Croc is one of those games that I think is a genuinely incredible underrated gem for the PS1, until it becomes the pure embodiment of hatred and malice in the 2nd half. It's one of the very few games where I genuinely do feel as if I could make somewhat of a case for considering it style over substance, though in actuality it's probably just a bit closer to being a game that's overwhelmingly carried by its sublime presentation. At its core though, Croc is a game that feels as if it's slowly eroded by a multitude of smaller flaws that end up culminating into a promising but ultimately unpleasant experience, a disappointment after having such a strong start.

The aforementioned presentation of Croc is easily its greatest strength to me, being able to bring even the smallest, most simplistic of environments to life with the combination of evocative music and downright obscene levels of cuteness from literally everything. Everything about the game is made to feel extremely vibrant and inviting, whether it's the bright, contrasting colours of the environment itself, the fact that even the most threatening of enemies are big eyed lumps of polygons, or Croc himself being one of the friendliest looking mascots of them all, there's just a lot to love. This is further accentuated by the sound design bringing a degree of whimsy to all of your actions, and also making it fun to run around attacking nothing just to hear croc keep saying "kersplat!!". In this sense, it often becomes inherently fun to just mess around and take in the view around you and all the fun little details of even the most simplistic stages the game has to offer.

It seems that one big point of contention amongst those that have played this game is the fact that Croc has tank controls, which is quite the unique (and often bad) choice for a full blown platformer. Usually I'd complain way more about this point but honestly the stage design for the most part is open enough or spaces out obstacles and platforms correctly for this to rarely actually be a problem for the first couple worlds, even if this slowly goes out the window as the game progresses. From world 3 onwards, not only do the stages get far longer, making it feel both more punishing and frustrating whenever you make a mistake, but the platforming gets far more precise and fast paced to the point that the deaths end up rarely feeling like your fault due to the fact that the game at its core clearly isn't built around such manoeuvres. This turns things from a fun romp through pretty, cute worlds into an exercise in pure misery and frustration because it doesn't just feel difficult, but it feels as if it punishes you for things outside your control, to the point where it was a genuine struggle to put up enough of a care to even bother getting through the last couple worlds.

This is made all the worse by the way that as things go on, the game stops really knowing what it wants to do, still having a bunch of collectathon elements to it, but often placing what you need to get only very slightly off the beaten path to the point where it's clear that it was more a formality after a while than an element of the core gameplay loop to actually reward any real exploration. Taking this middle ground option ends up weakening the game, as it will detract from the more linear platforming approach due to constantly throwing minor diversions in your way, but it also doesn't feel rewarding to just walk a couple steps in a different direction to pick it up either, leaving this entire element that led to quite a few creative mini-puzzles eventually deteriorating into a superfluous element that does nothing but harm the core experience.

Even the bonus stages are a mixed bag, as while they'll bring entirely unique scenarios into the gameplay, there are just a few too many of them that either feel overly cheap or not suited to the mobility style that Croc is built around. Making these bonus areas so difficult at times is especially egregious since these are framed as rewards for taking the time to collect everything else, and yet, will often end up being especially obnoxious due to a single small mistake punishing you just as harshly. For these to work better I think that deaths just shouldn't have taken lives away in these sections, allowing to keep a sense of challenge while not feeling like something unreasonable to stick at the very end of the level.

On the whole though, while I might have a ton of complaints, some more including how bad basically all the bosses are and the way the camera essentially forces a lot of leap of faith jumps, I can't outright dislike this game either. For as weak and downright unbearable the 2nd half can get, those first 2 worlds are a fantastic slab of 3d collectathon greatness that embody a lot of what I adore about the PS1 aesthetic on top of it all. I'd genuinely recommend giving those bits a shot, it's just a shame that the full package is as unsatisfying as it is, but ah well, sometimes not even the most powerful nostalgia is enough to cloud the flaws of a game.

Plataformero sencillo pero bastante divertido sin mas pretenciones que divertir a los niños de la epoca, los controles no son tan malos como esperaba y la musica es bastante buena, aunque no tengo muchos motivantes de el 100% y el juego tiene algunos niveles un tanto raros al final pero es me la pse bastate bien con el.

Lo unico a comentar por curiosidad, es que detesto esa pantalla de game over de algunos de estos juegos, porque estoy seguro que jodieron a algun niño por el hecho de que tenia que ir hacer alguna otra cosa "como la tarea" y luego muestran algo malo o como si todos hubieran perecido a los que tenias que rescatar, como culpando al jugador, eso me parece asqueroso y manipulador, sin embargo, no es algo relevante en la experiencia jugable, solo un dato que me queria comentar.

Barely a hint of actual design anywhere in this thing. Basically a tech demo. Awkward, disjointed, artistically and conceptually non-existant. It's just there.

