Funko Fusion

Platforms: PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC

They're everywhere. You can't escape them. You probably even own some although, chillingly, you can't quite remember ever buying one. Funko Pops: those omnipresent four-inch bobbleheads that have flooded toy and geek culture stores across the planet, re-imagining characters from everything from Transformers to Terminator, Batman to Back to the Future in dead-eyed, misshapen form.

We're not being needlessly harsh calling them dead-eyed and misshapen – it's a self-deprecating gag that developer 10:10 Games makes itself in the opening minutes of this video game cross-(pop)cultural mashup, while it's trying to introduce what passes for the overarching plot. Starting off in the Funko Factory, Freddy – company mascot, the closest we have to a real-life Vault Boy from Fallout, and… king of all Funkos, it seems? – is overthrown by his evil counterpart Eddy, who infects the Funko multiverse with purple goo. But, like, evil purple goo? Anyway, cue a dive through a host of alternate realities, chasing down Eddy and defeating the minions he's corrupted in each world.

There's not a drop of the clever consideration in how a character's skills could impact the game world that you'd find in a Lego game.

Structurally, Funko Fusion really, really wants to be a Lego game. Desperately, ardently, transparently so. It's woven into the very fabric of the mechanics, but never in ways that really fit. Where everything in a Lego game can be smashed into studs, used as currency to buy stuff in-game, it makes sense to anyone who's built a Lego set – they're intrinsic to the real-life toys, they're sort of coin shaped, it just works. When you smash stuff up here, you get chunks of vinyl, the only connection being that Funkos are… made of plastic? Similarly, swap out red or gold Bricks for completing objectives in Lego for silver or gold Crowns here – which, at least, fit the Funko logo – and match like-for-like the ability to switch between characters at will.

That last one should at least be an easy win for Funko Fusion, with the litany of properties it adapts ostensibly laying the groundwork for plenty of fun character abilities, but even here it drops the ball. Despite having seven worlds to adventure through – Jurassic World, Scott Pilgrim, The Umbrella Academy, the original 1980s Masters of the Universe, Hot Fuzz, The Thing, and 1970s Battlestar Galactica – there's rarely much difference in which character you're controlling. Some may have a shield rather than a dodge move, but there's not a drop of the clever consideration in how a character's skills could impact the game world that you'd find in a Lego game.

Take the Masters of the Universe levels – while you can freely switch between playing as Prince Adam, Teela, Man-At-Arms, or Orko, the choice is effectively redundant. Every stage is ultimately centred on transforming Adam into He-Man, rendering the remaining heroes pointless. Elsewhere, opportunities that could utilise specific skills are overlooked – for instance Orko always floats, which could be put to use hovering over gaps, but he's just as trapped by poor game design as any of the others.

The one gameplay aspect that's vaguely unique to Funko Fusion is that much of its combat is in the form of third-person shooting. Unfortunately, it's terrible, frustrating, off-target-even-with-aim-assist-at-max shooting. Worse, you'll too often be swarmed by an infinite horde of enemies spawning out of nowhere, providing little respite to actually solve the environmental puzzles you'll be tasked with in most levels. Worse still, those puzzles are frequently unintuitive – it's entirely possible to spend ages dodging waves of grunts to activate doohickies that look for all the world to be the way to defeat a boss, only for them to do essentially nothing.

Then again, maybe those doohickies should do something, but not doing so is just one of Funko Fusion's many, many bugs. We encountered bosses who visually disappeared mid-battle, side quests that didn't unlock even after completing the requirements for them, and multiple complete game crashes (on PS5, version tested). And, while not a bug, every single transition from gameplay to cutscene is preceded by a jarring black screen, interrupting what little flow exists here. This is a sloppy release by any measure.

There are some good points here, chiefly in the form of the clear love shown to each of the properties included here – lo-fi theme music in hub areas, in-jokes and deep-cut references for more hardcore fans, some smart visual gags in places – but it's not enough to make up for the awful presentation. Perhaps the most depressing aspect is that, in a game that already exists solely to be a #Brand #Synergy #Crossover, 10:10 manage to plumb new depths by having a collectible, found in all of the worlds, be KFC buckets. Lego games are all brand collabs too, but none feel as soulless as Funko Fusion.

A glitchy, inconsistent mess, Funko Fusion shamelessly cribs notes but doesn't even have the decency to turn out a decent clone. Like most Funko Pops, this is best left in the box.