Funko Fusion tells the story of Freddy (Funko’s mascot) and his rivalry with his nemesis Eddy. Eddy wants to cause as much chaos across the multiverse as he can and it’s now up to Freddy and his friends can stop him and his maddening quest for world domination and glory.
Funko Fusion is an action adventure game that plays similar to games like those found in the Lego series. The game has you playing as a Funko Pop character in the third person perspective. You can choose from one of three or four Funko characters from whatever chosen world you start in. Once you complete all four levels in a given world, you can take on any of those levels as whatever Funko character you would like, which gives you the freedom to play the level the way you want to play it.
Once you select a world that you haven’t played through yet, you are stuck in that world until you complete it. By completing it, you will earn Funko crowns which can be used to unlock additional worlds. These crowns can be found by completing puzzles, finding them in chests, or collecting enough hidden items in a level to earn them.
Much like the Lego games have you collecting lego studs, Funko Fusion has you collecting vinyl pieces. These vinyl pieces act as currency that you can spend on various in game items or collecting enough to unlock a crown. I had hoped that collecting this currency would allow you to unlock characters as well, but that’s just not how unlocking the characters works in this game.
The in game currency is strictly used to purchase in game items or used for unlocking crowns. Though in a way this does allow you to technically unlock characters, it’s not simply a matter of collecting enough to purchase them. The way that the game allows characters be unlocked is dependent on solving environmental puzzles. The puzzles are solved by either using a specific item combination that you purchase or b doing little mini games or character battles several times before they are unlocked.
I like this approach at first, but eventually found myself rather frustrated and lost when it comes to unlocking characters. Chucky for instance is a really great character and one I was looking forward to playing as, but the requirements to unlock the character are a chore. For this specific character, you have to play hide and seek with him several times once you unlock the area that he’s in. Once you do this, he then says he’s going to go off to other worlds. You then have to locate him once in every level of every world, then fight him. Only once you do all of this and then win the fight, does he become a playable character.
So as you can see just with this one description of unlocking a character, that it would have been a lot easier to adopt a purchase system instead of these very long and difficult tasks and requirements to play as some of the more well known characters that this game has to offer.
As much as I don’t agree with it, I can understand why they went this direction and that is to stand out. They wanted to not only stand out from similar games in their genre, but also add replay-ability and extra tasks to break away from the root of the game.
Funko Fusion looks gorgeous on the Xbox Series X. It looks like they took your favorite licensed toy play sets and blew them up to be life sized and interactive. It make tithe game look really good and works to capture the imagination of a child as if they were playing with these toys on the living room floor. As good as the game looks, it does struggle a bit with performance.
The game has a lot going on from the numerous enemies on screen, bullets, explosions, destructible environments, to the large and detailed environments. Couple all of this with the game trying to hit a consistent 60FPS, and you have some serious issues with slowdown.
This is rather disappointing given that it’s running on the Xbox Series X and this game really shouldn’t be a problem for this high end of a console, but it does dip quite a bit with the FPS when there is a lot going on, on screen.
I believe the issues with performance are stemming from an engine or game mechanics issues as opposed to an issue with the Xbox Series X being able to handle the game and not cause issues with performance. The slow downs don’t’ happen too often, but they are noticeable and do kind of detract from the overall chaotic experience of the game.
Funko Fusion has some fantastic music, though the quality will differ depending on the level you’re playing. For instance, the Jurassic Park and The Thing worlds have fantastic music based on the movies that the levels are based on. But then you have worlds like Masters of the Universe based on the likes of He-Man, have horrible music that is rather repetitive and hard to listen to repeatedly given how short the music track is. As for sound effects and other aspects of sound, the game sounds really good and accurate.
In conclusion, if you ignore the repetitive music tracks in some levels or worlds, the overly difficult unlock methods for some of the more well known or like-able characters, and forgive the dips in performance, Funko Fusion is a rather enjoyable game. As frustrating as the game is, I think that this is a better take on the Lego adventure game formula of those games that came before it.
I would say that you like the Lego games and you want something that’s a bit different, then totally check out Funko Fusion on your platform of choice.
In addition to writing articles, Ryan Byers also creates content for his YouTube channel called "Obscure Games and Consoles", collects video games, and dabbles in video game development.