I vaguely remember having seen Toy Story 2 as a kid. I remembered more strongly the game of Toy Story 2, which upon recalling had to have once again. And even though I blazed through it in just a few days, it was quite a fun experience, every bit as enjoyable as I remember it being.

You play as Buzz Lightyear, on an adventure to find and save Woody. The ten normal levels require you to complete objectives in order to obtain Pizza Planet Tokens, and gaining enough unlocks the next level. Some of the objectives vary between levels, but for the most part you obtain the Tokens via the same objectives in each level: collect 50 coins, beat a mini-boss, complete a puzzle of some sort, find five collectables and bring them back to an NPC. Buzz's friends appear in these levels, giving Buzz hints and tasks to complete. They, along with any animals or characters you have to collect, will make a noise when you're near them. It's very helpful when you're going the collection quests, but odds are you'll get very sick of Rex and Hamm's lines by the end of the game. The other five levels, coming after every two normal levels, are boss-only levels—beat the boss, move on. Simple as that.

Buzz possesses the 3D platformer hero's typical abilities: he can run, climb, grab onto ledges, double-jump, and ground-stomp. Your primary attack is Buzz's laser, which can be fired as fast as you can mash the button or charged up, and a power-up can be obtained for rapid-fire high-power lasers. Buzz can also perform a spin attack, which can also be charged; the spin attack is absolutely useless, but we'll get more into that. Along the way, you'll unlock powerups that can be picked up in-level, which are necessary for obtaining Pizza Planet Tokens. (And yes, this game does the slightly-annoying "you can't get the Thing in Level 2 until you unlock something in Level 10" thing.) For the most part, the controls are adequate. The only two annoyances are that grabbing onto ledges can be finicky and the laser's auto-aiming is quite poor, forcing you to go into first-person and use lock-on for anything that isn't directly in front of you. The camera isn't bad, but it could certainly be better, namely in following Buzz's direction better and turning faster when using L2/R2.

There's a lot of variety in the levels in design and layout. The game looks pretty darn good for a PS1-era game, and has some kick-ass music to boot. (There's also rather-low-quality clips from the movie; I'm not sure if they're in the N64 version.) The game does let you open up shortcuts in the middle of the more lengthy platforming sections for when you inevitably fall off (there's no falling damage and no bottomless pits, save for one boss battle), but it is still rather annoying having to spend five minutes redoing a section because you slip off at the last moment. There's a fair bit of enemy variety in the game; the only complaint I have in this regard is that late-game enemies take too many laser shots to kill, especially since they respawn and how hilariously fast everything dies with the limited-ammo green-laser power-up. Most of the mini-boss fights are rather simple and easy, and the first major boss can be completely cheesed with first-person aim and charged shots, but the game and the bosses do ramp up in difficulty.

There is one major flaw of the game, and it really does deserve its own section: the spin attack. It is ridiculously hard to even hit an enemy with the spin attack and ridiculously easy to run into an enemy when you do hit them with the spin attack. It can deflect some enemy projectiles—but the key word here is "some", so odds are you'll never use it. It can be charged, which leaves Buzz dizzy after it finishes, so that's even more completely useless. You'd think you'd be able to just ignore it...except there are some enemies that can only be damaged by the spin attack. The last three mini-bosses and the last two major bosses can only be damaged with the spin attack, which does pitiful damage for hard it is to actually hit them. Oh, and the final boss battle? It's just the last three mini-bosses, all fought together at the same, all acting exactly the same as the individual fights against them, and all without any reduction in their health meter. Which wouldn't be too hard, except one of those mini-bosses has an incredibly-hard-to-dodge homing shockwave attack which makes it hard enough to hit them without taking damage when you fought that mini-boss solo. Despite how lazy of a final boss this is, it's still incredibly difficult compared to the rest of the game. I can't imagine anyone beating the final boss if not for the fact that bosses' health isn't replenished when you lose a life—and I got killed three times in that boss battle, compared to none times in the rest of the game!

So despite its flaws and its simplicity for anyone over the age of ten, Toy Story 2 is a solid platformer that fully lived up to my nostalgia for it. It managed to remind me of why I loved this game as a kid...even if it did remind me of why I hate 3D platformers as an adult.