I've never been one to collect Funko Pops, but Funko Fusion still caught my attention. I was intrigued by its bizarre concept of combining completely unrelated entertainment franchises into a third-person shooter, and when it became clear that it was inspired by LEGO video games, I was even more on board. But after he played Funko Fusioni can say funko fans should stick to buying the vinyl figures instead.
Funko Fusionthe weird random IP collection sounds like a fun idea on paper, but it doesn't work in execution. List of franchises represented in Funko Fusion run the gamut from Five Nights at Freddy's TO Mega Manrepresented by unlockable characters and playable stages. Seven of the franchises get full-blown worlds where most of the action takes place, though it's as if the IPs chosen to get this greater focus were pulled out of a hat. This is confusing Umbrella Academyyears from the height of its popularity and coming off a nearly universal final season, it has five levels dedicated to it, while something with more cultural relevance in 2024, such as Invinciblehe only has one. And while I love Edgar Wright's funny 2007 action comedy Hot Fuzzit's weird that he also has five levels instead of wright's shaun of the deadwhich is easily the most popular movie.
Even so, it can be fun to find special characters like Chucky from Child's play in Funko Fusionand there's an absurdity to it all that, at least, makes things fun on a surface level. The developers clearly have a love for the IP featured in Funko Fusionwith smart touches like Number Five from Umbrella Academy teleporting instead of dodging like the other playable characters in the game. It's also nice to see the world of these franchises recreated, and hardcore fans of the IPs will get some entertainment value out of exploring certain levels.
But when it comes to actually playing the game, Funko Fusion it's a disaster. Players will quickly forget the messy charm of seeing random franchises thrown at a dartboard once they're in the trenches trying to play the game. A typical one Funko Fusion level is a mostly open area where players walk around, solve simple puzzles with vague objectives, and shoot lots of enemy Funko Pops. Sometimes it can be confusing to know where to go next or what to do, and the game suffers from being extremely repetitive and buggy. Players won't know if they can't advance the story because they haven't figured out what to do or because the game isn't working properly.
All franchises featured in Funko Fusion
- Back to the future
- Battlestar Galactica
- Big Boy
- Child's play
- Five Nights at Freddy's
- Funko
- Hot Fuzz
- Invincible
- The jaws
- Jurassic Park
- KFC
- Knight Rider
- Masters of the Universe
- M3GAN
- Mega Man
- mummy
- Not
- Scott Pilgrim against the world
- shaun of the dead
- Team Fortress 2 (DLC)
- working
- Umbrella Academy
- The Walking Dead (DLC)
- Voltron: Legendary Defender
- Xena: Warrior Princess
And even when everything works fine, Funko Fusion objectives can be incredibly boring. Several levels have escort missions, which are rarely fun. A particularly irritating escort mission can be found in a Jurassic World stage where players must escort a gyroball through an area they have already explored in a previous level. Players must keep enemies away from the ball and stay close to it to make it move, but touching the ball knocks players down. This will happen about a dozen times until players reach the end of the level. Combine this with the extreme delay that Jurassic World the levels seem to suffer and players will have no desire to replay them.
Unfortunately, unlocking Funko FusionIts secret characters and levels often mean replaying already completed stages, which only exacerbates the game's repetitiveness. Taking a page from LEGO game manual, players are encouraged to replay levels using different characters with unique abilities, which can then be used to solve puzzles that were impossible to complete on an initial playthrough. In theory, that would Funko Fusion great replay value, but since the levels are already so miserable to play through, the thought of replaying them leaves one with a deep sense of dread.
The Funko Fusion boss fights are awful
Funko FusionHis biggest problems are on full display in his atrocious boss fights. Like its levels, Funko Fusion Boss fights are repetitive, buggy, and often take far too long. Many of the bosses rely on a ground attack that sends out a shockwave for players to jump over, and in most cases killing them is a matter of shooting weak spots or tediously filling a pipe with purple substance. Bosses are annoying because they often take too long to take damage and even then, it takes so long to kill some of them that players will start to wonder if the game is broken.
But while Funko FusionHis boss fights are awful, 10:10 Games to its credit has already made some major improvements compared to how they were when the game was first released. The most recent Funko Fusion The update has rebalanced some boss fights to make them more tolerable, mainly by removing constantly respawning enemies. Before updating, Funko Fusion players not only had to deal with the boss, but in some cases an endless barrage of enemies that made it difficult to focus on the fight itself. These enemies often interrupted drinking animations as well, making healing or activating ailments much more frustrating than necessary. Post-update, Funko FusionHis boss battles are definitely improved, though their basic design is still lacking.
The final boss fight at the end Funko Fusion The worlds end with kaiju-like battles where players don't really participate and instead watch the action unfold, which is anti-climactic to say the least. The stories that are told in each world also suffer from a lack of proper payment, with Umbrella Academy the world being one of the biggest offenders. Its first two missions tell the story of season 1, but season 2 is largely omitted, and then the last two levels take place in season 3. It's impossible to follow or care. Funko Fusion try to imitate LEGO games' slapstick way of repeating stories, but it's a poor imitation.
Funko Fusion
The latest update to his balance has also improved progression so players can unlock new worlds faster and reach the final boss without having to complete all the bonus levels.
From its nefarious scenes to the overall concept, Funko Fusion often appears as an off-brand LEGO game. It tries to replicate things like the fun of smashing every object in sight, but delivers something much less satisfying because most of the objects players can hit don't even break. Most of the time they jump, spin and shoot small spheres that serve as Funko Fusionhis currency. Players can use that money on the machines spread throughout the levels to obtain healing items and weapons, as well as to spawn important items that are needed to progress through any given stage. I think that should be it Funko Fusionthe equivalent of buildable objects from LEGO games, but like the other modes Funko Fusion try to copy LEGO games, do not generate the same excitement.
A defining characteristic of LEGO games are cooperative support. Foreseeable, Funko Fusion co-op confirmed a long time ago, but not available in-game at the time of writing. Funko Fusion is getting online co-op in October, but to have such a major feature unavailable at launch is truly an amazing decision. Anyone interested in playing Funko Fusion it will already have done this by the time co-op is in the game, and the levels aren't fun enough to justify playing it again with a friend.
Funko Fusion fumbles its interesting concept with basic gameplay, and it's hard to see how co-op could make it more tolerable. That being said, the latest game balance update has made it at least a little bit better, so maybe future updates will make a bigger difference than expected.
Funko Fusion is available now for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X with Switch and PS4 versions launching on November 15th. Game Rant received a PC code for this review.
