This is the first PS1 game I ever played, because I couldn't find a copy of Spyro. This is not Spyro.
Croc is absolutely full of loveable charm, from its colourful visuals, music, character designs and sound effects.
Unfortunately it suffers from having a rather terrible tank control scheme. For a platformer it makes playing the entire game somewhat of a chore at times, and often too slow.
However what survived quite well was the actual platforming. I almost never felt like I missed a jump due to the fault of the game, which is quite impressive for such an early 3D platformer.
Level variety and enemies don't differ too much unfortunately. It kind of feels like playing the same levels, just with a different theme for each world.
The last world on the other hand turns a lot of this on its head (or at least the last normal world - there is a secret world that I never bothered to unlock because I didn't think it was worth it). On one hand there is so much more variety in this world, from brand new, interesting enemy types, new types of platforming sections and puzzles. On the other hand this is where the not-quite-perfect but accept platforming goes to hell. The amount of tiny, moving platforms, at different levels, with no real sense of distance made some of these levels a huge pain.
Some existing IPs absolutely bombed with their first 3D game, while Croc showed promise. Tighten up the controls a little bit and it could have been great. I haven't yet played the 2nd game, but based on this one alone, I think the series died too early and with some improved technology it could have been something special.
Unfortunately it suffers from having a rather terrible tank control scheme. For a platformer it makes playing the entire game somewhat of a chore at times, and often too slow.
However what survived quite well was the actual platforming. I almost never felt like I missed a jump due to the fault of the game, which is quite impressive for such an early 3D platformer.
Level variety and enemies don't differ too much unfortunately. It kind of feels like playing the same levels, just with a different theme for each world.
The last world on the other hand turns a lot of this on its head (or at least the last normal world - there is a secret world that I never bothered to unlock because I didn't think it was worth it). On one hand there is so much more variety in this world, from brand new, interesting enemy types, new types of platforming sections and puzzles. On the other hand this is where the not-quite-perfect but accept platforming goes to hell. The amount of tiny, moving platforms, at different levels, with no real sense of distance made some of these levels a huge pain.
Some existing IPs absolutely bombed with their first 3D game, while Croc showed promise. Tighten up the controls a little bit and it could have been great. I haven't yet played the 2nd game, but based on this one alone, I think the series died too early and with some improved technology it could have been something special.
I played the demo of this numerous times as a child so I decided to play the game properly out of nostalgia and it turns out my childhood was a lie.
a snooze, but so cute
+pleasing, cartoony graphics that make a good showcase of the PSX's middle era of games
+I personally think the tank controls are pretty solid, about as good as I could expect for this era. it helps that you can move laterally during jumps, and that there's a quickturn as well
+there's a remarkable amount of extra content through bonus levels, multiple types of collectables, secret stages (a whole secret island!), and unlockable rooms in each level
+around the middle there really is a difficulty sweet spot where the challenges feel traversable within the bounds of the game's controls... brief but it's there
+lifting the "lose your coins" health system from sonic keeps the boss battles in particular from getting frustrating
-analog controls are godawful. I personally stuck to keeping digital mode on and using the stick
-during the first half of the game the levels are trivially easy, and very short without getting all of the extra goodies
-second half of the game is the exact opposite, with uncomfortably precise platforming, deaths from off-screen projectiles, framerate dips in tricky sections, and levels that can reach up to 10 minutes long
-to compound the above, the game uses a life system that forces you to restart the entire level when you lose all lives. it's frustrating to replay the beginning sections of levels in a relatively slow game over and over, especially since continuing at the game over screen gives you a measly 2 lives to work with
-the hit detection with croc's swipe move is really rough, partially because the move itself has no weight. boss battles especially suffer from this, since you can often collide with their hurtbox while you're edging close enough to hit them
-some of the design in the final world goes off the rails, with poor explanations for some of the puzzles, or stage designs that feel unfinished
as a document of early 3d platformer design, I think this holds up better than some other titles from the era, especially as this was originally in pre-production as a Super FX-enhanced SNES game. however, actually playing it is more a chore than anything, indicating that this evolutionary branch of 3d design was doomed to end here.
