Funko Fusion

Fortunately, I've managed to stop myself from buying too many Funko Pop figures, but there have been a few over the years. After all, they're available as practically every pop culture phenomenon and more (I have a few from Masters of the Universe and Ronald Reagan on my shelf), so it's easy to see why they're so popular.

Now that 10:10 Games has turned Funko Pop figures into video games, they've done just that and there's an almost shockingly wide range of brands to play with, from old classics like Universal Classic Monsters to 80s legends like Back to the Future and Knight Rider to more modern phenomena like Nope and M3gan. As the adventure begins, you get to choose which series you want to play as and pick one of four associated characters, with me deciding to start with childhood favourite Masters of the Universe, more specifically as Man-at-Arms.

What greets me is a colourful world and a tutorial level, designed to teach me the basics. However, anyone with even a passing familiarity with video games will be immediately hooked. The basic setup is standard template 1A for third-person action where you move with the left analogue stick and control the camera with the right. The right trigger button lets you shoot from the hip and holding the left trigger gives you Aim Down Sight. The A button lets you jump and the others are used to pick things up, for example, while the control board is mainly used to select consumables (more life, for example).

Although it is essentially a third-person shooter, the gameplay of Funko Fusion is quite similar to the Lego games. However, the characters are significantly larger and closer to the camera in the same way as in Gears of War, for example. Of course, all Funko characters are unique and move at different speeds, have different types of weapons and so on, but the differences are still a little less than I would have hoped for and I rarely find it makes a big difference which one I choose. In the unlikely event that you do find yourself dissatisfied, you can switch during the adventure almost whenever you want.

Funko Fusion features seven worlds that you unlock one by one, but before you get that far, we meet Freddy Funko, whose factory is under attack by the evil Eddy Funko who is after the former's crown. After a battle between the two, the campaign begins where Freddy's now destroyed crown must be restored by you. This is the basic premise, but I think it works very well because the story is obviously created with a twinkle in the eye and as an excuse to go on adventures in beloved worlds with equally beloved characters.

The levels are rarely designed in a traditional way and thus do not necessarily revolve around getting from point A to B, but around scenarios. Instead, your goal is to complete special tasks such as surviving Jurassic Park chaos or stopping Skeletor from taking over Castle Grayskull. The stages are littered with items to unlock and collect, and are absolutely crawling with enemies. In addition, you need to collect Vinyl, currency, which you can use to buy upgrades, more lives and bonus items.

So far so good, and there's a lot I like about Funko Fusion, not least the Cameo Levels and Cameo Quests which offer small doses of fanservice to further enrich the Funko Pop feel that this really is a fruit salad of all brands. The only problem is that it's not very fun to play.

The sense of polish is missing and it's often a bit unclear what you're actually supposed to do next. Without really knowing why, I often complete sub-objectives and get a new mission, and sometimes I just run around for a small eternity trying to figure out what to do to trigger the continuation - all while an endless amount of enemies spawn in seemingly random locations and shoot at me without me even having the chance to see them.

The controller vibrates almost incessantly while shots are being fired, and those who want to be able to dodge and slide away without taking hits will quickly realise in frustration that this is simply not possible. The game controls are too clunky and if you can't see the enemy that just spawned in your neck, you won't see the shot in the back of your head either. To heal, you have to drink from a plastic bottle (which can be pawned for extra vinyl - a fun touch), which is done by holding the X button, but getting shot cancels the animation. The bottom line is that you can run around trying to revive yourself without success, which is incomparably frustrating.

If you die, you turn into a ghost and have to pay money to be revived, but only a certain number of times before you get the Game Over screen. Co-op is sadly lacking, although it's on the way, but having someone to play with who could revive me after a death, or cover me when I'm trying to use lives, would really do wonders for the game. It also doesn't help that it's plagued with several technical flaws that have caused me to have to restart courses several times.

There's also an awful lot of so-called gating to unlock things. Just like in the Lego games, you can return to already completed tracks to try and find everything, and some plastic figures are downright hopeless to get (KFC legend Colonel Sanders is one of the biggest culprits). If you know you loved unlocking all the Lego figures in the Lego games, you'll like this one too, but to me it feels like rather dull design and when the basic gameplay doesn't hold up, it becomes more of a chore than entertainment.

Overall, it's hard to shake the feeling that Funko Fusion is probably a beta rather than a finished game. It's a bit too loosely put together without that overall glue that makes it feel cohesive. And not one of the different parts is particularly good because polish is missing. I solve problems but don't know what I did, use bonus items without knowing what they do, and cutscenes are activated without me really understanding why. And once I do figure out what to do, like killing a certain number of animals, it's mostly monotonously boring.

The highlight of Funko Fusion is the characters crowded in here, from Scott Pilgrim to Marty McFly and Mega Man himself, often with really cool designs and often well-known music snippets that give instant endorphin kicks. But that's not enough. With more time in the oven and especially co-op, this could have climbed several rating sticks up, but at the moment it's hard to recommend this to anything but die hard fans of Funko Pop. But even for them, the question is whether it is not better to spend the money on some more plastic figures for the collection instead.