pretty poorly written at others. It’s going for a really Saturday morning cartoon kind of goofy yet earnest vibe, but the jokes lack bite and the serious moments lack depth. It all just sort of feels like fluff. And really, that’s an issue I’ve got with the games style and aesthetic across the board. It’s surface level, but fluff.

For example, at a glance the game seems just full of colour and dynamic visuals and multi-media elements plastered over every menu. When you dig deeper, though, it’s just.. missing something. A cutscene will parody cheery doo-wop music for a romantic daydream scene but go on just a little too long and use a song that feels like it’s lifted from a royalty-free library. Characters are dressed in 60s mod or 2000s emo-punk style and every menu is covered in scratchy stickers or collectible pins, but then the actual combat music plays and it’s just..fine? There’s some butt-rock sort of stuff and some cool electronic-y stuff, but nothing that matches the sub-cultures the game seems to be so eagerly biting from visually. It’s all a really “How do you do, fellow kids?” kind of vibe. It’s the idea of 2000s pop punk, but nothing really specific or earnest.

So, also, the game is a roguelike. I’m still loving the slow and steady embracing of this subgenre into bigger budget games. It’s always interesting seeing how the elements of a roguelike that are so dime-a-dozen in the indie sphere are plucked and remixed and redistributed in a bigger budget release, like a round of video game telephone. On the telephone journey from Rogue to Hades to Stupid Never Dies, there wasn’t a lot lost! I’m very pleasantly surprised by how solid the roguelike loop is in this game, considering other recent Japanese roguelike action games end up fumbling on a lot of that. The mall is your hub, and the toilet drops you into descending layers of randomized dungeons. A shockingly strict timer plus lots of quick, brisk battles ensures that your runs often don’t go longer than 20 or so minutes. I loved this! In the event that my run wasn’t going so well with the random level-up upgrades I acquired, I knew that I’d be wrapped up before long. Plus, the game’s got a really generous XP-boost system where enemies that you kill in a finished run contribute to a massive percentage multiplier to the XP you gain in your next run, meaning you level up faster and faster with each successful dive.

I wish the actual combat in Stupid Never Dies was a rewarding as the roguelike loop, though. It’s a 3D action game with light and heavy attacks, plus a skill associated with your current Style. Davy is a zombie style fighter by default, but if you build up the bite gauge and bite certain enemy types, you can take their style and become a Werewolf or a Harpy or about a dozen other monster types for a few floors of the dungeon. The bite is also a tool that strikes a balance with your Stupid Parry – a running motion that drains health when you use it, but can trigger a strong counter-attack if you run into an enemy’s attack. Land a bite soon after your successful parry, and you’ll restore all of that lost health. It’s smart, but clunky. The Stupid Parry being a running dash isn’t as smooth to utilize in battle as a stationary block-parry would be. Plus, there’s no lock-on in-game, which makes it chaotic to line a parry up in large battles, and a pain in the ass to fight any flying enemies at all.

Even though the upgrade sub-systems like Body Hack robot parts and buying burgers to unlock new skill options keep the runs engaging, the combat never really finds a flow-state or gets majorly better. It’s fine. The writing is fine. The game is fine! The whole package is pretty endearing for how much it feels like a throwback PS3 era action game, and I have a lot of love for a studio trying something weird and unique instead of making yet another fantasy anime sci-fi everything-game. But it’s not a perfect game. Still, it’s a fun debut from a promising new studio, and I’m really excited to see what the team cooks up next.