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Funkoverse: Jurassic Park Base and Expandalone Set Review

Posted by: Nick on March 31, 2020 at 12:13 PM CST

Thanks to our friends at Funko Games, we received some nice review samples of the newly released Jurassic Park Base and Expandalone Sets. Check out our gallery for a little sneak peak into this set.

For those of you not familiar with the Funkoverse games, they are strategy games that utilize specialized Funko Pop! figures exclusive to the game sets. Some of the characters, like Ray Arnold in this set, have not been produced before. The games are arranged according to a variety of scenarios and you can incorporate characters from other sets, like Harry Potter, Golden Girls, Batman, Rick and Morty, and soon Back to the Future and Jaws, to name a few.

Gameplay

The game was a little overwhelming to understand at first given the number of moving parts to gameplay between special moves, standard moves, and the variety of actions you can take in each turn among each of the characters. That is even before the scenarios get involved. We found it best to take a quick read through the rule book and watch an online video for an explanation. There is a link to the video on the rule book for the games. After seeing the video, it made the game a lot easier to understand and play. After about two matches we felt like experts and it was really easy to apply the basic understanding to any of the specific scenarios.

As far as the scenarios go, these sets came with four scenarios: territory, control, flags, and leaders. These scenarios appear consistent among all the Funkoverse games to date. Territory is about remaining in a scoring area throughout the round and knocking others out of it to hold on to the most territory to score the most points. Control is about having the most markers in the control areas at the end of each round, requiring you to activate markers or convert your opponent’s markers. Flags is a capture the flag game but you simply just need to make it to the flag. Lastly, leaders is a battle game, where you get more points for taking out leader characters, or your leader character taking out characters, etc. Of course in between these games all involve challenging your rivals to battle or outmaneuvering them, that’s where the strategy comes into play.

There are a few ways to outmaneuver your opponent in these games. The basic challenge involves rolling two dice against your opponent’s defense dice which ranges depending on their defensive number on the card. Simple math of who has more hits or defenses wins the bout. To ensure victory, characters have special abilities which allow them to utilize more dice or give them a strategic advantage in confrontation by moving away. These moves have a cost of a corresponding ability chip that requires a cooldown before it can be used again, hence strategy. The cooldown track shifts once per round, basically after everyone has utilized each of their game pieces. Ideally part of the strategy is having characters with similar ability colors to maximize how many times you can use that characters moves, again strategy. An additional fun feature is items. Items can be used by anyone and grant additional abilities, they also follow the same cooldown rule. You will be limited to an even number of items, so if you want to use more, you will have to purchase other sets.

The base set comes with four characters but it also includes two character tokens, non-Pop! characters with no special abilities. While the base game only allows for play of two to four, the expandalone set allows you to bring game play to six or play just the expansion pack with two. Ideally more sets means more players. The only restriction is having enough ability tokens in order to utilize special moves. To test out the variety of gameplay you can create and the interchangeability, we added the Target exclusive Kool-Aid Man expansion to the game and it worked really well. We were busting through walls and splash attacking dinosaurs. The only difference in play is the abilities. The games, point systems, and battle mechanics work the same. Kool-Aid Man has the ability to attack through walls and create holes for other players to traverse, adding a new dimension to the strategy game. You can really add any player here from the other sets and give them any item, we are really excited about the Back to the Future and Jaws sets for this reason.

Uniqueness

While each set has similar game mechanics, they do feature unique abilities, items, and settings. We absolutely loved the individual abilities for the human characters in the Jurrasic Park sets which featured Ian Malcom’s incessant snark or “must go faster”, Ellie Saddler’s inherit the earth, Alan Grant’s menacing speech, and Ray Arnold’s “hold onto your butts.” These really make this set Pop! (pun intended) and should make fans of the films happy. Ian even has a unique “chaos” die that he rolls. The raptor also comes with ambush tokens, that allow him to set up for multiple attacks or to jump around the board and surprise attack.

The items are also iconic. Alan’s raptor claw fossil, Tim’s night-vision goggles, and Ian’s flare. They each either assist with abilities or give you greater range on the board. They also fit in well with this character set. If we had a criticism here it would be that more items would have given more game variety and strategy. We would love to see an item expansion pack in the future, even blind bag items with their corresponding item cards.

The settings were also well chosen; the Visitor Center, Raptor Paddock, T. rex Paddock, and Isla Nublar Lab. All iconic settings from the movie and perfect for the game, any of which are playable with all of the characters (although smaller maps like the Lab start to get crowded with more than two to four players).

One other thing, the point tokens are unique to each set and this one is no exception. These sets feature amber points, and yes, some include mosquitos in the amber (not real of course).

Final Thoughts

We were not familiar with Funkoverse, which launched last fall, and we have to say we were quite impressed. The game is simple to understand and incredibly fun. We tested with both children and adults and both had a firm grasp of the game mechanics. It feels like so much more than a board game, and can be played really quick or longer depending on how you customize your play. We highly recommend for the gaming enthusiast or Jurassic Park fan in your life. In essence, Funkoverse is what all Funko Pop! fans wanted, an excuse to play with their Pop! in public. It seems life found a way.

Again, make sure to check out our gallery to see more of these sets.

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