+I personally think the tank controls are pretty solid, about as good as I could expect for this era. it helps that you can move laterally during jumps, and that there's a quickturn as well
+there's a remarkable amount of extra content through bonus levels, multiple types of collectables, secret stages (a whole secret island!), and unlockable rooms in each level
+around the middle there really is a difficulty sweet spot where the challenges feel traversable within the bounds of the game's controls... brief but it's there
+lifting the "lose your coins" health system from sonic keeps the boss battles in particular from getting frustrating
-analog controls are godawful. I personally stuck to keeping digital mode on and using the stick
-during the first half of the game the levels are trivially easy, and very short without getting all of the extra goodies
-second half of the game is the exact opposite, with uncomfortably precise platforming, deaths from off-screen projectiles, framerate dips in tricky sections, and levels that can reach up to 10 minutes long
-to compound the above, the game uses a life system that forces you to restart the entire level when you lose all lives. it's frustrating to replay the beginning sections of levels in a relatively slow game over and over, especially since continuing at the game over screen gives you a measly 2 lives to work with
-the hit detection with croc's swipe move is really rough, partially because the move itself has no weight. boss battles especially suffer from this, since you can often collide with their hurtbox while you're edging close enough to hit them
-some of the design in the final world goes off the rails, with poor explanations for some of the puzzles, or stage designs that feel unfinished
as a document of early 3d platformer design, I think this holds up better than some other titles from the era, especially as this was originally in pre-production as a Super FX-enhanced SNES game. however, actually playing it is more a chore than anything, indicating that this evolutionary branch of 3d design was doomed to end here.
Me and my friends are a bunch of Gobbos
Como plataformas es muy regulero, incluso para la época, pero mira lo mono que es Croc y lo que mola la música, ¿cómo lo vas a odiar?
big Croc fan personally
ESSE ERA MEU JOGO FAVORITO E EU TINHA ESQUECIDO DA EXISTÊNCIA DELE!!!!!!!
i got memed into playing this piece of shit cuz everywhere i heard people say this was one of the best platformers on the ps1
Y'all don't understand the GOAT smh
this was the first video game i've ever played. it's probably great.
Maybe 3D platformers shouldn't have tank controls. Just an idea.
fuck, croc, i was rooting for you. i really was. you deserved better.
the story goes that croc was originally pitched by argonaut games to nintendo as a yoshi game, as what would be the first ever 3D platformer: Yoshi Racing. miyamoto was apparently enthusiastic about the idea, but nintendo turned them down. argonaut had previously had a very close working relationship with nintendo. they helped make many of their first 3D games on the snes, including the original star fox. but things started to seem iffy when nintendo decided not to release star fox 2, which was already completed. when nintendo turned down argonaut on their yoshi project, argonaut forged forward with the idea and ended up making croc. and nintendo? well, whether or not they took the idea directly or not, they made super mario 64, a game with a similar premise and with a legacy that continues to endure, while croc has faded into obscurity and argonaut fizzled out in the 2000s. jez san, the founder of argonaut, said miyamoto himself apologized to him for how nintendo handled the situation, and that at least croc was doing well for them. but jez san felt that the bridge had already been burned a long time ago.
this firmly solidifies croc as an underdog, a scrappy and ambitious game who had its thunder stolen by one of the biggest gaming companies of all time. we all love an underdog story, i'm sure. but underdogs aren't always good at their job. and croc, frankly, isn't.
it's all so rote as to be asinine to describe: croc consists of running and jumping between FOUR COLORFUL WORLDS and collecting FLOATING ICOSAHEDRONS and saving these little fuzzy critters called "gobbos", which i can't take seriously at all, partially because its a silly name, but mostly because i once stumbled into some erotica about lesbians turning into goblins that was very intensely into body odor fetish and she referred to herself as a "gobbo" and that's all i can think about when i hear it now. the levels are trivially short if you don't go for the collectibles, which at least can make completing this game less painful. but i don't even like 3D platformers that much to begin with, and this game is maligned even among those fans.
i'm sure there a bunch of reviews on youtube or whatever that go into the particular design failures of croc. i don't really want to get into it too deep. but a note on tank controls: i think tank controls are fine. i like them. they do need to exist in a context, though. croc is a 3D platformer, which usually shouldn't have that, but i do genuinely think you could have a decent 3D platformer with tank controls. but this isn't it. controlling croc doesnt feel great, but it could be a lot worse, it's better than bubsy 3d. honestly the bigger issue is his tailwhip attack, where he yells "kersplat!!" or "kaboof!!" or "kapow!!" and pretty much never hits any enemy and dies because the hit detection in this game is terrible. for me the problem of game feel is exacerbated by everything else. it has this classic 3d platformer design, the same kind that underwhelmed me in spyro and crash, and in fact the extension of design in the mascot platformers of the previous era, a game of just "Stuff in Places". its far from the worst example of that design, collectibles are usually framed within some particular challenge or puzzle, but it’s just not enough. everything is forgettable. it instills this sense of meaninglessness to these objects and it doesn't help that along with that, moving croc around never feels great.
