Funko Fusion is the inevitable video game adaptation of a toy empire, but it doesn’t take long before you want to put these Pops back in the box.
By Mark Delaney on September 26, 2024 at 11:21AM PDT
You could argue the current media landscape’s obsession with crossovers, mash-ups, and hearty stews of intellectual property began with Funko Pop, collectible vinyl figures that have been popular for many years now and are made to resemble just about anything from pop culture–from rockstars and Star Trek villains, to cereal mascots and retired athletes. Before Fortnite became something like a Funko Pop game in its own way, Funko Pop figures were decorating mall stores and collectors’ shelves with fan favorites and deep cuts. In retrospect, it’s surprising we didn’t get a Funko Pop console and PC game until now, though given the state of Funko Fusion, we would have been better off continuing to wait.
Presented in an over-the-(tiny)-shoulder third-person view akin to Lego Star Wars’ latest effort, Funko Fusion similarly has you running around colorful worlds inspired by movies and TV shows you may already enjoy. Whereas the Lego games tend to pull from the tip-top of the popularity stack and adapt things like Marvel and Lord of the Rings, Funko Fusion takes on a fascinatingly strange assortment of series.
The largest attraction, Jurassic World, notably stands out among the top-tier selections. Additionally, players can explore various hub worlds, levels, and characters derived from less expected franchises. These include Scott Pilgrim, Hot Fuzz, The Thing, Masters of the Universe, The Umbrella Academy, and the 1978 version of Battlestar Galactica. While the selection appears random, these properties are unified under the umbrella of Universal Studios.
The gameplay experience in each world resembles a Lego game. Players enter a 3D environment where the objective is to break objects and combat enemies, navigating through puzzles to progress while enduring attacks. Each world uniquely adapts the audio and visuals from its respective property, enhancing the immersion. For instance, the early Scott Pilgrim levels incorporate the film’s original soundtrack, nostalgically echoing its debut, and The Thing’s levels gain a chilling edge through the ominous soundtrack that accompanies the eerie, snow-laden environment.
Despite its visual similarities to Lego games, Funko Fusion targets a more mature audience. This is evident in its inclusion of content like The Thing and the band Sex Bob-Omb from Scott Pilgrim. However, this maturity doesn’t always translate to a better experience. Unlike the Lego series which perfected its gameplay over numerous titles, Funko Fusion struggles with coherence in puzzle design, leading to frustration and confusion among players.
Lego games have traditionally featured simple puzzles, cleverly crafted as brief obstacles with clear in-game hints to assist players. An attempt to create a more challenging, adult-oriented game along these lines could potentially succeed, but Funko Fusion’s execution falls short. During my playthrough earlier in the year, I noticed confusing game mechanics that I initially assumed would be clarified in a missing tutorial within the full game. However, it became apparent that no such guidance was provided, leaving players puzzled on how to effectively progress. The game often fails in delivering clear visual guidance necessary for a satisfying gameplay experience.
Funko Fusion presents a perplexing challenge due to its ambiguity in differentiating between elements in its levels that require immediate interaction and those designed for future engagement, post-item or character unlock. Early in the game, a level displayed unfamiliar yellow arrows before a locked door, creating confusion. Only later, while accessing The Umbrella Academy levels, did I discover that these arrows indicate where a specific character can phase through walls if they dash while standing on them.
Initially, this led me to waste time trying to interact with the environment, not knowing that I was simply supposed to return later. The game provides no direct guidance or hints within its levels, leaving players to guess and troubleshoot. This often resulted in abandoning solvable puzzles due to the game’s inconsistent visual cues and signals across its over 30 levels.
While Funko Fusion draws some inspiration from TT Games’ Lego series, it lacks the refined level and puzzle design that contribute to the Lego games’ success. It attempts to diverge from the predictable formula of the Lego games, which evolved over two decades, yet this results in a frustrating and chaotic experience due to poor in-game guidance.
Moreover, other puzzles enhance the frustration, each for varying reasons. One recurring puzzle involves a locked chest that can only be accessed by activating four levers within a set timeframe. Solutions may involve running a specific route, using a faster character, or consuming a speed-boosting item. However, certain instances of this puzzle are unsolvable without the appropriate character or item, leading to unnecessary attempts driven by the misleading success of previous similar challenges. Unlike a Rubik’s Cube, where each move contributes toward the solution, these puzzles seem more akin to a lockbox missing its key, with rules that shift without prior indication.
