We were excited to hear about Toy Story: Retro Roundup! when it was first announced earlier this year. The collection of retro titles for everyone’s favourite living toys is out tomorrow on PC and consoles, with a physical edition also available for PlayStation and Switch. The physical collection also includes the remaster of the brilliant Toy Story 3, which we’ve also reviewed. Toy Story: Retro Roundup! has been developed by preservation experts Digital Eclipse, which has done a fine job once again in bringing together some great games in a series as well as all the usual interviews and behind-the-scenes extras we’ve come to expect from these kinds of releases.
Publisher Atari has also secured the rights for the PS1 game A Bug’s Life, which was another film animated by the Toy Story team at Pixar, so this collection is jam-packed with games to play and content to explore. For our review of Toy Story: Retro Roundup!, we’ve tried all the games in the Steam port. We must say that we’re huge fans of the films, as well as the games, and plan to review the Steam port of the Toy Story 3 remaster separately. So, has this curated collection of titles sent us to infinity and beyond, or are we stuck feeling like a miserable Mr Potato Head?
Before getting into the games themselves, we had a great injection of nostalgia just from starting the game with the title music being a rendition of Randy Newman‘s Strange Things, one of the best songs from the movies. What a great start, and it just got better as an option for a music player was on the main menu. So, we just sat and listened through a bunch of the film’s classic sing-alongs that’ve been rearranged, as well as many of the games’ soundtracks. It was wonderful spending time listening to these and a brilliant way to introduce the collection.
From there we went straight to the games, starting with the original release, trying all three versions on Genesis, Super Nintendo, and Game Boy. All the games have cheat menus that enable you to skip levels or add lives, and for those that just want to experience the games instead of challenging themselves to complete them, this feels like a great option. We were impressed with the emulation of the 2D games, and it was fun experimenting with CRT filters and the various options that the emulators had.
After playing through the first game we next tried A Bug’s Life, the extra game included as part of the package. While this does feel like a dated PS1 game by today’s standards, it still ran well in the emulator, and the controls mimic the originals very well. We played a couple of levels and moved on to the next Toy Story entry in the collection, Buzz Lightyear to the Rescue, which is loosely based around the second film. This again played fine for the most part, although there were a few occasions where the emulator stuttered. This was a small issue, though, and the majority of the game ran smoothly, especially the FMV sequences of the movie clips.
Next up was Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, a companion game to the cartoon based around the ‘real’ Buzz’s life. This felt like the weakest of all the games in the collection, and although there is lots of fun to be had, we struggled to get into it. The game plays very differently to the other games, being more of an action title than a platformer. This also had the odd moment of slowdown in the emulator, but again, infrequently and nothing that spoiled the overall game. We followed this up by trying out the rest of the Game Boy titles that were impressive in both emulation performance and how remarkably they play to this day.
We then got hooked on Toy Story Racer, a great racer that has so much to do that you’ll be playing it for a long time. This played brilliantly, and it felt hard to put down. It could be that this is the ‘hidden gem’ of this collection and the one that feels like a game you may play today. Thinking about all the games, we were impressed with the emulation performance and enjoyed the little extras such as a rewind and the cheat menus for those wanting a casual experience. The only letdown was a few niggles on some games, but these feel like the kinds of issues that will be easily patched out.
Beyond the games, Toy Story: Retro Roundup! also includes the now staple extras section where Digital Eclipse brings the stories of each game’s development to life with endearing interviews with the developers, as well as some retrospective thoughts through great documentary-style videos. This is all backed up by lots of concept art and other extras, before being tied up with a bow with the already mentioned music player. Overall, this is a fantastic package of Toy Story video game goodness that can be enjoyed by fans of the franchise and those who love learning about the history of video games.
