This was my first video game ever.
I have a very vague memory of going to the local mall, and the GameStop inside, and picking this game out on the shelf. It was probably like 2004..maybe 2003? So it was right in the middle of the GameCube/PS2 era and they still had plenty of gen 5 games. Besides that, I have some nice memories of playing this with my dad and asking him to help me with levels I was stuck on at the time. I can still picture the final boss level select screen on our old living room TV in my head, I remember thinking it was crazy we had finally gotten to the end of the game together. Sadly, I was never able to get 100% and beat every level back then but when I eventually got back into Playstation gaming, Croc was the first game I decided to play and yeah I was able to finally achieve 100% after all those years. I also did so last year as it had been 7 years since I played it at that point. Croc is not perfect, god knows this site definitely thinks it isn't with that 2.9 average, but I can't help but love Croc and I do think it is somewhat underrated.
The story consists of an opening cutscene and then some small ones before bosses and then the ending cutscene or two. The opening cutscene has the tribe of creatures called Gobbos, finding baby croc in a basket floating down a stream. They decide to take him in, train him to fight and eventually he becomes fully grown. Not long after, the evil Baron Dante appears with his minions and kidnaps all the Gobbos. It's then up to Croc to save them all and defeat Baron Dante. Incredibly simple plot but an effective one due to the cutscenes being very charming.
The general gameplay is where people have issue with the game. Croc can jump, butt stomp, swipe his tail as an attack along with other more situational moves like climbing monkey bars and swimming. That's all fine and dandy, but the issue people have with all this is the fact this game uses tank controls. Tank controls in a 3D platformer sounds super bad but I think Croc's levels generally accommodate for this. The game requires more thought to be put into your platforming due to these controls rather than just jumping and not even thinking about it once like other games. With how the platforming generally is in the first couple worlds, I think the game does this well. It relies on slower more methodical platforming which does the games controls justice. That and you can switch to analog which makes Croc's move set just smoother in my eyes. It's a bit easier to trip up your movement with analog but I also just find it to be more fun. The first two worlds are really good about this slow and methodical philosophy. I also like them more because I'm more nostalgic for them and because I like the music that plays in them more. The latter two tho aren't quite as good. I still like them overall, the desert more than the castle, but a couple of times they can rely on some really tight jumps that are almost unreasonably hard to pull off and they generally have the worst moments in the game.
Actually talking about what the levels are like, it's basically a very linear level-based 3D platformer. The levels are broken up into rooms and along the way, there are collectables to get. The aforementioned Gobbos are in each level, 6 in total to save however you can only get 5 unless you also collect 5 colored crystals and open the door at the end to get the 6th gobbo. Other than that, you can also collect white crystals as well. These act like rings from Sonic, you get hit you lose them and can get some of them back. If you get hit without having any, you die. You can also collect red hearts which are the lives in this game. They're usually very scarce unless you find the various bonus rooms in the game. If you see a little thing of sparkles on the ground, or a random floating platform in a bottomless pit, you might want to check them out as they always give you a lot of lives. I definitely don't know how to get to every single one, I honestly never tried to look them all up, but I had great joy as a child discovering these for myself. I still remember being blown away somehow finding the secret in the first screen of the game you can unlock by butt stomping on a specific platform three times.
The game is very colorful and nice to look at, though it's also a victim to texture warping. Honestly, I never really thought about it much back then, just thought that's how PS1 games all looked but yeah it can be pretty rough in this game. It doesn't bother me too much tho as the general vibe is what sells this games aesthetics for me. This game is THE reason I love the liminal space like atmosphere you see in a lot of early 3D games. The skyboxes are just wonderful in this game, sometimes I just stop playing and look around to see what my environment looks like in the level I'm playing. Even on this most recent playthrough, I was still doing it. The Ice Island, besides just having the best level design I'd say, is my favorite aesthetically. Some of my favorite snow/ice level aesthetics ever are from this game.