The combat mechanics prove frustratingly deficient, with shooting accuracy feeling off the mark and even maxing out aim assist yielding negligible improvements. Melee strategy boils down to simplistic button mashing once up close, yet this is hampered by enemies’ tendency to corner-trap the player and the constant spawn of adversaries that disrupt puzzle timing and solutions. Mini-boss fights, intertwined with puzzle elements, often require figuring out strategies on the fly without prior in-game guidance or clear visual cues.
A particular type of recurring mini-boss requires absorbing extensive damage before they stagger towards a specific ground circle, a strategy that took time to understand. At one point, shooting a chandelier causes it to fall, stunning the mini-boss and making them vulnerable to melee attacks, simplifying the battle excessively as the mini-boss becomes immobile, allowing for relentless, undeterred striking. This sequence uproariously stretches on, adding unintended humor to the battle.
World boss battles typically involve targeting luminous points and evading minions through numerous stages. These encounters offer more clarity on objectives, standing out as a more functional facet of the game, though still lacking in vibrancy.
Many gameplay shortcomings could potentially be alleviated or eliminated if cooperative play was enabled from the start, yet the game launched devoid of such features. Future plans include introducing four-player online co-op in phases, beginning with Jurassic World in October. The publisher attributes this staggered integration to a commitment to maintaining a healthy work-life balance for the team, which while admirable in intent, leaves the impression that postponing the game’s release could have been a more practicable approach.
Instead, rolling it out in this state amplifies several of the game’s worst aspects; Without allies to aid you, the enemies regularly interrupt puzzle solutions, timed puzzles with unforgiving timers become harder or impossible, and even the game’s vague puzzles in quiet spaces can take longer without a group brainstorming element that should’ve been there from the start.
That isn’t to say the game is all bad. One of the cooler parts about it are its secret levels and characters, which go well beyond the six major hub worlds to include shorter stints in additional settings like Child’s Play, Jaws, Five Nights at Freddy’s, and more. In general, Funko Fusion leans into horror properties in a way that feels unnecessary but also pleasantly surprising. We’re unlikely to ever see a second game based on Jordan Peele’s Nope, making the novelty of it being found here so notable, even as secret levels aren’t immune to the game’s structural issues either.
One thing the game does borrow from the Lego series in a skilled way is how the toys’ unique opportunities for humor can be used to reinterpret classic scenes or lean into the nature of the figures themselves. Standout examples include a moment in the first Jurassic World level when a character’s big head gets stuck in a doorway as she tries to escape roaming dinosaurs, or how you can cartoonishly pop the heads off of enemies if you hit them just right. Each world does well to capture its source material even as things are redressed in smooth vinyl textures. In the case of the He-Man levels, the entire world benefits from a stylish cel-shaded look, too, which isn’t exactly how that show looked, but it does make it stick out as a cartoon in a sea of live-action properties.
It’s also worth mentioning a patch released during my early days with the game that soothed some of the game’s more painful aspects, like making it easier to unlock additional worlds. Funko Fusion lets you pick any world to start, but it doesn’t tell you that some are better to start with than others as they reduce how much backtracking you’ll need to perform. You have to learn this the hard way, like I did when I started with Scott Pilgrim and later learned the studio recommends it as the last world to play.
Now, the game’s use of Crowns, discovered in levels and additionally earned for completing them, can more easily unlock worlds and characters, which gets right to the heart of the game’s appeal: running around as various pop culture heroes and villains in worlds either familiar or not their own. More patches are needed though, not just to fix the aforementioned confusion around moving through levels, but even to polish the game, like fixing some audio problems that currently manifest as loud screeches instead of, for example, car-engine noises.
With more attention to balancing and better, earlier explanations of how its puzzles, boss encounters, and items behave, I could see Funko Fusion eventually being the enjoyable, adult-oriented Lego alternative it wants to be. It needs some important fixes, but they don’t seem like unattainable goals in this era of living games that are constantly evolving. The eventual widespread co-op functionality should hopefully make the game better all on its own, and if more helpful visual language and tooltips arrive soon, too, the game could be redeemed. Until then, however, this is one Funko product not worth displaying on your shelf.