The developers of this game have dined out for a long time on the story that this was originally a rejected Yoshi game pitched to Nintendo, and the strong suggestion is that Nintendo then turned around and appropriated the idea, making SUPER MARIO 64 without them. After playing this, you're not gonna hear me weeping too loudly for Argonaut. Mario 64 is a generation-defining masterpiece because it's a game made by designers. This is a game made by programmers.

well this is certainly one of the games of all time.

I gotta be honest, going into this game I feel like I wanted to like it more than I did - maybe not love it, but at least put it in the ballpark of 7/10 - especially as someone who's sort of into a lot of the different "mascot" platformers from the 90's, and truth is I do think the workings for a solid game are here. The art style, for one, is nice, especially for a PS1 game - just having a very "cute" feel to everything on top of being really colorful (and Croc himself is an adorable little fella), and the sound design is also surprisingly good. If you didn't already know, this was originally supposed to be a Yoshi game that was "outsourced" to Argonaut Games, and I gotta say - even if those plans fell through and took the form of a different IP, this game still manages to keep a similar vibe to Yoshi's Island.

The level design is also decent... at least for the most part. It isn't anything too special, but I do like how it adds a sense of "open"-ness and exploration while still keeping a more linear structure, with the addition of collectibles scattered throughout the level towards completion. I also like how the game spices things up with some new mechanics based off each world theme, albeit these mechanics can be a bit of a mixed bag. Some mesh well with the rest of the level design well enough, but others do just come off as pretty gimmicky to some extent. 4-6 is one example I can think of, where you progress through the entire level on these platforms that rotate and/or move as this Platform Pete guy bangs his hammer, and it just gets kinda... tedious, largely just coming down to memorization and pattern recognition. 4-5 also has two sections where you're going down an elevator sort of thing as enemies drop in and fight you, and you can basically just get through it by mashing the Square button (or whatever the Tail Attack button is for the other versions) over and over again. Overall though, with some exceptions, the level design is fine enough for what it's going for.

Unfortunately what brings this game down more than anything for me is the controls. I'm just going to be straight here - tank controls really do not belong in a platformer. While the controls are fine, I guess, for some of the more open-ended areas where you're basically running along a path, doing any sort of platforming in this game is basically a chore. Croc's air control is pretty floaty and stiff, and trying to turn around is a pain, especially when you're dealing with moving or disappearing platforms where you don't really have enough time to react. Doesn't really help that there's a few sections in the game full of small platforms in a game where the controls feel extremely imprecise and stiff. It's especially noticeable in levels like, again, 4-6 where in addition to the trial-and-error gameplay you need to keep that in mind while having enough reaction time to deal with these clunky controls. I do have a hard time putting how the controls "feel" into words, but if you've played any game with tank controls... well, I imagine you can get the idea.

I will give the game some credit for actually programming analog controls with camera movement with the DualShock versus just mapping D-pad controls to the analog stick like a lot of PS1 games seem to do, but unfortunately it doesn't really fix the overall issues I have with the controls as Croc's turn while moving is still extremely wide, and makes the game feel slippery, on top of adding a new issue on top of everything else where just trying to turn around on platforms sometimes led to my death because you have to be really precise with the analog stick. It feels better than the extremely stiff D-pad controls, but it's still far from ideal.

The hitboxes in this game also feel kinda wonky. It's not too bad with most of the stage enemies, but with the bosses in particular there were times where I felt like I hit them when I was able to, only for the game to treat it as if I just ran into the boss and took damage. Granted the bosses themselves are all... pretty pathetic otherwise (the only challenging thing about the final boss is trying to get the camera to stay on him), but it is an issue that I felt was worth mentioning.

Overall, while this game does feel like it has a solid foundation, the controls and some of the level design gimmicks just really drag it down for me, and I have a hard time recommending it unless you really like a lot of PS1-era 3D platformers. I will say that I only beat the "main" part of the game which ends at the second boss of World 4, and I could've gone ahead and grabbed all the Gobbos to unlock and play through World 5 which has the 'true' final boss and ending, but honestly I was already pretty much ready to be done with the game even before World 4 lmao. Apparently the 'true' ending isn't even anything to write home about anyway so, whatever.

As I was playing through this game though, I found out that there is an official remaster/remake in development, so if you are interested in playing this game... I'd probably just say to wait until whenever that comes out.

An extremely formative game for me, so of course I love it so. This was one of my first 3D platformers, and since I wouldn't own any home consoles until Christmas of '04, this ended up being one of the few 3D platformers I had regular access to. I can't say this single-handedly formed my understanding of what a 3D platformer was, but it was a big part of it. Moreover, it was the first game I ever cleared in its entirety. No cheats or nothin', just fought tooth and nail to the end.

