Funko Fusion is a multiverse third person action game developed and published by 10:10 Games. The game is based in the Funko universe and brings in 20 very different movie and TV franchises to save their universe from an evil Funko. But does it do justice to its many franchises, or is it just a disappointing shell?
What the Funko is Going On?
Funko Fusion starts the game by picking a franchise of characters. I picked Masters of the Universe for pure nostalgia purposes, but there is a huge variety of them. I did quite enjoy the fact that Orko actually floats, but only a few inches off the ground. While actual flying or even gliding would have been a nice touch, it is understandable that they were all given the same “treatment”, as close as they could.
This particular universe is actually a lower floor in a Funko factory. You go up to the stairs and save a character called Foxxo from a booth and fight off purple goo monsters. You then enter the main room to meet a character called Freddy Funko, a preppy, crown wearing guy.
Suddenly, an evil version of Freddy, unoriginally named Eddy, shows up to infect Foxxo and turn him into giant zombified version of him. You fight Mega Foxxo and collect purple orbs that come off him to power up a tower which eventually releases a giant armoured version of Freddy to fight your side.
After Foxxo is defeated Eddy appears to take Freddy gold crown. Something goes wrong and the crown separates into multiple silver crowns that disperse all over the multiverse. Eddy gets the cracked remnants of the crown and disappears to cause havoc. Freddy is now on life support and needs you to collect the silver crowns to stop Eddy.
The end. Yes. I’m not joking. What could be described in literally less than an hour is the story of Funko Fusion. Urgh…suffice it to say, it’s not that great, and even if you pick the other universes, the result kinda ends up being the same.
Let’s Go Play With Action Figures!
Gameplay in Funko Fusion involves primarily hitting things with a melee weapon and a ranged attack. If something is purple, there’s a good chance that’s the game basically telling you to hit it, because it’s probably an enemy or a breakable.
The objectives are extremely vague and there are very minimal visual queues. I found myself circling levels a few times trying to figure out what kind of backwards way I was meant to achieve the objective because things I thought would work lead me to dead ends a lot.
Eddy takes over a main villain from whichever franchise you are in and you have to go through 4 levels defeating more enemies than you thought possible before fighting the big bad, and I mean physically big too, in an underwhelming, infuriating, and drawn out fight where you collect the purple orbs to call in a mega Funko to fight for you and then defeat them.
It’s Not All Bad… Right?
I know I haven’t been exactly positive until now. And trust me, a lot of this comes from someone who was personally very excited for the game after seeing many early trailers when it was first unveiled, but after getting to play the game myself…I was just throughly underwhelmed with the final product.
Don’t get me wrong. This could have been the next multiple franchise IP like Lego Dimensions or the now-defunct Disney Infinity, especially considering just how a lot of obscure franchises like Battlestar Gallactica, Umbrella Academy and Hot Fuzz all have Funko figures, which could’ve been represented here.
For what it’s worth, the characters and areas look really good, and their weapons are clever too: Scott Pilgrim has his flaming sword for melee and fires music blasts with his guitar, and Nicholas Angel swings his peace lily for melee and double handguns for ranged.
A Whole Lot of Nothing But Missed Potential.
Funko Fusion made me smile at some points. It really felt like they really paid attention to the franchises and gave each character their own identity, and there are a lot of represenations here that are sure to tickle someone’s nostalgia just as it did mine. Still, the gameplay loop is so repetitive that it just pushes all the good away.
I thought because there were a lot of mature franchises used that there would be a lot of mature themes and humour… but I found the story and game lacking in both. So in fairness, this game feelsjust like a real Funko in its box: if you take the Funko out of it, what do you have left? Nothing. Which is sad, as it had a lot of potential…
