Finally, there’s a potential answer to the question that has been eating away at you for all these years: what would happen if you took the spirit of id’s Doom reboot and rammed it right down Kirby’s indiscriminate greedy throat? GPTRACK50 Inc. has taken a convincing swing at that problem with frantic, graffiti-paint-soaked action RPG, Stupid Never Dies.
Hear me out. Protagonist, and recently undead skatepunk mallrat, Davy may be the weakest monster in his post-apocalyptic world, but as a card-carrying zombie he has different concerns to you or I. If you can’t be killed there’s really no need for dodging or blocking – such trivialities are the preserve of the living, and similarly fragile entities. Those genre-mainstay actions have been tossed out with the coffin water and, instead, extreme aggression is fully encouraged in what the studio terms, “Funky Zombie Action”. Dive in, you groovy coward.
So far, so Doom(ish), but what of Nintendo’s blush gastronaut’s traits? Well, zombies are pretty undiscerning eaters, too, and after Davy’s insatiable hunger leads him to eat a mysterious egg, he gains the ability to consume his enemies’ cores and take on their powers. This is particularly useful because, along with all the other biters, the downfall of humanity has led to the rise of every well-known monster type going. The result is that you can embody no fewer than eleven (count ‘em) combat styles.
Strap in for this bit. Zombie style is your foundational brawler stance, with light and strong attacks and a “stupid parry” (the devs’ words, not mine) which slows the action down briefly and allows you to reply in kind to an enemy’s ill-advised swing. These three basic elements are carried over into the other styles, too, but via various twists on the formula. Werewolf style dials up the brawling with even faster movement, neon-pink claw swipes, and a tornado attack (oh, and the werewolf can find shortcuts by interacting with the environment when not in combat, too).
For midrange and ranged combat, there’s Vampire, Harpy, and Will-o’-the-wisp styles. The vamp commands a swarm of bats (also, pleasingly, pink) and can drink the blood of enemies to heal, while the Harpy and Will-O’-th – let’s just call him Will – both offer combinations of projectile attacks and flying abilities, enabling them to easily avoid traps. If you’re having a Falling Down moment, there’s Golem and Cyclops styles, the former offering high damage absorption thanks to his rock-covered skin and the latter a furious maelstrom of violence via his huge bommy-knocker. Crowd-control fans can opt for the Snow Fairy, who can freeze enemies, or the Demon, who uses whips and gravity to move enemies around before raining down rocks on their soft, soft heads. Finally, there are the more defensive styles in the form of the Lich, who can bring fallen enemies back to life as skeleton allies, and Merfolk who can zip around the battlefield by swimming through it like a ghoulish Splatoon character.
Once absorbed, you can switch between these powers on the fly at any point during combat, adapting to the challenge you’re facing. And as if this wasn’t enough, you’ll also be able to deploy specific moves as you transition between styles, such as changing from a harpy to a golem mid-air and crashing down into the battlefield like an asteroid. Repeatedly biting enemies will gradually fill your ‘Davy Burst’ ability, during which Davy’s vibrant imagination takes over and transforms reality in various ways, at the same time providing a thumping great boost to your abilities (see them all below).
Davy can hack his decomposing body as well, augmenting those abilities further. You can replace your left arm with one of many oversized weapons, including a huge sword called ‘Massive Edge’, a complex-looking gun, a gravity launcher that gathers enemies into one spot via a black hole projectile, and the Blast Jumper – essentially a rocket jump. Your head and the rest of your limbs are left open for various gear that adds unique effects – no examples have been revealed yet, however. With so many layers going on, brawler fans shouldn’t struggle to find a setup that suits their play style, but you’ll need to master multiple approaches to progress in the game.
‘I’m dizzy and I don’t know why any of this is happening or how I got here,’ I hear you murmur, weakly. Well it’s simple: the game is divided between the overworld in which Davy found the magical egg, and a miasma-filled dungeon that allows him to move much more quickly and in which the majority of the action takes place. At the start of the game, Davy lumbers into a mall and finds a dead woman, named Julia, in the freezer of an ice cream shop, and also Dr. Frank, an un-peer reviewed scientist who is working on restoring humanity to its former glory. Dr. Frank explains that in order to thaw out Julia and bring her back to life, Davy must seek out and eat KOM, née King of Monsters (presumably even more important than the Prime Monster) so that he can absorb his power and reanimate his crush. It’s a tale as old as time.
His quest to revive Julia involves diving into the dungeon and levelling up to the point that he can face KOM, but there is a strict time limit to each run. Davy can bring back any loot he finds, but his progress is reset to level one each time he returns. To offset this, however, the game features a system that the devs describe as ‘BlazingFastGrowth’, which means that you level up more quickly with every new dungeon run. While the team stresses that no inspiration was taken from the roguelike genre, the looping structure and central character’s ever-increasing aptitude certainly sit within that tradition. The game’s core elements – explosively colourful visuals, frenetic action, guitar-driven soundtrack, and Nickelodeon-voiced wise-cracking protagonist – are more evocative of Hi-Fi Rush or Sunset Overdrive, however.
GPTRACK50 Inc. is positioning Stupid Never Dies as an “action game made for action gamers by action gamers’, but also a, “premium experience for a generation accustomed to short bursts of excitement”. Hmm. Given that team members’ past credits include Devil May Cry 5, Monster Hunter World, Street Fighter 6, and Resident Evil 4, there is no question of their ability to deliver something memorable. But all of those games are renowned for a tight focus on a small number of core mechanics – Stupid Never Dies risks feeling unfocused through the sheer generosity of its systems and ideas, while at the same time threatening to skim over any potential depth by catering to short attention spans.
It’s a very different game, of course, but the mall setting, crowds of undead, over-the-top-violence, general silliness, and the fact that half the studio are ex-Capcom makes it difficult not to think of Dead Rising while contemplating Stupid Never Dies. But if Frank is NOFX’s Fat Mike, then Davy is more Machine Gun Kelly – a shallower being who is infuriatingly incapable of keeping a hoodie on both shoulders at once. At least Davy has his undead gait to blame, and a heart of gold to vindicate him.
Concerns aside, the sheer energy of Stupid Never Dies is intoxicating, and it’s difficult not to get swept up in the idea of the game’s ‘Bite! Rip! Rise!’ ethos and its attack first, ask questions never combat. Here’s hoping the storied dev team can pull all of Stupid Never Dies disparate elements together into one cohesive, funky whole.
