If you’ve been wandering the aisles of Target, the odds are pretty good that you’ve seen one of these Funkoverse Games on the shelves. 

With the big head, cutsie FunkoPOP toy factor front and center on the cover, it’s hard to miss them, and they’re definitely adorable enough to make just about anyone stop and pick it up.

However until recently, I have dismissed it all together, concerned that it was more toy than game, and left it on the shelf. But thanks to a great sale and the strong allure of my favorite pop culture paleontologist Ellie Sattler, I finally gave in.

How Do You Play?

While the Characters and the items they can hold in the Funkoverse games are unique and different, each game set has universal elements that you can expect to find in each box, including a double sided map board, and four scenario cards to play through that match the map locations.

The aim of the game will depend on which scenario you are playing, but your turns themselves are very straight forward. On your turn you have two actions, you’ll choose one of your characters to take these two actions with, then it is your opponents turn. Once you use a character, that character is “exhausted” and can’t be used again during that round. A round is over when each player has used each of their characters.

Actions

There are certain basic actions that each character can take, such as move, challenge, assist, and rally. Then each Funko character also has three unique abilities that players can use by spending energy tokens to activate, plus one passive ability that activates when certain conditions are met.

When you challenge an opponent (family friendly attack) you’ll roll two dice while your opponent rolls dice equal to their defense ability. If you roll more successes on the dice as the challenger, you win the challenge and knock down your opponent, laying them across the space they were standing on. Knocked down opponents can be attacked. If they are attacked successfully again, they are Knocked Out and placed on the bottom of a players cool down track. (Don’t worry, your knocked out characters will reenter the game with the next round.)

If you are knocked down, you can either use one of your characters to assist your knocked down character to sit up, or you can use your rally ability to stand that character up on their own.

Cool Down Track and End of Round

Whenever you use an energy token to use a special character ability, use an item, or interact with a location marker on the map, you must then place that token, item, or location marker on a specific spot on the cool down track. The spot it is placed varies based on the strength of that ability.

At the end of a round, each player will move down each item on their cool down track one spot. If moving it down pushes it off the track, it reenters play. The stronger the ability/item/marker, the higher it is placed on the track and thus more turns it takes for it to reenter the game.

End of Game

The Game ends when a player completes the end game objective on the scenario card.

If playing with the basic “first game” rules, No scenario cards are used and rather the first person to knock out a single character from their opponent wins the game.

What Do We Think?

Over all, I’ve gotta say that I was wrong about the Funko games! These are actually a lot of fun and I really enjoy the light weight tactical strategy genre that these fit into. Tactical games can sometimes get into the weeds a bit with their bevy of rules and regulations. These funko games cut through all of that and streamline the whole process making it much more fun for a wider range of players. (It’s even easier than Tiny Epic Tactics, which would be a great step up from Funko when your kids are ready. Here’s our review of that one.)

It’s great for families, but especially kids in that tween age. I could see friends having an absolute blast getting together with their funkoverse characters and engaging in different challenges against one another, swapping characters in and out of teams. If you’re a fan of any of the (many) properties that the Funkoverse games span, you’ll definitely get a kick out of their game. I’m a huge Jurassic Park fan. So being able to use Ray’s “Hold onto your butts” action never fails to make me smile. And obviously it’s a requirement to do your best Ellie Sattler impersonation when you activate her “Run!” ability. 

The coolest part of the Funkoverse games is that all of them have the same general rules, so once you learn how to play one, you can play all of them. Yet each game still feels unique because of the different scenarios and special characters you begin collecting. From a marketing standpoint, it’s genius.

The basic “first game” rules are very simple. While these aren’t rules that make for the fullest game experience, I highly recommend them for younger players, especially those that are early readers. Learning how to move and challenge opponents is important and still makes for a fun game for younger players who, after all, mostly just want to play with the toys. 

The various scenarios are where the fun really happens though. Our two games each came with 4 scenario cards, which again, can be mixed and matched with various characters to your heart’s content. Who doesn’t want Bellatrix and Batgirl to team up against Batman and a Raptor? 

Mix and Match to Create Your Team

This ability to mix and match creates almost a deck-building like feel to the game. Players will be able to find which characters they like to use best, creating a team that works well together that can span multiple pop culture universes, and then outfit them all with unique items that you can use during the game. Once you learn how each character works, you’ll know when you’ll want to draft them onto your team based on which scenario you’re facing. Again, genius marketing. 

We thought the cooldown system was really clever. This was great for keeping players whose characters had really cool abilities or items from being able to activate them again and again. The better the ability or item, the longer you’ll have to wait before you can use it again, so you’ll want to take that into consideration before using those prime abilities.

It’s such a simple and innovative design that makes it easy for anyone to use! 

While the game says that you can play with up to four players, I would argue that that’s not exactly accurate. The funkoverse games are a two player game, so if you want to have more players, you’ll be playing as a team 2v2. While this works well for parents with younger kids (we have our son team up with us so he can work on his reading and have some help with the tactical strategy) your most enjoyment will come from just playing it as a 2 player game. 

Do You Need A Bunch of Sets?

A huge hesitation for me with games like these are the feeling of needing to buy a bunch of sets or expansions to get the best playing experience. That adds up quickly. However, while the creativity and “army building” fun that will come from having a wide range of characters to choose from is exciting, I don’t think it’s ultimately necessary. If you only ever buy one set you’ll still have a lot of fun.

Do I see myself becoming a collector of Funko games now? Due to space constraints, probably not, but since the kids get such a kick out of playing with them I’m glad we have the three sets we do so they can mix and match. If anything we’ll snag the extra Jurassic Park characters because my son (okay, me!) loves those movies so much, so fingers crossed for an Owen funko! I could however definitely see us acquiring a Marvel version if they ever come out with that. We all have our weaknesses.

When looking at the games, you’ll notice that they come in two different types of sets, a 4 character set, and a 2 character set. Both games are stand alone games and can be played on their own or combined. We recommend going with the 4 character set to begin, and then adding the 2 character set in addition to it if desired.

And of course, some characters can be purchased separately, like the Kool-Aid man which gives you the ability to bust through walls. Oh Yeahhhh!

Summary

If we’re honest with ourselves, we are all looking for ways to unlock our inner child and play with toys again. The Funkoverse Strategy Games give us just that excuse. The light, introductory tactical strategy experience makes for a really fun game that is bound to bring smiles as it’s filled with your favorite characters. 

This is not a toy disguised as a game. With huge toy factor, the game offers a lot of great opportunities for players to try out different strategy and make calculated, tactical choices. Those tactical decisions start at the very beginning as you choose who to include on your team. The mix and match potential of this system is endless and definitely where the fun will truly shine. 

Funkoverse would make for a great gift for any kid in that 10-14 age range or any fans of the pop culture properties the games belong to. 

There are multiple different Funkoverse sets and expansions.
Here are a few sets to check out.

Jurassic Park (Ellie Sattler forever)
Harry Potter (Accio Funko!)
Jaws (Okay, I might need to get this one just for the shark)
Golden Girls (You know Dorothy came to battle!)

Game Info:
Title: Funkoverse Strategy Game: Jurassic Park 100 / DC Batman 100 / Harry Potter 100
2-4 Players Ages 10+
Designer: Prospero Hall
Publisher: Funko Games

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