Funko Pops!, you know those big headed, beady eyed plastic figurines that take up all the space on your bookshelf? Well, they have been brought to life in a nightmare, video game version of Toy Story: Funko Fusion.
Developed by 10:10 Games, the game brings together some of pop culture’s most famous franchises including Jurassic World and Masters of the Universe. With its clear LEGO game influence, I thought this would just be some silly fun. Sure, the potential was here, but like the figures themselves, Funko Fusion should be left on the shelf – probably somewhere deep at the back.
The game looks good but the gameplay severely lets it down. The missions are arduous, boring, repetitive and at times deeply frustrating. If it wasn’t your gigantic dorky head getting in the way of shooting enemies it was the clunky controls used to solve puzzles.
Then there was the meaningless story which tried to loosely tie together a reason for all of these franchises to be in one game. After beating Funko Fusion, I was left searching for a way to claw myself out of the funk it left me in.
Story: Freddy vs Eddy
From the beginning, there was no sense of a story. In fact, straightaway I was taken to a select screen where there are seven different franchises to choose from. With no idea what to expect, I chose to play through Hot Fuzz first – suddenly a random cutscene began. Without any tutorials, I was thrown into the first level. I quickly learned that Funko Fusion is a challenging and relentless third person shooter, beat-em-up style game.
After completing the first mission, I finally landed in a hub world. This is a large, bright Funko Pop factory, where the very loose overarching storyline begins. You meet the owner of the Factory, Freddy, who gets caught up in a heated tussle with his arch rival Eddy. After this fight, Freddy comes off second best. Needing to regenerate his strength, Freddy finds himself trapped inside a Funko Pop box. Poor guy – what an existence!
With Eddy wreaking havoc across the lands and infecting characters with his menacing purple goo, there was no time to waste. Freddy asks you to recover the lost crowns throughout the seven worlds, so he can regain his powers, beat Eddy and save the day. Spoiler alert, he does this and gives Eddy a big hug at the end, in the most disappointing ending cutscene of any game I have ever played. The whole story is a mess.
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Seven Intertwined Worlds
In Funko Fusion, each of the seven worlds has a substory made up of five different stages and four characters to choose from. You can switch between these characters anytime during the level. Within each world there was a story related to the franchise you were playing. Some franchises got more love than others. For example, the Jurassic World scenario was more fleshed out and full of character than the Umbrella Academy, which was short, set in small areas and did not have a very appealing story.
Each of the worlds reflected their source material well. The way towns and places looked was actually one of the positives about the game. I appreciated the attention to detail – especially in one of my favourite worlds, Masters of the Universe. When Adam turned into He-Man he thrust his sword into the air and said “By the Power of Grayskull,” it felt authentic! Seeing Skeletor trying to take down one of my favourite heroes was a real nostalgia trip for this 80s baby.
Gameplay: Over and Over and Over and Over Again
The gameplay is a big letdown. The developers tried hard to capture the magic of the LEGO games. From the slapstick humour, to whacking everything and collecting chunks of vinyl (this game’s LEGO studs) and using them to build the tools needed to solve puzzles. The elements were there just not done very well. The game offensively rehashes the same escort and fetch quest missions over and over again. Pair this with a lack of mission direction and no minimap to follow.
Each level felt like a chore, with copious amounts of backtracking needed just to figure out where to go next. I was constantly going back and forth to vending machines crafting health potions to just survive the onslaught of enemies.
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After the questing slog, each story culminates into a final boss fight, structured the same way each time. I had to shoot huge blobs of purple goo off infected creatures, deposit it in a large tube and then activate said tube. Once activated a giant Funko Pop! appeared and pounded the living daylights out of the boss. I shot at it aimlessly, wondering if I was actually making any difference to the outcome (it was not).
On top of this, the final boss of the game took me 45 minutes. I shot at its head repeatedly, all while cheesing the game by standing on the edge and not getting hit by any of its projectiles. I made dinner and kept pressing the RT button while I ate. It was that boring.
Combat: Like a Sponge but for Bullets
The worst part of Funko Fusion was the combat. Being a third-person, shooter game, you would think being able to see your enemies clearly would be very important. Well not only does your big head get in the way of shooting the bad guys they also come from everywhere. The difficulty of this game is just ridiculous. At times it bombards you with a never ending stream of foes. They would come from the front, randomly from blind spots and shoot projectiles at you. I was forever trying to shoot, slap, and dodge my way out of trouble.
There were so many cheap deaths, especially in the Hot Fuzz boss fight – I was throwing profanities at my TV screen. Trying to run around this tiny village, I kept getting caught on the environment, enemies were spawning all around me and the giant boss was throwing bombs – I barely stood a chance. Luckily, you can revive quickly during the battles and make yourself some HP sodas. Man, did I die several times trying to finish this fight though!
