When I was a kid, I got Toy Story 2....for the game boy. What a miserable game that was. I had heard Toy Story 2 for consoles was much better, but outside maybe renting it once? I never got to experience it. Now as an adult I have my ways, and got to enjoy this game!

Pretty solid for a 3D paltformer of this era honestly. Buzz has a double jump, ground pound, way to swing off and climb up poles, way to charge both of his offensive maneuvers, the worlds are scaled so you feel like a toy, you get those good ol crunchy PS1 quality scenes from Toy Story 2, the game's got a good amount of charm to it. The music is great too, from the jazz of the early stages, the western feel of Al's Suite, and the vibes from the Airport levels.

A smaller one of my complaints is the repetitive mission structure. Each level has 5 Pizza Planet tokens (why them? Well you gotta collect something.) two of which you get by Bringing 50 coins to Ham, Find 5 thingies and bring them to the thingy requestor. Variety comes from the time challenges, from races to collection, as well as the boss fights in each level: from Evil Kites to Spinning Tops to bosses from the movie. Since I made a big deal out of this in my Banjo Kazooie review, I feel obligated to mention: Buzz Lightyear to the Rescue requires 40/50 Tokens (80% Completion) to get to the final fight, which is more than Mario 64's 70/120 but not too much like Banjo Kazooie's 94/100. I can forgive the 80% because there's less to do overall, and I do like that you're given an incentive to come back to the earlier levels when you earn new power-ups from Mr. Potato Head. The less forgivable complaint is the camera, which is pretty bad, I found myself stopping and entering first person mode a lot to adjust it which really took me out of it. Compound this with some traction from Buzz and a slip up and be groan worthy.

Despite those issues I still had a good amount of fun here, and would consider it a solid entry in the list of 5th gen 3D platformer collectathons.

Reviewed on May 26, 2024


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