Funko Fusion Review — An Unfun-ko Time

Funko Fusion offers players the experience of a fandom festival like never before! Offering up to 60+ playable characters from more than 20 franchises, all recreated in the lovable Funko Pop makeover. With many worlds to battle foes and solve puzzles from the likes of Back to the Future, Chucky, Five Nights at Freddy’s, and even Hot Fuzz, it appears this will have many collectibles and things to do. Let’s break it down.

The game starts with a selection of four characters from seven franchises: Jurassic Park, Hot Fuzz, Battlestar Galactica, He-Man, The Thing, Scott Pilgrim, and The Umbrella Academy. Upon selection of the character, you are transported to the world. I went with MacReady from The Thing.

After a quick combat tutorial where you learn the basics of shooting and melee combat, you learn how to craft things from machines scattered across the world. You then discover that a purple plasma has infected every WonderWorld, and no one seems to know where it’s come from. Soon after, the main area is attacked, and with all the plasma monsters merging into the villain of Funko Fusion, you meet Eddy, who reveals that he has been living inside the cracks of WonderWorld and is now coming to take over. Eddy then destroys your Funko friends, taking the Funko crown for himself and gaining the ability to corrupt all of WonderWorld.

After a struggle for the crown with Freddy Funko (get it? Freddy and Eddy), the crown is split into multiple essences, meaning that Eddy can be stopped.

Waypoints are simple to find without the use of a map, as they show up on the screen and are viewable at all times. Although there are no maps, each section of the world you enter in Funko Fusion is small enough to not worry too much about where you are going or how to get there due to the nature of each small map.

Each character has their own attributes, such as speed, health, and stamina, which encourages you to change up characters from time to time, especially during boss battles. All the characters from each franchise also have a different weapon type based on the world they are in.

I must admit, I had a chuckle when shooting and chopping down other Funko characters because they make a little ‘pop’ noise. I thought that was smart and cute.

The puzzles and collectibles in Funko Fusion are deceptively tricky to find and help open other passages. There are little voice box areas that give you hints if you ever get stuck. I’m not ashamed to declare that I needed these once or twice (okay, maybe a little). You won’t be able to access all the rooms in each world during a single playthrough, as you will be required to unlock or access new characters who can invade the world to gain entry to special areas on each small map. Some of the puzzles have small windows that you need to shoot through, and even though my shots were well within the area that I needed to shoot my objective, it somehow managed not to hit the target, instead hitting either invisible walls or the outer area.

There are four types of collectibles per stage, the main ones being silver and gold crowns, as well as hidden animals and themed targets to shoot. Once you collect a certain amount of silver crowns, they can be converted into gold crowns, which will assist overall in the resurrection of Freddy.

In Funko Fusion, characters unlock as you complete a series of stages per franchise. Killing enemies, opening crates, and destroying boxes give you gems. Gems can be used to create health items and other required tools to assist with each level. Some of the crates and treasure chests require payment of gems, which generally include separate weapons, health items, or power-ups like faster shooting, increased speed, and components needed to create more powerful weapons that will help in the long run.

Combat is rather simple in regards to one button to shoot, melee, dodge, etc. It’s a simple game with most of the variation coming in the previously mentioned different characters with their own weapons and attributes.

Eventually, each level will require you to revisit it at some stage if you’re aiming for 100% completion and unlocking Cameo worlds and levels. What I did find annoying was that the world’s quests would restart each time. Even though you don’t need to complete them again, it becomes tedious seeing the same messages pop up, reminding you of the objectives again and again. This could be alleviated by the promised co-op mode, but at the time of the review, I was unable to test out this feature as it was only available on day one.

While Funko Fusion offers an impressive amount of characters, levels, and Cameo Quests (22 in total), it’s confusing to determine who the game is aimed at. The simplicity of the gameplay seems tailored to children, yet the franchises—like The Thing, Umbrella Academy, and Jaws—seem more appealing to an older audience.

With the success of Astro Bot most recently being praised, I had high hopes for Funko Fusion. While it does offer an impressive number of characters, worlds, and levels to collect, unlock, and explore, there were too many bugs at launch to overlook. With its simplistic gameplay, I would only really recommend Funko Fusion to hardcore Funko Pop fans.