Funko Fusion Review – Back in the box

With a brand that covers more properties than there are people in the world, Funko’s Pop Vinyls are everywhere; So when you see that there is a Funko-branded game featuring their big-headed Beany Babies, you would think that it would be a great open-world game. Still, Funko Fusion is one of the Funko brands that must be left on the shelf to gather some dust.

Name: Funko Fusion
Platform(s): Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, & Xbox Series X/S
Developer: 10:10 Games
Publisher: 10:10 Games
Game Type: Action-adventure
Mode(s): Single-player, multiplayer
Release Date: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Windows: September 13, 2024 – Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4: November 15, 2024

Story… What Story?

I’m removing the spoiler tag for this one and just giving you everything you need to know about Funko Fusion’s story.

Your character (depending on which world you pick to being the game with), opens up from their Pop Vinyl box in the hub world of Funko, where Freddy Funko discovers some purple goo that is flooding the factory where all the Pops are produced. One of the misshapen cast-off Pops crawls out of this goo and forms into “Eddy”, the evil version of Freddy, who tries to take the crown of power from Freddy, causing it to break and scatter across all the Funko worlds. It’s up to you to recover all the crowns and help Freddy recover and rule over the factory/world once again.

That’s all there is to Funko Fusion. There is no deeper storyline, there are no world-specific storylines that try to recreate the ones on the worlds that they are based around. Small segments take you from one objective to the next, with small cinematic moments like the early LEGO games to tie everything together.

Given that there are worlds based on classic properties like Back to the Future, Hot Fuzz, Jurassic World, Masters of the Universe, and more to go through, you would think there would be a literal multiverse of stories that you could tell with Funko Fusion, but 90% of the game is nothing more than collect objects, get past specific areas, tower defense, and escort missions with no story flow or structure to be seen. Hell, even the LEGO games tried to do something close to their inspiration or branding in their games, giving a funny and also sterical take on those franchises to make them entertaining. Funko Fusion does nothing like that, banking on the branding of the licenses within to hold up the excitement.

Graphics

Does Funko Fusion look like something you would get if you put a few dozen of these Pop Vinyl collectibles into a world that is designed for them? Yes, it does. However, that is where the praise ends.

The Pop Vinyls themselves look exactly like the ones that you buy in real life… I should know, I own too many of the damn things… Right down to the small imperfections with the vinyl and paint (See screenshot below). At the same time, this shows a big flaw with the design of the game and the Pops themselves: Their heads are too damn big! Sure, they look cute walking around their worlds, but they take up so much of the screen that 9 times out of 10 you are going to miss seeing an enemy or object because they are taking up too much screen space. Even on a PC with my ultrawide monitor, I didn’t have enough screen space to find what I needed to find half the time.

As I said before, the worlds that are featured in Funko Fusion are good representations of the brands on display. My two standout worlds are Jurassic World, The Thing, and Masters of the Universe. Jurassic World looks like the main theme park in the movies, with some small changes to add some pop-specific things to the atmosphere. The Thing does its best to recreate the research station that the film is showing, complete with the dog enemy appearing at one point. Masters of the Universe, while not recreating the world perfectly, has some cool set pieces that are shaded in a way to make the 3D buildings look like they come from the 2D show.

Funko Fusion: Two Gameplay Choices…

You can shoot things or hit things… That’s it.

Funko Fusion is a very bare-bones basic game at its core, even though the boxes that the characters appear in say they do things like have defensive stuff, sniper range, and other junk; it all still comes down to the same two things: Shoot or Bash.

I hate to compare this to the LEGO series again, but at least LEGO has different abilities assigned to different character types to make them have different functions. Funko Fusion doesn’t do this. They say that they do, but ultimately they don’t do shit. This is mostly due to the fact that the developers don’t want you to go into areas until they want you to. There are so many invisible walls in this game that it gets frustrating when you can’t work out what to do in a level.

For example, I started the game with Masters of the Universe, one of my favorite cartoons back in the day. The first level is a tower defense level where you have to survive waves of enemies, and Merman, before moving on to the next part of the level. I noticed an area where there were some objects I wanted to get, but an invisible wall stopped me from going into that area until the cutscene triggered and moved me to the next area. Why let me see this area when I cannot access it till later?

The other issue is that Funko Fusion is a buggy mess. Even two weeks after launch that game still suffers from game-breaking bugs. The same level I played in the previous paragraph suffered from a bug where that cutscene I mentioned never triggered. I played for over 30 minutes getting attacked by wave after wave of enemies, even after defeating Merman, until I ran out of lives and got the continue screen. When I loaded in a second time, I was done in 5 minutes because the cutscene triggered as intended. It turns out this has been a common complaint with other reviewers, most stating that transitions wouldn’t trigger or cutscenes would crash that game completely… Not cool man.

Multiple Worlds, Nothing Worth Doing Twice

With over 10 worlds to explore, you’d think there would be a lot to do, and you’d be sort of right. While Funko Fusion offers a variety of worlds to play in and even requires you to revisit them with non-world-specific characters (much like the LEGO games) to collect enough crowns to unlock the true ending, Funko Fusion isn’t a game I find worth revisiting to complete properly.

I’m sorry, but I just don’t see the point in going back into Scott Pilgrim’s world with Prince Adam when they’re doing the same thing. Sure, there might be one or two characters who can do things differently, allowing them to find crowns in other areas, but replaying the same scenes over and over isn’t appealing at all. I don’t do it in LEGO games, and I’m not going to do it in Funko Fusion.

Play through the worlds once, then find the ending on YouTube.

Funko Fusion is No Funko

I know 10:10 Games have been given the world to work with thanks to all the licenses that Funko has under its belt, but the execution comes off as a knockoff LEGO game done badly. The characters are lifeless thanks to no dialogue from any of the brands, not even using the audio from the films or shows they represent, and the comedy skit moments don’t land like they did over a decade ago.

Funko Fusion might have worked if they followed the LEGO formula, using whole roster lineups and allowing them to do different things to open up the worlds that they are showing, but instead, we got a run-and-gun game with some melee added for no real reason at all. All of these results, including all the game-breaking bugs, in a game that should have had the potential to be a great franchise, but ends up in a game that feels like a cheap product with a high price tag… Much like the Pop Vinyls themselves…

By the way, does anyone want to buy some Pop Vinyls? I’ve got a ton for sale in my garage.

Review Disclosure Statement: Funko Fusion was provided to us by 10:10 Games for review purposes. For more information on how we review video games and other media/technology, please go review our Review Guideline/Scoring Policy for more info.