Review – Toy Story Retro Roundup! + Toy Story 3 Complete Edition Double Pack

I’m a ’90s baby, so I definitely know what a Buzz Lightyear supply shortage means. After seeing Toy Story on home video around 1996, I was fixated on the Space Ranger. I wanted the toy behind the, well, toy. However, the VHS would also advertise the Toy Story video game for Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo. This stuck out in my mind because it looked so much like the movie did. As I grew older, I would get my first console: a PlayStation. Not long after that, into my hands fell Activision and Travelers Tales’ Toy Story 2: Buzz Lightyear To The Rescue. Even at a fresh six years old, I would tell you that such a game was better than it had any right to be. 

Atari and Digital Eclipse’s latest collection is lasered in on someone like me who remembers how quality the Toy Story brand was through its video game releases. Toy Story Retro Roundup compiles all of Activision and Traveler’s Tales’ excellent Toy Story platformers and spinoffs in addition to A Bug’s Life as a treat. The double pack also comes with Avalanche’s legendary Toy Story 3 video game, complete with all of the content that was once exclusive to the PlayStation 3 version of the game. While typing all of this makes me feel old, actually playing the games in this fantastic package has made me feel like a giddy six year-old again. 

Included here are a total of five titles: Toy Story, Toy Story 2: Buzz Lightyear To The Rescue, Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, Toy Story Racer, and A Bug’s Life (in addition to their respective Game Boy/Game Boy Color versions). All of the console games with the exception of Toy Story, which is a Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo game, are the PlayStation versions. The polygonal games benefit from a 4X resolution option that makes them appear modern and smooth. Thankfully, a CRT filter is also here so the games can be seen as intended with no jumping pixels or jagged appearances. 

 

 

What’s so cool about the Toy Story Retro Roundup package is how the games included here tell Activision’s and Traveler’s Tales’ story. What might look like an otherwise typical compilation holds quite a bit of historical significance. As you’ll find out through the video interviews Digital Eclipse has packed in to Retro Roundup’s museum, A Bug’s Life was Disney Interactive’s first-ever 3D video game. And Toy Story for Sega Genesis used real animation from Pixar for both Woody and Scud, Sid’s dog. There’s a story to be told behind every game included, such as how Buzz Lightyear of Star Command used the show’s voice cast or how Super Mario 64 directly influenced Toy Story 2: Buzz Lightyear To The Rescue. 

If you’re a fan of 3D platformers in particular, Retro Roundup is quite giving. Both A Bug’s Life and Toy Story 2 are fantastic collectathons. The fact that no loading screens were needed to get from room to room is still impressive given the scope of the anthills and neighborhoods that Flick and Buzz explore respectively. They’re also occasionally a decent challenge. I remembered how harrowing I thought the Construction Site level in Toy Story 2 was as a kid, and I still felt that same way this go-around. Stupid Jackhammer boss. Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, on the other hand, is an anomaly. By combining a linear corridor platformer with an on-foot racer against a boss character, it plays more like a time trial in a kart racer. I appreciate that it is included here as it ends up being an appropriate gap filler between Toy Story 2’s and Toy Story Racer’s gameplay. 

 

 

Speaking of 3D platformers, Toy Story 3 Complete Edition is really a sight to behold. It looks great on Switch 2. This isn’t a game that I played when it originally released, but I remember the ambitions its developers had for what could have been a simple movie tie-in. Here in 2026, there’s still a lot of love and care that reflect in Toy Story 3’s final product. For one, you get to play the movie’s opening train heist sequence in full AND the Buzz Lightyear: Attack On Zurg video game opening sequence from Toy Story 2. That’s just amazing. Also, the entire Toy Box mode is here and feels just as massive and relevant as it did back in 2010.

The Toy Box mode deserves its own paragraph as it is essentially an entirely different game than playing through the movie events like you’d expect. Toy Box mode can be considered a proto-cozy game. If you’ve ever filled a vacant spot with buildings that can be customized, helped various townspeople out with their requests at a moment’s notice and done a laundry list’s worth of odd jobs and tasks, you can somewhat thank Toy Box mode. While it was mainly the blueprint for Disney Infinity, I feel its influence in Disney Dreamlight Valley as well as numerous other cozy games. And it is content-rich, to be sure. You’ll stop bank robberies, race around stunt tracks in RC cars and even long-distance vault citizens between cacti… for sport! Yeah, I have to think Toy Story and Lego have similar senses of humor. 

 

 

Admittedly, I didn’t feel that the character swapping moments in Toy Story 3’s story mode made for nearly as fun of an experience as some of its predecessors. And you’re better off not even touching the Game Boy games with their slow, clunky controls and barebones gameplay. If I had to pick a favorite title out of those included in the double pack though, I’d say my childhood nostalgia towards Toy Story 2: Buzz Lightyear To The Rescue prevails. It is still a solid 3D platformer in every way, even with the lack of modern right stick camera control when moving around. For what it’s worth, the active camera from the original release still does a commendable job at framing the action. And this was 1999. I wouldn’t say that any of the main games included here are lackluster, but be prepared for a toy store-sized challenge in the Sega Genesis/Super Nintendo Toy Story game. It’s filled with cheap obstacles in its platforming but admittedly impressive jumps to other genres like racing and first person exploration. On its original intended hardware, these jumps to a super scaler and a DOOM clone were truly ambitious. All in all, the collection of games here offer a good spread: Platforming, collecting, exploring, racing, and puzzle solving. 

I was pretty impressed with the museum and all of the various gaming magazine ads as well as storyboard documents it compiled. All of the games had at least a little documentation and I was also surprised to see all of the game cases scanned and represented as full models, including the backs of their boxes and the respective console logos. Considering I had most of the PlayStation games, it got me a little emotional to see the game cases I once admired in my childhood bedroom again. The interview with Jim Hanks filled me with a lot of nostalgia too. Did you know he has done every voiceover for Woody that is not the movies? It’s incredible. 

 

 

Toy Story fans will be thrilled with the duo of Toy Story Retro Roundup and Toy Story 3 Complete Edition. Not even the Evil Emperor Zurg would find much to grumble about with this package. I’m quite pleased with the Switch 2 performance, especially to see Toy Story 3 Complete Edition hit what looks like 60 fps to my eyes. Retro Roundup ended up being my favorite of the two games. It’s hard to beat its value pound for pound. It didn’t tamper with my memories either. I felt these games were great when I was a kid and I walked away still feeling that now. Movie tie-in games have rarely been as good as the heights the Toy Story franchise has reached and, in that way, they’re quite faithful to the movies they’re adapting. 

 

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