The bosses are another low point in this game. They just honestly suck, like all of them. Every single one just has you waiting for a boss to do a move, and then attacking when they're tired or just open to being attacked. The first boss in the castle island I'll give props to because you must have the little guys it throws walk on these platforms that send them back to the boss. The 2nd ice island boss I also like just because the arena is really nice to look at. If there's anything I'll give the bosses, it's the fact their actual designs and the arenas they're in all feels very different from each other. That I can appreciate at least. But then there's something like Neptuna, the Neptune fish boss that you must defeat while underwater and the swimming was not made for a boss fight so it's just awful lol. So yeah, overall, the bosses do kind of suck, but I only really hate Neptuna. The others are just easy and that's it really.
If there's any aspect you should play Croc for however, it's the soundtrack. It's all good, tho my favorites are mostly in the first two worlds. I will say tho, Desert Island 1 was always a banger to me as a kid and nowadays I really love the first 20 seconds of Baron Dante 3 a ton, even if the boss is dummy easy. Outside of that however, a song I really love nowadays is Cave 1 just because it's so goddamn catchy and feels like the perfect song to play outside of your house on Halloween. I also just really love the first island's themes cuz they're so nostalgic to me and my entire family. If I played one of those songs around my parents, they'd instantly know it's from Croc lol. However, I think nowadays my favorite song overall is Snow Island 3 and it's all because of how atmospheric it is. Idk man, it's hard to be objective with even this game's soundtrack just because it's burned into my mind lol.
Maybe a 7 is too high for Croc, or maybe I'm actually underselling my own feelings because it's closer to an 8 for me. I'll give it a 7 for now tho I may bump it up in the future. Either way, idk if I'd even be on this website and a fan of video games if it wasn't for Croc. It means the world to me even if it's not perfect. I do recommend people at least give this game a try despite the low rating on here. Who knows, you may actually see some good in it like I have lol.
I have a very vague memory of going to the local mall, and the GameStop inside, and picking this game out on the shelf. It was probably like 2004..maybe 2003? So it was right in the middle of the GameCube/PS2 era and they still had plenty of gen 5 games. Besides that, I have some nice memories of playing this with my dad and asking him to help me with levels I was stuck on at the time. I can still picture the final boss level select screen on our old living room TV in my head, I remember thinking it was crazy we had finally gotten to the end of the game together. Sadly, I was never able to get 100% and beat every level back then but when I eventually got back into Playstation gaming, Croc was the first game I decided to play and yeah I was able to finally achieve 100% after all those years. I also did so last year as it had been 7 years since I played it at that point. Croc is not perfect, god knows this site definitely thinks it isn't with that 2.9 average, but I can't help but love Croc and I do think it is somewhat underrated.
The story consists of an opening cutscene and then some small ones before bosses and then the ending cutscene or two. The opening cutscene has the tribe of creatures called Gobbos, finding baby croc in a basket floating down a stream. They decide to take him in, train him to fight and eventually he becomes fully grown. Not long after, the evil Baron Dante appears with his minions and kidnaps all the Gobbos. It's then up to Croc to save them all and defeat Baron Dante. Incredibly simple plot but an effective one due to the cutscenes being very charming.
The general gameplay is where people have issue with the game. Croc can jump, butt stomp, swipe his tail as an attack along with other more situational moves like climbing monkey bars and swimming. That's all fine and dandy, but the issue people have with all this is the fact this game uses tank controls. Tank controls in a 3D platformer sounds super bad but I think Croc's levels generally accommodate for this. The game requires more thought to be put into your platforming due to these controls rather than just jumping and not even thinking about it once like other games. With how the platforming generally is in the first couple worlds, I think the game does this well. It relies on slower more methodical platforming which does the games controls justice. That and you can switch to analog which makes Croc's move set just smoother in my eyes. It's a bit easier to trip up your movement with analog but I also just find it to be more fun. The first two worlds are really good about this slow and methodical philosophy. I also like them more because I'm more nostalgic for them and because I like the music that plays in them more. The latter two tho aren't quite as good. I still like them overall, the desert more than the castle, but a couple of times they can rely on some really tight jumps that are almost unreasonably hard to pull off and they generally have the worst moments in the game.