You can find new weapons around the world in gold chests, or use your plastic chunks to craft them. However, they can only be used for a limited time before they run out. Often I found these weapons were not very helpful and didn’t do any more damage than the regular ones. Even though there are so many different Funko Pop! characters to choose from, they all basically have the same fighting styles and weapons. I barely found the need to change characters throughout my entire play through.
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Cameo Quests: More Characters, Same Old Tricks
Funko Fusion’s game world is littered with purple doors that are shut tight. These are where the games Cameo Quests hide; these are key to unlocking the hidden characters in the game. To unlock a Cameo door, you had to find it within a particular world and use a special skill to unlock it. These Cameo Quests had other stories and characters not seen within the seven main substories. You could also keep using the unlocked characters throughout the game – a cool integration.
I played through the Five Nights at Freddy’s (FNAF) Cameo Quest. It literally does what it says on the tin. You enter the world of FNAF and have to survive five nights in that creepy pizza parlour. With Pop versions of the animatronics roaming around, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a little bit scared. However, as fun as this could have been, by the end of the fifth night the monsters were tracking me relentlessly, barely giving me time to escape. It was just frustrating and not fun to play anymore.
The Cameo Quests had an opportunity to break up the gameplay and insert some originality into the quest structure, however it was just more of the same. The Back to the Future stage had some nice relief from fighting enemies, however, it was just another long fetch quest. At least they offered some downtime from using my gun!
Big Heads, Beady Eyes, Colourful Worlds
Credit where credit is due because 10:10 Games have designed a really lovely world. The game does look really good. In fact, when I went into the Masters of the Universe level it looked just like a 3D recreation of the cartoon, offering a new level of immersion. I loved following the meddling goose in the Hot Fuzz level too, and patting the cute huskies in the Antarctic surrounds of The Thing levels.
Considering the material they had to work with, the characters looked good. However, with their lack of physical emotion and personality, it was hard to make a connection. Even though Funko Fusion is teeming with recognisable characters, these charmless empty vessels are just like the plastic toys they are based on.
Unlike the LEGO games, where I find myself chortling at the silly humour, I did not find myself doing this while playing Funko Fusion. I think I laughed maybe twice through the whole game – that says a lot as I love myself some silly, immature humour.
Performance: A Gaming Crash
Funko Fusion demanded 20 hours of my time. Games are supposed to be fun! So when a game’s performance isn’t up to scratch it makes an already frustrating game even more infuriating. I came across way too many bugs in this game. From items disappearing forever to vending machines telling me the item I needed to solve a puzzle was “out of stock,” it just wasn’t good enough. These game breaking glitches caused me to restart whole levels and even my PlayStation 5.
My experience completing the fetch quest in the Back to the Future level makes me angry just thinking about it! After finding and installing the four wheels of the Delorean Time Machine I platformed my way to Doc, who sat high on a rooftop. He needed a lightning rod, which was on the ledge of the roof where he was sitting. As I picked it up, somehow it slipped out of my hand and fell to the ground, disappearing for good. It did not respawn at its initial point so I decided to restart the level. Lo and behold, there are no checkpoints – I had to start the whole quest over again, ughhh!
Funko Flop
Funko Fusion might be full of some of your favourite characters but sadly these big headed figures feel empty and lifeless. There are no new or interesting ideas in this simplistic and dull third person shooter. The backtracking and boring repetitive missions were exhausting to play and caused me more frustration than joy. Even with its clear inspirations from the LEGO games, it couldn’t find the same magic and slapstick comedy that makes those games fun and charming.
Their soulless black eyes and their limiting grunts and groans do nothing to portray any emotion. The loose story connecting the worlds was poorly executed and really could have been left out. Maybe a Funko Pop sandbox could’ve done the game some favours? I would’ve preferred having seven different worlds to play around in with no overarching story. Also, not having multiplayer available at launch hurt Funko Fusion. It could definitely lend itself to some coop fun, but then again, why would you put your friends through the torture?
The devs did well to recreate the look and feel of the worlds I played in but this was not enough to save Funko Fusion. Just like your Funko Pop collection, sad and long forgotten, I can see this game sitting around for years to come collecting dust.
Funko Fusion is available now on Playstation 5 for $84.95, Xbox Series X|S for $89.99 and PC for $73.50. A Nintendo Switch launch is planned for March 2025.
Quest Daily Scores Funko Fusion:
4/10
A review copy of Funko Fusion was supplied to Quest Daily for the purpose of this review.
