The Lego games have been on top of their genre forever now, mostly because there really hasn’t been much to challenge them. Little Big Planet may have been the closest for a while, but its impossible to keep up with the speed those games were coming out. Now though, we’ve got two more games in a short period set to challenge the genre. Astro Bot and the subject of this review, Funko Fusion. Funko Fusion takes a bunch of pop culture IPs and gives you a chance to experience them in Funko Pop form.

Surely Simon Pegg would have been happy to voice his character in this!

In the surface, Funko Fusion should be a great game for families to play. Much like the aforementioned Lego games, it’s full of puzzles and a pretty big variety of characters to choose from. On top of that, there are additional cameos for you to find along the way! Do you want to play through Hot Fuzz, or challenge Skeletor as He-Man? This is the place for you! Now, unfortunately, this is where things start to get a bit messy.

It’s hard to understand who this game is for, since all the references are either fairly old, or for a more mature audience. The most recent references are probably the cameos from M3GAN and Five Nights At Freddy’s, and yes while a lot of the younger generation watch YouTubers play Five Nights At Freddy’s, they don’t seem to be Funko Fusion’s target. This is game is rated for mature audiences, so it’s more meant for older teens and adults, it seems.

This gets confusing when the game itself is pretty simple. Solve some very basic puzzles given the very few options you have for gear to actually solve them. On top of that, it’s also randomly a third person shooter. Honestly, these fight sections don’t feel good at all. The aiming controls don’t feel comfortable at all, enemies spawn in excessively higher than they feel like they should have, and it feels like a way to drive up the playtime artificially.

Every boss is the same thing, just a big version of a main enemy covered in purple goo.

I can’t say that Funko Fusion doesn’t look good; to be fair, the recreation of these worlds is done very well. The colours are vibrant and pop a lot more than they even do in some of the series that they’re based on. Let me give you an example: Hot Fuzz. That, for instance, is movie based in Britain, and let’s be real, this is a very grey country and while they didn’t make the building neon green or anything like that, the colours aren’t as drab as just a shallow grey.

On the other side though, while this isn’t specifically a graphics issue, the amount of frame drops, visual freezing, etc., is insane. There’s not a massive amount going on on the screen at any time, so this just shouldn’t be happening. It’s a poorly optimized game. Granted, it probably has to do with the excessive amount of enemies they’re trying to spawn offscreen.

Adam’s got a gun.

Furthmore, there’s a massive issue with softlocking in this game. Enemies that need to go through phases have a habit of not actually transitioning between them, making them impossible to defeat, locking you out of progressing the level. The first He-Man level had this issue for me, softlocking on the two main enemies you need to defeat. It was massively frustrating, since the game barely tells you what your objective is anyways, so in a situation where it’s really only telling you “protect the tower” and “defeat enemy,” it’s impossible to know what’s a mechanic, and what’s a softlock until you figure it out.

To make matters even worse, my biggest issue with Funko Fusion is the sound design. Of course, much like many older Lego games, characters don’t talk, so outside of random grunts like they’re Minecraft villagers, the characters are silent. As for the music, every track is a really short loop in the majority of these levels. The songs generally aren’t very engaging, and feel like they were an afterthought when someone realised how quiet these levels were without any character dialogue.

How could such a terrible tragedy happen?

I have no idea who Funko Fusion was meant for, and I don’t know why this game even exists. Considering the mature sense of humor and somewhat obscure references, the simplistic gameplay loop and premise don’t fit at all with its “charming” Lego-esque vibes. There are so many sections that miss the mark, and this game relies fully on the series names and characters that are in it. Some of them might be neat, but rarely do they feel like a reason for you to even consider picking the game up. Add in game breaking bugs, softlocks and more, and there’s basically no reason to give Funko Fusion a go, even for an ironic playthrough.

Funko Fusion is available now on PS4, PS5, Xbox Series S/X and PC

Reviewed on Xbox Series X.

A copy of Funko Fusion was provided by the publisher.