Actually talking about what the levels are like, it's basically a very linear level-based 3D platformer. The levels are broken up into rooms and along the way, there are collectables to get. The aforementioned Gobbos are in each level, 6 in total to save however you can only get 5 unless you also collect 5 colored crystals and open the door at the end to get the 6th gobbo. Other than that, you can also collect white crystals as well. These act like rings from Sonic, you get hit you lose them and can get some of them back. If you get hit without having any, you die. You can also collect red hearts which are the lives in this game. They're usually very scarce unless you find the various bonus rooms in the game. If you see a little thing of sparkles on the ground, or a random floating platform in a bottomless pit, you might want to check them out as they always give you a lot of lives. I definitely don't know how to get to every single one, I honestly never tried to look them all up, but I had great joy as a child discovering these for myself. I still remember being blown away somehow finding the secret in the first screen of the game you can unlock by butt stomping on a specific platform three times.
The game is very colorful and nice to look at, though it's also a victim to texture warping. Honestly, I never really thought about it much back then, just thought that's how PS1 games all looked but yeah it can be pretty rough in this game. It doesn't bother me too much tho as the general vibe is what sells this games aesthetics for me. This game is THE reason I love the liminal space like atmosphere you see in a lot of early 3D games. The skyboxes are just wonderful in this game, sometimes I just stop playing and look around to see what my environment looks like in the level I'm playing. Even on this most recent playthrough, I was still doing it. The Ice Island, besides just having the best level design I'd say, is my favorite aesthetically. Some of my favorite snow/ice level aesthetics ever are from this game.
The bosses are another low point in this game. They just honestly suck, like all of them. Every single one just has you waiting for a boss to do a move, and then attacking when they're tired or just open to being attacked. The first boss in the castle island I'll give props to because you must have the little guys it throws walk on these platforms that send them back to the boss. The 2nd ice island boss I also like just because the arena is really nice to look at. If there's anything I'll give the bosses, it's the fact their actual designs and the arenas they're in all feels very different from each other. That I can appreciate at least. But then there's something like Neptuna, the Neptune fish boss that you must defeat while underwater and the swimming was not made for a boss fight so it's just awful lol. So yeah, overall, the bosses do kind of suck, but I only really hate Neptuna. The others are just easy and that's it really.
If there's any aspect you should play Croc for however, it's the soundtrack. It's all good, tho my favorites are mostly in the first two worlds. I will say tho, Desert Island 1 was always a banger to me as a kid and nowadays I really love the first 20 seconds of Baron Dante 3 a ton, even if the boss is dummy easy. Outside of that however, a song I really love nowadays is Cave 1 just because it's so goddamn catchy and feels like the perfect song to play outside of your house on Halloween. I also just really love the first island's themes cuz they're so nostalgic to me and my entire family. If I played one of those songs around my parents, they'd instantly know it's from Croc lol. However, I think nowadays my favorite song overall is Snow Island 3 and it's all because of how atmospheric it is. Idk man, it's hard to be objective with even this game's soundtrack just because it's burned into my mind lol.
Maybe a 7 is too high for Croc, or maybe I'm actually underselling my own feelings because it's closer to an 8 for me. I'll give it a 7 for now tho I may bump it up in the future. Either way, idk if I'd even be on this website and a fan of video games if it wasn't for Croc. It means the world to me even if it's not perfect. I do recommend people at least give this game a try despite the low rating on here. Who knows, you may actually see some good in it like I have lol.
6 Comments
Yes I can
the reyn origin story,,,,
@memoats true...
This is one I've been interested in playing for awhile, great review!
@brightgalaxy thanks! Heres hoping you end up liking it haha
Ptcremisi
2 days ago