It's common knowledge these days that Croc was to be Argonaut Software's take on Yoshi, which Argonaut turned into their own thing after Nintendo turned them down. With that in mind, I actually do see a lot of Yoshi's Island influence here, at least in how the game presents itself. The different islands and the map screen progression through them feel very evocative of the slow ascent and descent through Yoshi's Island, and Baron Dante feels somewhere between Bowser and Kamek in terms of his impact throughout the game. It's not a one-to-one comparison (there was no possible way an early 3D game could communicate the visual artistry of a 2D game late in its golden era), and you could just as easily make comparisons with other platformer contemporaries - the Gobbos are like Rayman's Electoons, Birdie is (accidentally) evocative of Kazooie, etc - but the lineage isn't hard to see.

I think the game's hard for people to appreciate these days due to the tank controls, but, like, I never had an issue with it. Even ignoring that this is of an era where people were trying to figure out what a 3D platformer was, the game's clearly built around tank controls as the core to its challenge. Late-game levels like 'The Tower of Power' and 'Panic at Platform Pete's Lair' are obnoxious as can be if you're not confident with the game's controls and physics, I have no illusions about that. But I don't think that makes the game's design bad, just reliant on a skill that did not become the standard. There's actually a good rhythm you fall into feathering some of those diagonal jumps and using Croc's ground-pound to extend jumps. It's never not nerve-wracking, but that's the fun of it.

This is a game I revisit every so often, but I owe this particular replay to Ragey's excellent long-form Croc analysis. Be sure to give that a read if you want to see a very thorough take on all this: https://randomhoohaas.flyingomelette.com/gw/croc/

I needed a bit of comfort food while I finish my Masters dissertation, and frankly no game fits that mold quite like Croc. It was the second video-game I ever played, and has remained something I return to here and there over the years. This is nostalgia crystallised, and thus this is probably the worst game that I love.

That said, idk, I think it's decent! Like, I get that it's not great, but beyond the music and visuals being basically ingrained into me at this point, I think they're genuinely quite good. People take issue with the controls, but I never really had an issue with them. The tankiness makes Croc a pretty reliable character to control in my experience. I shan't defend the camera though.

I guess one thing I can't approve of is the weird relationship between 100% completion and its rewards. If you're not going for 100% in these levels, they're pretty barren. However, if you do go for 100%, then you're rewarded with a secret world... which consists of 4 kinda bad levels which just sorta remix rooms from earlier in the game while making them cheaper and more annoying, followed by a pretty lame boss. I wish more effort would have been put into these levels. There aren't any collectibles, so just run to the end. Pretty dull.

Still, this game has a hold over me! I enjoyed revisiting it and will likely enjoy revisiting it again in a couple of years.

cock: legend of the blowjobbos

now that that's over with, on with the review:

Croc is the little mascot who could. They even gave him a backpack to disguise how uninteresting his design is. Don't you love backpacks???

The game is so ok. You collect things and go through levels. There are 6 Gobbos to collect per level, with the last being put behind a bonus room at the end of the level, which is sometimes platforming but other times a minigame. You get one chance at this minigame, which usually starts with a tenuous indication of what you need to do, so by the time you've figured it out you've already lost. Now you need to do the entire level again. This game doesn't want me to 100% it.

Although I gave up on even completing it at all. I do like some things: the music, the odd bit of satisfying platforming, and I even like how Croc controls (with an analog stick, probably sucks with a D-Pad). But sadly for Croc, I had an existential realisation that I don't play games to tolerate them until I reach an ending that will absolutely be unsatisfying. I'm sorry Croc. Like a failed relationship, we've both learned an important lesson from our time together and I'm sorry we must part. Goodbye.

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.

Croc is a chill and solid romp that you can get through pretty quickly once you get used to the controls.

It's a by the numbers point A to B platformer that revels in precision and patience. It, however, doesn't do anything outstanding or remarkable, which isn't a bad thing, but comparing it to it's contemporaries (especially from the time it released) Croc doesn't have too much going for it that makes it stand out. Its easy to see why the game isn't as fondly remembered as Super Mario 64, Crash Bandicoot, or Banjo-Kazooie, however that doesn't make it a bad game or waste of time in my opinion.

It's controls & camera aren't perfect: they're a weird combo of analog and tank. It takes some getting used to and the game hardly fights against you when playing it. The physics and hitboxes are pretty fickle though.

The bosses aren't great, they lack any form of feedback that games of the time normally provide the player, however its one of those things where if you beaten this game once, its not really an issue the next go round (hitbox jank aside). The final boss was cool though.

The music and presentation are the highlights: the OST is a catchy and the game is so colorful and vibrant it's really nice to look at.

Overall, Croc is an alright game. If you're into platformers, I'd check it out. If you want to get into the genre, play some of the more well known titles first. Here's hoping the remaster does some cool stuff!