Funko Fusion Review - Pop Culture Chaos with a Side of Frustration
10:10 Games’ Funko Fusion has left me with mixed feelings. Developed by many of the same people who worked on the LEGO game series, you can definitely see the influence. On one hand, its bright, colourful visuals feel like a kid-friendly product - it’s even listed under “Family & Kids” on the Xbox Store. On the other, its PEGI 16 rating, thanks to blood and mild horror elements (and I use both those words very loosely), puts it in an odd middle ground.
At its core, the game is straight up fan service — over twenty pop culture franchises are already represented, with the promise of more to come. On paper, it’s a dream for collectors and crossover fans. In practice… well, my feelings are complicated.
A Crown to Reclaim
The story is simple: Freddy Funko has had his crown stolen by an evil counterpart, Eddy, who’s corrupted worlds and filled them with his minions. To set things right, you’ll need to travel between worlds to recover the scattered crowns, restore Freddy’s power, and take down Eddy for good.
From the start, you can tackle worlds in any order you like - a nice bit of freedom that lets you unlock your favourite franchises first. Naturally, I went straight for The Thing world (because of course I did). If you follow my upcoming guide, you might notice that the sequence won’t match your own playthrough, meaning certain cameos or crowns could be inaccessible until you’ve unlocked the right items in the Item Dispensers.
Style and Substance… and Glitches
Since you’re playing as Funko Pops, the character style is exactly what you’d expect - big heads, small bodies, blank eyes. The environments, though, are a highlight: familiar, well-crafted worlds that are a joy to explore.
Unfortunately, Funko Fusion is plagued by technical hiccups. I’ve seen warped levels, missing textures, and whole chunks of the map vanish, letting me peer into the void. Pop-in is frequent, and environmental assets sometimes load at wildly different speeds, making certain levels a bit of a chore to load up, knowing that problems are almost certainly about to appear.
Some bugs are stranger than others - like Mer-Man spawning his bubble shield only to instantly despawn (skipping the fight entirely), or the camera deciding it would rather live inside my character’s head.
When Funny Becomes Frustrating
The glitches aren’t just visual. I’ve had enemies spawn inside walls (making them impossible to kill without restarting), and escort quests break because my companions decided to get stuck in fences, stair railings, snow piles… or, in the case of dinosaurs, in the corners of electrified pens I couldn’t even disable.
The first time, these mishaps were funny. The tenth time, they were just exhausting - especially when they meant I’d have to replay large chunks of a level. Crowns and collectibles you’ve already picked up stay collected after quitting, which softens the blow, but you still have to sit through unskippable opening cutscenes and redo all the platforming or combat just to get back to where you were, all the while knowing the risk of the same thing happening again.
Where’s the Free Play?
And here’s the kicker - despite all its faults, Funko Fusion still hits that completionist sweet spot in my brain. I need to see every box ticked at the end of a level, which means I keep coming back for “just one more run.” The problem? There’s no Free Play mode, unlike the LEGO games that clearly inspired it. So if you want to revisit a level to scoop up missed collectibles, tough luck - you’ll be forced to watch the opening cutscene again (later ones in the same level are thankfully skippable) and replay huge sections just to reach that one item you’re missing. Even worse, all previously unlocked doors and shortcuts reset to their story state, meaning you have to fight and puzzle your way back through as if you’ve never been there before.
I’ve finished the story, but with a handful of Cameo missions and crowns left, 100% completion still taunts me from the menu. And it’s not like I missed these things by mistake - some are impossible to grab the first time through because you don’t yet have the right characters or buildable items. Having to slog through almost the entire campaign again just to claim them is exhausting. Here’s hoping Free Play gets patched in soon, because right now, that shiny “all done” feeling is buried under a lot of unnecessary repetition.
Typos, Co-op Delays, and Pricing Quirks
Small but noticeable polish issues pop up, too - like the “Inflata” weapon repeatedly being labelled “Infalta” until you fully unlock it - not game breaking, but still sloppy. Co-op, which was meant to be ready at launch, is only just getting ready to roll out - starting with Jurassic World, with others to follow.
Then there’s the price: £54.99 at launch on Xbox feels steep, especially when there are add-on packs like The Walking Dead set at £8.99 for just two characters and two variant outfits. Oddly enough, you can get the Bob Ross Bundle — the main game plus the Bob Ross DLC - for £39.99, which is cheaper than the base game alone. Go figure. With Black Friday around the corner, it’s worth waiting for a discount.
There are some free DLC packs (like Team Fortress 2’s four characters), which gives me hope they’ll keep adding freebies. But there are also physical toys that unlock in-game content, which makes me wary of how much will eventually be locked behind purchases.
Final Thoughts
Despite its flaws - and there are many - Funko Fusion scratches a certain completionist itch that keeps me coming back. I want every crown, every cameo, every collectible. It’s charming, colourful, and packed with fan service, but it’s also buggy, occasionally frustrating, and oddly restrictive for a game built on replaying worlds. It’s like a Funko Pop with a smudged paint job. Still collectible and somewhat charming, but you can’t ignore the flaws staring right back at you.
In the end, we decided to give Funko Fusion the Collecting Asylum rating of 7/10.
Are you interested in Funko Fusion? What do you think of it?
Let us know in the comments below!
- V x
Thank you to 10:10 Games for the Funko Fusion Xbox review code!
