Funko Pops have been a staple in the pop culture community since they were first released in 2010. Since then every franchise, character and sports personality seemingly gets their chance to be recreated in plastic with dull black eyes and a signature pose. It was only a matter of time before Funko got their own game after recently getting their animated specials, they seem to be following the Lego brand in terms of infiltration into other media.
Now we have our first game from 10:10 Studios, interestingly enough made up of developers from the early Lego games over at TT Games. Instead of big franchises like Harry Potter, Marvel, DC or even Star Wars, 10:10 has delved into franchises from Universal, Netflix and Mattel. What should have been a slam dunk for these franchises infused with the Funko pop style, has instead turned out to be a complete mess that is full of so many bugs, I couldn’t even finish the game. I played on PlayStation 5 with performance mode, after the graphics mode just kept crashing it, and it still wasn’t enough to be able to play properly.
Which World Next?
The game has 7 franchised hub worlds that contain five stages that serve as the story. These franchises include Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, The Umbrella Academy, The Thing, Jurassic World, He-Man & The Masters of the Universe, Battlestar Galactica and Hot Fuzz.
When each of the five levels in the hub world is completed, you unlock a World Crown which then allows you to choose the next franchise you want to play through. Located inside the main worlds are Cameo Levels, these are other franchises that are hidden inside certain levels and include some pretty heavy hitters like Jaws, The Mummy, Invincible, Back to the Future and Five Nights at Freddy’s, to name a few. Don’t get your hopes on being able to jump easily into these however, as the game requires certain abilities for different franchises before you can access them.
The combat here is fairly simple, each character has a projectile weapon of sorts. Some characters have special moves, for example, The Thing characters have a flamethrower that allows you to take on the alien creature successfully. Each character also has a melee weapon that is a callout to their franchise.
Danny Butterman from Hot Fuzz whacks enemies with a Cornetto, The Velociraptor from Jurassic World has a half-eaten chicken leg and KFC’s infamous Colonel Sanders shoots chicken nuggets at enemies. It does add that extra bit of charm and fan service if you are in the know. Apart from that, it is a fairly stock standard attack system, there are different weapons that you can pick up as items from gold chests in the game, but it doesn’t seem to add any major effect to defeating enemies any quicker.
Apart from shooting enemies to get the key to exit the level, there are a ton of items to collect and discover in each level. If you weren’t willing to buy a bucket of KFC to get a code to unlock Colonel Sanders (I’m not joking!) you will find a KFC bucket in each level to collect to unlock him the hard way. Fossils hidden around levels unlock different characters and perks. Most characters have a variant look and this can be unlocked using the Funko Pop dots littered throughout the level akin to the Lego game studs.
Nooks and Crannies
There is also a puzzle element to the game, but it is minimal and more often than not they are quite basic. The game does take some leaps with the Hot Fuzz level in particular attempting to make things trickier than they initially were, but overall they are on a basic level similar to the Lego titles. Enemies do take a lot of popping to defeat which can be quite frustrating, Different weapons don’t do any more or less damage which doesn’t create any kind of innovative gameplay.
The design of the characters does reflect their real-life counterparts. They are beautifully detailed and swapping between franchises and characters is fluid. It’s a shame that the game is full of bugs that affect both the frame rate and general performance during intense battles and if there are too many details on screen.
Unfortunately, this was only the start of my issues with the game. One level in the Thing forced me to restart the level five times to get the end Funkey to generate. Several levels wouldn’t have any audio play during cut scenes and then chop in and out during gameplay. In the first level of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, the first encounter keeps repeating and doesn’t let you progress. After eight attempts I have stopped trying to continue and will just wait for a patch to come through.
It’s a shame that Funko Fusion has landed so badly, with an additional 6 months of development time, the team at 10:10 could have ironed out some of the game-breaking bugs and allowed for the finalisation of the Nintendo Switch and PS4 versions to allow for a bigger release. The blending of franchises is fantastic to see and it is great that more horror and adult-skewed entertainment can fill this space in the gaming world.
Hopefully, with some patches, it will improve over time. For all of its faults, the game does look nice. Each level and hub world is meticulously detailed and specific to the franchise it belongs to. He-Man and the Masters of the Universe has this cool cartoon 1980s aesthetic that suits it, while Hot Fuzz feels like the small British village it does in the movie.
Final Thoughts
Funko Fusion had the opportunity to be an adult-skewed Lego-style game that families could play together. The hub worlds are great to explore and are beautifully detailed, it’s a shame that all of it is completely lost in game-breaking bugs that make it almost impossible to play. If you do persevere, you will find yourself having to play the same levels over and over to get through them. Hopefully, 10:10 Studios will release some patches to improve this in the future and the game will deliver the experience we hoped for.
TWO AND A HALF STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
Highlights: Adult and horror franchises we haven’t seen in gaming before
Lowlights: Game-breaking bugs that make it impossible to play, Repetitive gameplay with no innovation
Developer: 10:10 Games
Publisher: 10:10 Games
Platforms: PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4 (November 2024), Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch (December 2024), Windows PC.
Available: Now
Review conducted on PlayStation 5 with a release code provided by the publisher.