i know people have nostalgia for these kinds of games, but there is a very good reason mascot platformers have died out. they were always banking on the likability of their funny animals, but there's only one mickey mouse. there are some great ones, sure. but do you like mr nutz, kao the kangaroo, donk the samurai duck? probably not, and if you do, you probably stan gex ironically. because when you're banking on the character, you're not really spending much time on everything else. i dont know what most of these enemies are supposed to be, the levels mostly look the same, couldn't hum you any of these songs. but that doesn't matter. just look at the funny animal, go through 8 levels in green grass forest place collecting MAGIC GEMERALDS and then 8 levels in the sewer and then 8 levels in ice world and then the end of the game. these games lack so much personality even though that's the exact thing they're trying to cash in on. croc, my friend, i'm trying to give you a chance, i'm listening to you when you say "kersplat!!", i want you to be the clumsy yet triumphant underdog, but theres so little to care about, i dont care about the secret jewels, and every single time i save one of these little gobbos all i can think about is that goblin lesbian porn i read. how did i even find it? i can't even remember, but it was about a virus that turns people into very stinky goblins and orcs. ive got no problem with the green lesbians, i respect and cherish them. but i have so many questions. why "gobbo"? is that seriously sexy? why was it so clearly a reference to covid-19? with quarantine measures and such? how would a virus even change your bone structure? maybe it can, im not a doctor. and why did it then frame the virus as something that would project into social standing? it constantly highlights prejudices and judgements cast on those who become smelly goblins. are there unanswered issues with racial politics within its fantasy? why was it also very deliberately using an epistolary style, as if on reddit? are cockney accents for goblins supposed to be sexy? why was the stinkiness so important? are goblins and orcs particularly stinky? they were always talking about the smell, i'm not even sure what smell i was supposed to imagine. i know that's a fetish but like why? is reading about the odor enough to illicit a response? i'm not even really disgusted by it i am just trying to process it. there are so many weird twists and turns with the interiority of the characters that we see, how they respond. stinky gobby girl and her big giant smelly orc gf. im happy for them but also what. is it supposed to be a metaphor for something specific? queerness, transness, disease, disability, racism, classism, something else entirely? who is all this even for? is it for me? did i like it? i don't THINK i liked it, but i definitely found it somehow, and i definitely read it to the end, and i definitely am still thinking about right now when i'm trying to play croc: legend of the gobbos and i’m definitely considering reading it again
the story goes that croc was originally pitched by argonaut games to nintendo as a yoshi game, as what would be the first ever 3D platformer: Yoshi Racing. miyamoto was apparently enthusiastic about the idea, but nintendo turned them down. argonaut had previously had a very close working relationship with nintendo. they helped make many of their first 3D games on the snes, including the original star fox. but things started to seem iffy when nintendo decided not to release star fox 2, which was already completed. when nintendo turned down argonaut on their yoshi project, argonaut forged forward with the idea and ended up making croc. and nintendo? well, whether or not they took the idea directly or not, they made super mario 64, a game with a similar premise and with a legacy that continues to endure, while croc has faded into obscurity and argonaut fizzled out in the 2000s. jez san, the founder of argonaut, said miyamoto himself apologized to him for how nintendo handled the situation, and that at least croc was doing well for them. but jez san felt that the bridge had already been burned a long time ago.
this firmly solidifies croc as an underdog, a scrappy and ambitious game who had its thunder stolen by one of the biggest gaming companies of all time. we all love an underdog story, i'm sure. but underdogs aren't always good at their job. and croc, frankly, isn't.
it's all so rote as to be asinine to describe: croc consists of running and jumping between FOUR COLORFUL WORLDS and collecting FLOATING ICOSAHEDRONS and saving these little fuzzy critters called "gobbos", which i can't take seriously at all, partially because its a silly name, but mostly because i once stumbled into some erotica about lesbians turning into goblins that was very intensely into body odor fetish and she referred to herself as a "gobbo" and that's all i can think about when i hear it now. the levels are trivially short if you don't go for the collectibles, which at least can make completing this game less painful. but i don't even like 3D platformers that much to begin with, and this game is maligned even among those fans.
i'm sure there a bunch of reviews on youtube or whatever that go into the particular design failures of croc. i don't really want to get into it too deep. but a note on tank controls: i think tank controls are fine. i like them. they do need to exist in a context, though. croc is a 3D platformer, which usually shouldn't have that, but i do genuinely think you could have a decent 3D platformer with tank controls. but this isn't it. controlling croc doesnt feel great, but it could be a lot worse, it's better than bubsy 3d. honestly the bigger issue is his tailwhip attack, where he yells "kersplat!!" or "kaboof!!" or "kapow!!" and pretty much never hits any enemy and dies because the hit detection in this game is terrible. for me the problem of game feel is exacerbated by everything else. it has this classic 3d platformer design, the same kind that underwhelmed me in spyro and crash, and in fact the extension of design in the mascot platformers of the previous era, a game of just "Stuff in Places". its far from the worst example of that design, collectibles are usually framed within some particular challenge or puzzle, but it’s just not enough. everything is forgettable. it instills this sense of meaninglessness to these objects and it doesn't help that along with that, moving croc around never feels great.
