Platform(s): PC (version reviewed), Xbox Series, PS5
Genre: Action RPG, Roguelite, Horror Monsters, Zombies 

If you want to see how a mid-sized studio with veterans handles an undead-themed crossbreed between an action game and a roguelite-style RPG with leveling up, look no further than GPTRACK50’s latest horror monsters-filled entry Stupid Never Dies. If you especially love games knee-deep in that post-PS2-slash-Xbox-360 era gameplay and trappings, this one may be up your alley.

The Dead Can’t Die

Stupid Never Dies is a tale of a zombie named Davy who has gained some sense of awareness and falls for a girl named Julia. Unfortunately, she’s cryogenically frozen, and the only way to save her is to deep dive through a series of alternate dimension dungeons through a toilet (of all things). Your base of operations is an abandoned mall, with your pals being a cyborg doctor named Frank, a were-chihuahua named Acelino, a zombie burger flipper named Bessie, and a short-term memory-addled stone gargoyle named Goyle. As you can tell from this ensemble and the pop art style, this is not a serious game. While the narrative gets a little grim in the second half, you will be bombarded with dick-and-fart jokes, zombie-themed insults from Acelino, and some colourful scribbles whenever you’re introduced to new villains in your adventure.

GPTRACK50’s first attempt at a comedic game is not exactly high-brow, but its plot & tone are comfortable doing what it does best: introducing a motley crew of characters and foes hamming it up as B-grade monster tropes. Vampires, Japanese vengeance spirits, werewolves, the works. Heck, there’s even a phoenix in human form who is basically a Key and Peele sketch stereotype in digital video game form, jive-talking and swagger and all.

At the very least, when you’re in these dungeons, you are kinda super-powered and have the power to “style eat” monster cores for health and buffs. After an unfortunate mishap of eating a Phoenix Egg from your handler Doctor Frank, you somehow have the power to challenge the King of Monsters (or “KOM”) and kill off its generals through these multitude of elemental-themed dungeons, randomly dished out rogue-lite style. You also cannot dawdle too long as you’re on a timer. Take too long to complete a run, and your life drains to a pixel and you cannot take a hit lest you “die” and start all over again.

Your default zombie style is severely underpowered (at the start), but “style eating” elite cores will let you shapeshift to different monsters, each with their own playstyles and strengths. The werewolf style makes you attack hard and fast, while the lich style lets you execute enemies and turn them under your thrall. There’s even a golem style that makes you literally rock hard and dish out large swings at groups of foes, and a snow fairy style that moves fast, has dash attacks, and freezes enemies after repeatedly hitting them.

Most importantly, Davy gets more powerful and levels up pretty quick. At the start of the game, your leveling up capabilities are minimal. But after each death and/or successful run, your experience level boosts adds up permanently. Eventually, your level up gains can go beyond the thousands, meaning you can go from level 1 to 20 in just one room. After the 10-hour mark, I’m pretty much skipping through rooms because I’m overpowered enough to take on bigger challenges.

This being a roguelite, you won’t be getting the styles you want and at times, have to adapt with what you’re given. Furthermore, styles will eventually disappear after going through a stated amount of rooms (default is 3 visits), so you need to keep replacing your styles that are at 1 with other new ones. You’re guaranteed to fight elites in each room, so you will at least have a style or two to acquire.

There will be situations where you’re stuck in your zombie mode, but fortunately you can buff Davy with permanent upgrades. Whether you live or die through a run, you will gain some permanent currency to spend back at the mall. Buying Bessie’s burgers and meats will net you power-ups in your run in the form of zombie receipts (think the buffs in Hades), giving you either passive attack boosts or additional perks and powered-up style attacks. When he’s not insulting you, Acelino can outfit you with cyborg parts to buff up your default style, be it outfitting your legs with extra toughness or giving you an extra ability like homing missiles or dash attacks via arm implants.

Davy has another ace up his undead sleeve: the Stupid Parry move, which is both your dodge AND your parry. While you can move out of the way with it, its power lies in taking enemy hits when you’re lunging forward with it. Taking hits greys out part of your life, which can be recovered by biting and eating enemies. Attacking after parrying lets you do a counterattack, which comes in different types of attacks depending on the style you picked. If you’re a Harpy, you do a quick dive bomb. If you’re a Will O’ The Wisp, you do a floating burst attack that hits all corners around you. While the Stupid Parry can get you out of a jam and dish out big damage with its counters, it can be unwieldly and unpredictable. This is due to the fact that you cannot lock onto enemies. You have to manually aim your attacks and hope your counterattacks land where you’re facing, which can be troublesome if you’re trying to react to enemy attacks.

Styles Clash

Fortunately, Stupid Never Dies is flexible enough to make you take alternate playstyles and routes in your run. Different rooms have different powerups and rewards, with some “cursed” rooms adding penalties and negative modifiers in exchange for better quality skills and unique power-ups not found anywhere else. I got a special power-up that doubles the damage of the alternate monster styles I have, but their limit room count cannot be at 1 lest their stats get slashed to half. I also managed to get through a run just using ranged attacks and homing missiles with just the Will O’ The Wisp and Vampire styles, though this is all due to luck of the draw. You can get screwed if you don’t get the styles and buffs you want, and the game can be punishing due to enemy attrition and the bosses hitting really hard. This also means lots of lots of practice and repeated runs which can eventually bore you if you’re playing this for straight hours.

Apart from the random nature of the game’s levels (save for a few story-driven sequences in the game’s last few hours), you also have to deal with the game’s stability. While it runs just fine on most PCs up-to-date this year, the game crashes hard just like Davy’s mind; it’s demoralizing that when you’re halfway in a good run you get hit by the Unreal Engine-type error when you’re on a loading screen. I’m not sure if this applies to the PlayStation and Xbox version, but my experience on the PC version is hampered with these technical issues.

Roguelite Of The Dead

While not the most fulfilling action RPG roguelite I’ve played, there’s some fun to be had in Stupid Never Dies, with huge emphasis on getting leveled up high really fast and quick. The narrative is quirky and crude while retaining a lot of charm out of a late 2000s Japanese-made action title, and the multitude of forms Davy can transform into have tons of variety and playstyles. It’s just that the game can get pretty random even for a roguelite, has crashing issues, and lacks certain action game staples like a lock-on can get in the way of the experience.

Much like its titular undead lead, Stupid Never Dies shows signs of decay in spite of its potential. It’s dumb fun distilled in a familiar-yet-funky package; you could do worse.

Final Score: 60/100

Review copy provided by publisher.