TL;DR: "This game makes a zombie’s second chance a monster-powered makeover. Stolen forms, swap-in body parts, and a loud pop-punk cast give dungeon outings personality, though early players flag repetition."

Davy is a terrible candidate for a rescue mission, which is exactly why Stupid Never Dies has a hook. This timid zombie finds Julia frozen in a shopping mall and decides to bring her back. The journey sends him into monster-filled dungeons, where being outmatched becomes an invitation to steal a better set of abilities. His crush supplies the motivation; his increasingly ridiculous body supplies the spectacle.

Style Eat is the clearest expression of that idea. Consuming elite enemies’ cores unlocks transformations, with eleven Styles advertised across the game. A winged form lifting into the air and a hulking monster battering a crowd give that premise a visible shape. Body Hack adds another layer through replaceable Overtech parts and their active or passive skills. There is a pleasingly literal answer to the problem of a weak protagonist: stop using the same body.

The visual contrast does a lot of the work. Davy’s bright jacket and pink headphones cut through cold stone, lava, and gloomy arenas. Graffiti-like lettering and oversized level-up effects turn growth into an event on the screen. Davy Burst pushes the same impulse further, temporarily amplifying his abilities and the presentation around him. The appeal is seeing this awkward underdog occupy more of the frame, rather than simply watching a number rise.

That escalation belongs to a cycle of dungeon trips, returns, and upgrades. The mall’s strange inhabitants give the quieter stretches faces of their own, from Dr. Frank’s dubious encouragement to Bessie’s biker attitude. Julia is the person Davy wants to revive, not a girlfriend whose feelings have already been established. His lopsided devotion gives the story its absurd starting point without needing to pretend the romance is mutual.

Early public Steam reviews show where the pitch divides people. Some enjoy the cast, transformations, and nostalgic tone; others find the repeated runs thin or the targeting awkward. The split makes the important question clear: will trying a different body make another trip inviting, or will the same spaces begin to wear out their welcome? The available demo is a useful way to judge that fit.

Stupid Never Dies is most interesting when its systems and personality point in the same direction: a weak zombie borrowing enough monster power to attempt something wildly beyond him. The draw is the makeover, the expressive cast, and the excessive presentation. Expect a run-and-upgrade rhythm, and let your appetite for that rhythm decide how far the charm carries you.

A lively monster-powered makeover with a clear repeat-run tradeoff. Davy’s transformations and the cast give it identity; the strength of that identity has to keep earning the next trip into the dungeon.

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5/10

This game has a lot of strengths: the gameplay, the art style, the soundtrack, and the enemy design. But all of those can't make up for its problems.

-It's a short game for a roguelite, with little to no replay value after 15 hours.

-The story is simple and full of plot holes that make it impossible to get invested in it. When I played the demo, I thought there would be so much more to it, but by the end, I was already tired of it. Even the fun parts had stopped being enjoyable, and the story had become predictable, with promises of more content in the future. But that future content just isn't here yet.

- Targeting is a big problem. Most flying enemies are really hard to hit with a controller, and many times I tried to bite an enemy only to miss and die because of the animation. Other times, I'd bite a skeleton, get no healing, and die anyway. It was frustrating.

Overall, I think this is a good half of a game. If the developers had put a little more effort into the story, added more things to do after the ending, and implemented some quality-of-life improvements like lock-on targeting, it could have been an above-average game. But as it stands, it just isn't.

I hope that future DLCs or patches will improve things, but in its current state, I can't really recommend the game.

He just gotta save his girl!