Funko Fusion Review

This game came out recently, but while I had an early copy, I decided to wait to see what post-launch patches could do for Funko Fusion. After all, the basic idea is solid, so why let a few little bugs and issues stop it from getting a fair shake?

Funko Fusion is a third-person action adventure game where you get to play as licensed characters from the Funko Pop! (et al) line. Each set of characters starts off in their own worlds, but you can branch out into others via “Funplay” mode from the hub of the Funko Factory.

The plot of the game sees Freddy Funko attacked in the Funko Factory, with the perpetrator escaping with his power, and leaving him on life support. It’s up to you to find the villain in each world and retrieve the golden crowns which are the physical manifestation of Freddy’s power. And by “you” I mean “each world’s inhabitants”, as each one has four characters for you to control, each with different attacks and occasionally abilities.

Each world will follow plot beats from the movie it’s based on (or an original story in the case of Masters of the Universe), with the final boss holding the golden crown. However, you can find multiple silver crowns hidden around each level and those can be exchanged in the Funko Factory for golden ones. A certain amount of crowns are required to unlock new worlds, and after clearing all five levels of a world you can use those characters in previously unlocked ones.

Funko Fusion takes more than a little inspiration from another licensed toy-collectable franchise, and honestly that’s all I wanted from this game. An all-ages co-op game where I can bash baddies and collect things was the exact vibe I wanted — except as of writing co-op is still on its way, and it’s rated at 16 by PEGI and I can definitely tell why. To be fair, one of the worlds is The Thing, so that should have been my first hint, but in one of the opening cutscenes two characters are graphically rendered into skeletons. You see flesh melt from bone. Also, if you happen to catch on fire in a level, your character’s face and hair burn off so you’re running around with a skull for a head until you heal, even if your health isn’t very low.

To be fair, your health will get low many, many times throughout your time with the game. Enemies have almost unerring accuracy with their long-range attacks, it’s actually super frustrating to have multiple enemies just destroying your health bar in seconds. You can carry around health restoration items, but the time it takes to use them means you need to be behind cover, as you all but stop moving while drinking. Also, once your health depletes you need to find a Funko box and buy yourself back to life, but you can only do it five times per level, then you have to start from the beginning. And cutscenes are unskippable, even after you’ve seen them multiple times.

Okay, enough front-loading, Funko Fusion has issues. I’ll ignore the minor things like the camera occasionally getting stuck in the ceiling or how oddly defined splash damage is, and focus on the bigger things like invisible objects. There are conveyor belts with a beginning and end, but no middle. In one level, I could see a chest and had to jump over something invisible (which a bucket was stood upon) to reach it. In a boss fight I was being injured by spikes or fire or something that I have no idea, because it was invisible!

Speaking of boss fights, they are needlessly slow and take ages to finish. You have to activate a collector, then shoot the boss in specific places to knock off dark energy. Then, pick that up (it gravitates towards you) and go to put it in the collector. Rinse and repeat, because you cannot carry a full load of dark energy, so it will take multiple trips. And the boss might be right next to the collector, or there will be infinitely spawning enemies. Once the collector is full, you summon a big helper and can deal damage to the boss with your ranged weapon.

On the subject of spawning enemies, Funko Fusion hangs for less than half a second every time it spawns in new enemies. It might not be noticeable if you have motion blur on and are in Fidelity mode instead of Performance mode, but there’s a clear “pause” whenever new enemies are about to appear seemingly out of nowhere. Because, like, they are appearing out of nowhere…

Let’s not forget the audio issues, such as the one cutscene that had no sound the first time I saw it. Another level had a licensed song playing in a shop that meant I had to turn down the in-game music level to go near that shop.

Puzzles in Funko Fusion are a mixed bag, with some timed ones requiring millisecond accuracy and others needing you to just pick up a thing and put it in the hole behind you. Others need solving while you’re fighting off enemies, which makes them more complicated. A bunch of them see you needing to visit one of the primary coloured vending machines and buying an object (sometimes it’s free) to use for the puzzle.

The vending machines are all over the place in each level, always at the start and end, but usually scattered throughout as well. Red contain weapons, Blue have equipment, and Green are for health items. All three can be upgraded using tokens found in chests or on enemies, with each upgrade requiring multiple tokens to unlock.

As I’ve mentioned paying for things a couple of times already, in a similar way to how you find studs in those other games, in this you get resin from chests and by destroying the scenery — that’s the money. Each level also has multiple things to collect, which is why you need to unlock certain characters for their abilities, such as Number Five with his dash or He-Man’s destroying golden objects.

I’ll finish off this review with a look at the good things that Funko Fusion brings, because it’s not all bad. The worlds are well designed and fit the worlds that these Funkoised characters would inhabit. While I have a legitimate phobia of Dilophosaurus, I can appreciate the detail of adding a cartoon version of one to a Jurassic World store window, for instance, even though I’m pretty sure that’s not a thing from the movies. Some are enclosed spaces while others are wide open, it’s a really nice variety. Similarly, the characters are surprisingly unique and while there’s only a handful of ability types, there are some really nice touches, such as Ramona Flowers using roller skates while sprinting.

The other really positive note are the bonus characters and levels that are hidden inside each world. Finishing quests related to them will unlock the character to use in Funplay mode, so there’s a real reward to doing them.

Funko Fusion shows a lot of promise, but unfortunately it’s let down by so many technical issues and its difficulty can be unfair at times. Maybe pick it up as a curiosity when it goes on a deep sale, but it’s definitely not worth full price. Hopefully we get another licensed toy-collectable title that takes its inspiration here, so long as it’s not those stupid rubber ducks.