After finishing a frustrating boss fight in Funko Fusion against a never-ending stream of baddies in a grocery store, I was finally done with Hot Fuzz’s fourth level. I could move on. A cutscene played but the audio was missing. That happens a lot in this game. And then the final screen appeared, showing me how many collectibles I had snagged and side activities I had completed. I hit the “A” button to move on to the final level. I hit “A” few times. I mashed it. Nothing. I restarted the controller. Nope. I tried a different one. Still nothing. The game had soft-locked on me. So, I restarted Funko Fusion and played Hot Fuzz’s fourth level again.
Previously, this same level had locked up on me twice before. During the next run-through, it soft-locked once more when a chase sequence at the end broke. I tried again after that. Finally, mercifully, Funko Fusion allowed me to finish the level on my fifth attempt. But just a few minutes into the next area I was forced to restart the game due to it freezing up in a menu.
It was at this point I started to wonder, “Why am I still playing this very bad video game?”
Funko Fusion launched earlier this month and is, on paper at least, supposed to be a fun evolution of the Lego games from back in the day. Those games mixed popular movies, like Star Wars, with colorful Lego pieces, brick-breaking gameplay, and cartoonish antics. But instead of cute Lego characters, every person and creature in Funko Fusion is based on Funko Pops. It immediately sucks a lot of the charm and whimsy out of the game when every character is a big-headed toy with no mouth and dead black eyes. It also doesn’t help that many of the movies included in the game, like Hot Fuzz and The Thing, don’t really feel like a good fit for a family-friendly action-puzzle game starring plastic toys.
But do you want to know a secret? Don’t tell anyone, but part of me was kind of excited about Funko Fusion.
No, the Funko Pop characters didn’t win me over. The way the game was being marketed, as an IP SANDBOX to play in, also didn’t do much for me either. And yet, I’m a sucker for taking a big movie like Jurassic Park or Star Wars and squishing it into a new, smaller, cuter form that can provide a new way to experience a franchise I love. And even with the Funko Pops and their dead, cold, black, shark-like eyes, Funko Fusion could have been something fun. Something cool. Sadly, almost no part of this game feels good or is fun to play. And that’s kind of a big problem for a video game.
Funko Fusion works like this: You pick a figure at the start. You can choose characters from He-Man, Battlestar Galactica, Umbrella Academy, Jurassic World, or other franchises. That unlocks a hub world based on that character’s IP. Then you complete five levels based on the franchise, fight a boss at the end, and then unlock a new world based on something else and repeat.
This is a fine setup for a game featuring a ton of different movies and franchises. It’s just a shame that playing Funko Fusion is a miserable experience.
Let’s start with combat. You’ll be shooting a lot of stuff in Funko Fusion. Every character I played used some kind of ranged weapon, usually a gun. I remember hopping into the first level of Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World and being excited that I wouldn’t be shooting stuff. Scott uses a guitar and the movie is all about rock music, comic books, and colorful melee fights. But nope! Scott just shoots projectiles from his guitar.
Perhaps if the shooting in Funko Fusion was enjoyable, I’d not mind every character playing as a generic third-person shooter protagonist. But the combat in Funko Fusion is the opposite of enjoyable. Guns feel very weak and aren’t satisfying to use. Part of the problem is that every enemy is a bullet sponge, able to take more damage than you’d expect. Fights become frustratingly dull events as Funko Fusion tosses way too many enemies at you, often not stopping until you finish an objective. And that’s basically the only type of combat encounter you’ll face in the game.
Over and over again, I was walking to a bad puzzle or away from an annoying fight only to be ambushed (again) by a few more enemies. At other times, Funko Fusion locked me in an area and forced me to kill waves of baddies until the game decides it had punished me enough and let me move on to the next level. And sadly, that level typically sucked, too.
At least Funko Fusion looks nice. The levels are detailed and often feature loads of references to different movies and franchises. And I think the game’s textures and lighting are impressive at times. The He-Man area looks like a 3D cartoon. The Battlestar Galactica levels perfectly capture the original show’s cheap late-’70s sci-fi vibes, complete with grey carpet and office chairs. Sadly, some levels, like the Jurassic World ones, run like garbage and make it hard to enjoy due to performance problems.
But all of these levels go on too long and include some of the most annoying puzzles I’ve run into in 2024. And that’s not because the puzzles are hard. Instead, the puzzles in Funko Fusion simply suck because you have to grab each key item, like a crystal or key card, and manually walk it back to where it’s needed. Every. Single. Time. Bring the wrong item? Well, you have to walk all the way back, fighting ever-spawning enemies, grab the correct key item, walk it back, drop it to fight enemies that might kill you, and then hopefully unlock the next area by solving the puzzle.
And after slogging your way through bad puzzles, framerate problems, and annoying combat encounters, you might have to restart the whole level because you tried to craft a healing item. Or needed to craft a quest item. Or you tried to move on to the next area. Or the game just breaks in some other way and forces you to restart the level.
The headline above says Funko Fusion soft-locked on me 21 times and that’s true, but it would likely be higher if I didn’t avoid crafting stations, which would often lock up on me and force me to restart the game or level. Even when I avoided these crafting stations, I still got screwed by the game. One time an enemy I needed to kill just never spawned. Another time a character I needed to escort just disappeared.
Each time Funko Fusion locked up on me, I had to restart from the beginning of the level, rewatch all the cutscenes (none of which can be skipped), and then be forced to listen to the same song loop over and over in the background as I desperately tried to complete the level again while praying to Funko Fusion’s gods that I be allowed to continue. Begging the game not to force me to restart the level yet again. As you might have guessed, the Funko Fusion gods are cruel bastards. I think I ended up replaying about half the levels I finished multiple times due to soft locks. Not fun!
I’ve not finished Funko Fusion. I’m not sure I ever will. I don’t want to play it anymore. Beyond everything I’ve already shared here, there are so many little problems with the game, too. Chests take forever to open, managing your inventory isn’t fun, cutscenes are forgettable, level geometry gets reused a lot, and sound effects often sound bad or don’t work properly.
Funko Fusion could have been something fun! A wacky adventure mixing together different franchises and worlds. Instead, its a boring, annoying, barely functional third-person action game starring ugly Funko Pops solving bad puzzles and fighting the same 10 enemies over and over again with guns and laser pistols. Don’t play Funko Fusion. Save your money, buy some pizza, and watch one of the movies included in this collection instead. It will be much more enjoyable and you won’t have to restart the movie five times to reach the end.
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