i know people have nostalgia for these kinds of games, but there is a very good reason mascot platformers have died out. they were always banking on the likability of their funny animals, but there's only one mickey mouse. there are some great ones, sure. but do you like mr nutz, kao the kangaroo, donk the samurai duck? probably not, and if you do, you probably stan gex ironically. because when you're banking on the character, you're not really spending much time on everything else. i dont know what most of these enemies are supposed to be, the levels mostly look the same, couldn't hum you any of these songs. but that doesn't matter. just look at the funny animal, go through 8 levels in green grass forest place collecting MAGIC GEMERALDS and then 8 levels in the sewer and then 8 levels in ice world and then the end of the game. these games lack so much personality even though that's the exact thing they're trying to cash in on. croc, my friend, i'm trying to give you a chance, i'm listening to you when you say "kersplat!!", i want you to be the clumsy yet triumphant underdog, but theres so little to care about, i dont care about the secret jewels, and every single time i save one of these little gobbos all i can think about is that goblin lesbian porn i read. how did i even find it? i can't even remember, but it was about a virus that turns people into very stinky goblins and orcs. ive got no problem with the green lesbians, i respect and cherish them. but i have so many questions. why "gobbo"? is that seriously sexy? why was it so clearly a reference to covid-19? with quarantine measures and such? how would a virus even change your bone structure? maybe it can, im not a doctor. and why did it then frame the virus as something that would project into social standing? it constantly highlights prejudices and judgements cast on those who become smelly goblins. are there unanswered issues with racial politics within its fantasy? why was it also very deliberately using an epistolary style, as if on reddit? are cockney accents for goblins supposed to be sexy? why was the stinkiness so important? are goblins and orcs particularly stinky? they were always talking about the smell, i'm not even sure what smell i was supposed to imagine. i know that's a fetish but like why? is reading about the odor enough to illicit a response? i'm not even really disgusted by it i am just trying to process it. there are so many weird twists and turns with the interiority of the characters that we see, how they respond. stinky gobby girl and her big giant smelly orc gf. im happy for them but also what. is it supposed to be a metaphor for something specific? queerness, transness, disease, disability, racism, classism, something else entirely? who is all this even for? is it for me? did i like it? i don't THINK i liked it, but i definitely found it somehow, and i definitely read it to the end, and i definitely am still thinking about right now when i'm trying to play croc: legend of the gobbos and i’m definitely considering reading it again
Los controles tipo tanque han envejecido mal, pero me flipó de pequeño.
This really is the video game equivalent to crocs
Don't fucking play Croc.
Honestly thought it was the most epic thing as a kid, and now sometimes i replay it just to mutter "kersplat.." along with croc when he attacks. Solid 4/5.
haven't really played since my childhood, but i don't believe 5* is clouded judgement
Why hasn't this been remade, it was so much fun. The controls were a pain, but the odd story and the fun adventure feel of the game were outstanding.
Misanthropic punishment for humanity's unrepentable sins
I never finished this game, but I liked the main character.
Admittingly the soundtrack and the sound design ("Wahoo! Ker-SPLAT!") does most of the heavy lifting as far as this game's charm goes, but at least this game's quality is in the "it's alright" range rather than "depressingly jank" like a lot of the C-grade platformers that came out on the Playstation 1.
Croc is SO fucking cute. I know this was originally pitched as a Yoshi IP but this design stands out in multiple ways. He feels like such a kid with the voice lines he has, and the model has such character and personality to it. I can still clearly imagine the run cycle for this guy; how many 3D platformers can I say that for?
Croc is a sub par 3D platformer that i cant help but like the characters. Its only that peasky gameplay keeps getting in the way.
Subpar gameplay carried by cute character and sound design. Worth trying.
I enjoyed the levels and the level design, but it was impossible to play them well with tank controls and my enjoyment would be significantly higher if there was regular controls. The other main problem was that there was very little player feedback especially on bosses which made it very hard to tell if you were being successful with hitting them or not. The game did not play to its strengths by making most of the design platforming, but every puzzle was pretty good. There were also several sections that had jank solutions or were so hard that they didn't seem intended. Also lives are dumb, if its ever more beneficial to game over (which it is in this game), then lives are implemented poorly. My rating of this game is fully carried by liking the levels if I could move in them. Overall, this felt like 1997's mediocre indie game
I played it a lot when I was a kid and even then I knew it was pretty bad, but I can't fight the nostalgia goggles, I had a lot of fun.
kind of the default joke platformer. basically ripped off yoshi
This sits right up there up with Spyro as one of the best early platformers.