After a successful collaboration with Nintendo on a piece of hardware for SNES games, Argonaut pitched them the concept for a new 3D platformer in which you would play as Yoshi. Nintendo ended up rejecting the proposition, and Argonaut ended up turning the proposal into their own game; thus, Croc: Legends of the Gobbos was born. Like many 3D platformers of the time, Croc failed to capture the magic of Super Mario 64, but the story for Croc is actually a little more tragic. Most mediocre 3D platformers being released at the time were trying to cash in on a trend, and lacked any real individuality. Croc was different, because there was clearly passion put into it, and that's what makes its status as just an average 3D platformer all the more disappointing.

Croc is an interesting game, because the only parts of it that aren't downright enjoyable are, well, the gameplay. It does most of the intangibles right. The graphics, for the time period, are actually quite charming, and hold up decently well today. The levels are colorful and expressive, if a bit repetitive in theme. Even the backgrounds, especially during the desert and boss stages, are aesthetically pleasing silhouettes, and you can find yourself enjoying the presentation of this game far more than you'd expect for a 25 year old 3D platformer. The game's crown jewel, of course, is its music. Croc has one of the most expressive and fun soundtracks on the original Playstation, and it sounds just as good today as it did when it was released. Each world has one or two motifs that they get so much use out of, bringing a lot of life to Croc, and matching the tone set by the colorful and vibrant visuals. The jazzy, catchy soundtrack is likely to remain in your head long after you've set the game down.

Unfortunately, where Croc suffers is in the essentials of the gameplay, which mean that its charm can wear off earlier than it should. The controls in Croc feel rather sluggish, and turning or precision jumping is made much harder than it should be as a result. Croc is generally not a difficult game, but any difficulty that does exist is the result of lackluster controls, which is unfortunate. This is most noticeable in bonus sections, particularly ones that involve directional pads, such as the cauldron or sheep sections. The camera is also frustrating, as since there is no way to control it, you often feel at the mercy of whatever it wants to show you. This makes some jumps much harder, and traversal in general is clunky. Boss levels, where there should be difficult spikes, are instead the easiest levels in the game and offer little challenge. The gameplay is also fairly monotonous, and there's not a lot of variety in the ways you can approach levels.

Croc is a game that you find yourself remembering more fondly the longer it's been since you've played it. When you're in it, you might not be able to get past the muddy controls and the inconsistent camera. But as time goes on, you'll find yourself remembering the great soundtrack and colorful worlds more and more. It truly is a shame this game was rejected by Nintendo because everything this game does wrong feels like it could have been fixed by a more experienced developer. On its own, it's a frustrating yet charismatic 3D platformer that does enough to stand out from the crowd, but it's disappointing knowing that it could have been so much more.

This was a bit harder for me to try and be fully biased as I do remember this game from my childhood and really, it's just a basic and cute platformer, but I certainly try my best.

Croc: The Legend of the Gobbos is about this dragon that gets adopted by these furry little critters called Gobbos. Everything is peaceful, until this evil guy shows up to kidnap all of Croc's family. Fairly basic stuff and it doesn't try to hide that. The mission is to save the Gobbos, including their king and defeat the bad guy!

With gems as collectables and with it being a dragon, you can be forgiven for thinking about Spyro, but I admit Spyro is better in regards to both controls and platforming. This game suffers from stiff controls, due to being out before they created and made dual-shock a necessity for games moving forward to give greater camera control and ect. Due to this you will find yourself cursing to every deity you know whenever you fall off a platform or fail to make a jump or other issues that controls make worse.

The camera is pretty bad too. It doesn't matter too much as the levels are very linear so it's hard to get lost, but it only moves in the direction you are facing which makes turning corners or turning 180 degrees a challenge when the camera is looking at the wall. It isn't too bad in this game because of the levels being small, but the sequel...oof...it's much worse in that one.

It was a fun little game when I was younger, but it certainly hasn't aged too well and there are better platformers out there that have aged well and worth looking into far more than this. As much as my nostalgia wants me to claim otherwise.

Game + Stream

One of the least essential games I've ever played. The score isn't indicative of the quality of assets or because of technical issues. When I check out older games, I do try to see these games through the context in which they were released. Even by this time, even on the Playstation 1, even if you are just looking for a platformer that would appeal to small children that saw this being advertised on some Fox-related VHS rental, there are better alternatives.

Nothing in this game from an artistic standpoint resonates with me. I am a slither-wizard enthusiast. From Renekton to the entire Blindwater Congregation, if you show me a flat fuck running around, having a good time, I'm probably gonna feel some attachment. I don't care about Croc at all. I think his design invokes feelings of plain oatmeal. There's no personality to Croc shown in game. He doesn't even do anything cool or have like, a fun powerup. You have a tail swipe with no range. You have a ground pound with very little impact. Croc's movement, demeanor, and personality feels like you're playing someone with arthritis. He doesn't even control as poorly as many other platformer characters on the same console, but nothing is fun or engaging, and I can't imagine it would have been to the target audience even at the time. People complained about the tank controls of this platformer, but that would imply you needed precision platforming in the first place. This game isn't going to ask precision from you, this game isn't asking for anything other than to lay down in bed.

(There are also good, or at least more interesting platformers with tank controls.)

Take everything I said about Croc himself, and apply that to every other aspect of the game. The soundtrack sounds less ambitious than most of the licensed PS1 games I've played through. When I picture the level design in my head, I get visions of AI hallucinations. Everything blends together and I can see the entire game in my head, and nothing distinctive all at once. The only level that stood out at all was the optional final boss of the game, and it was fucking terrible. This game doesn't need a remake, and the fact one is on the way (or already out, I don't care) is baffling.

This game is timeless, in that I can't imagine any time since it's existence where I'd rather be playing Croc over anything else I had access to.

One of the PS1's many 3D platformers, Croc is famous for originally being intended as a Yoshi game but repurposed after a deal with Nintendo fell through. Unfortunately, while you might have nostalgia for its colourful levels and twee soundtrack, the game doesn't stand the test of time. Tank controls make the platforming feel stiff and ungainly, level design quickly falls into the trap of presenting platforms over voids rather than coherent worlds, and - incredibly - the entire collectathon aspect of platformers is rendered entirely pointless as you don't actually need to collect anything unless you want to play the laziest secret level in existence.