Toy Story Retro Roundup! is an odd but welcome selection of platforming gems ideal for long-time Toy Story fans to revisit. The collection, published by Atari and assembled by Digital Eclipse, bundles together five classic games based on the Pixar franchise, plus an A Bug's Life tie-in title, in another retro curio packaged by the retro specialists.
A trip back to the 90s
Being a child of the 90s, the reviewer recalls the classic 'try before you buy' method of video game enjoyment thanks to PS1 demo discs. The collection instantly transported the reviewer back to this period, bringing back memories of playing the first level of Toy Story 2: Buzz Lightyear to the Rescue endlessly without actually owning the game - until now.
This, alongside the chaotic but enjoyable Toy Story Racer, are the absolute standouts of the collection. Toy Story 3 is also available as a standalone purchase. When taken as a whole, there is a lot of joy here for hardcore Toy Story fans, young and old, to discover, further proving that not every licensed video game tie-in was rubbish.
Standout titles
The PS1 version of Toy Story 2: Buzz Lightyear to the Rescue is the gem in this roundup. A tie-in to the 1999 movie, you play as Buzz Lightyear moving through semi-open environments spanning Andy's room and Al's Toy Barn in what is best described as a platforming collect-a-thon. It barely adheres to the events of the movie, but as a colourful and moderately ambitious way to explore environments previously glimpsed on-screen in a fully 3D adventure, it has its charms well over a quarter century on.
Toy Story Racer, which arrived two years after the fact, made great use of each toy's oversized environment by letting Woody and the gang race through the attic, shopping mall, and even the Pizza Planet restaurant from the first movie. Developer TT Games - or Traveller's Tales, as it was known back in the day - bottled an almost uncontrollable degree of chaos into the game, capitalising on the kart racing trend in a way that still feels random all these years later, but is nonetheless enjoyable.
Hit and miss elsewhere
The other Toy Story titles are more hit and miss. Included is the cartoon-aligned Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, which lets you explore actual planets but loses some charm in the process. There is also Toy Story 2 on the Game Boy Color, which is fine, and the original eponymous game, a traditional 2D platformer regardless of whether you delve into the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, SNES, or Game Boy version. The latter is a wink to Toy Story video games' earliest era, but they do not hold up too well as a pure play experience.
Equally odd is the inclusion of the A Bug's Life PS1 game, another demo disc throwback. Despite having nothing to do with Toy Story aside from the Pixar connection, it is a fun enough if somewhat awkward to control 3D explore-a-thon that lets you explore environments from a shrunken-down size as Flik. The Game Boy Color version is also included, although due to its limited visuals it does not muster up the same magic as its big brother version.
Museum-like presentation
Toy Story Retro Roundup! is definitely a mixed bag, with mileage that will vary depending on your affection for the first three Toy Story movies or the tie-in games themselves. The collection is worth it alone for Digital Eclipse's stellar museum-like presentation, which takes you through the making and lineage of all the games included, packing in plenty of concept art, behind-the-scenes materials, and original interviews with the creators, including Tom Hanks' brother, Jim, who has voiced Woody for almost as long as his acting kin.
Toy Story 3 Complete Edition, available as a standalone purchase or picked up alongside the Toy Story Retro Roundup! in a double pack, offers newly-refreshed visuals, silky-smooth 60fps, and improved controls. Based on the 2010 movie, it is a surprisingly faithful adaptation across 13 distinct levels. The separate Toy Box mode allows players to build out and design their own Western town as a raft of familiar characters, in what turned out to be the progenitor for Avalanche Software's Disney Infinity series. It is a shame that the original Xbox 360 version has since been delisted due to this remaster's arrival, but as a glow up it gets the job done.
Toy Story Retro Roundup! + Toy Story 3 seem like random pulls in the wider canon of recent remasters and retro collections. However, they are further evidence that a lot of early tie-in games from gaming's awkwardest era, when all things 2D were transitioning to 3D, are also worth commemorating and preserving for the modern generation of players to enjoy. Toy Story Retro Roundup! + Toy Story 3 are set to release on PC, Xbox, PS5, and Nintendo Switch this Thursday, October 13.
