Within the mid to late 90s, 3D platformers have been experiencing a large spike in each high quality and recognition. With the unique PlayStation and the Nintendo 64 having simply been launched, builders have been attending to stretch their legs into an entire new dimension that was largely unexplored on earlier consoles.
This new tech led to some actually prolific titles for gamers to leap into. Issues like Mario 64 and Crash Bandicoot in 1996, adopted by Spyro and Banjo-Kazooie in 1998, put 3D mascot platformers on the map for hundreds of thousands of players, and the medium would by no means be the identical afterward. These video games have been seminal moments in gaming that rippled all through historical past.
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Smack-dab in the midst of these different titles that will go on to create large, long-lived, and beloved franchises, was the unique Croc: The Legend of the Gobbos, dropped in 1997. Whereas the sport would in the end garner reward from some retailers and followers, even on the time, it was a little bit of a polarizing expertise general.
Croc‘s tank controls and fundamental degree design weren’t as much as par with Mario 64 (an unreasonably excessive bar to comply with, to make sure), and whereas the sport did find yourself with one sequel, a pair Recreation Boy variations, and a handful of cell titles, the franchise in the end fizzled out and has remained fully dormant for 20 years.
Due to all of this, it was somewhat shocking to be taught {that a} remaster of the unique title from 1997 was coming again in 2025. Would a sport that obtained left behind within the 90s actually be capable of have a renaissance and seize trendy audiences?
I jumped in to search out out.
A Respect For Its Historical past
Essentially the most gratifying expertise I had with the Croc remaster was with the actually beautiful historic “Crocipedia” that the devs included with the title. Very like different retro remasters and collections we have seen lately, the staff right here went the additional mile to incorporate nostalgic seems again on the unique heyday of the sequence within the 90s.
You get to learn little snippets about everybody concerned with the venture, watch goofy and endearing Japanese TV commercials from the time, browse a set of enjoyable merch, and flip via previous journal protection from publications lengthy defunct.
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There’s even a step-by-step tutorial on how you can crochet your individual Croc plushy, which is actually cute and endearing. It is very clear that the staff has a lot love for the unique title and the mascot they birthed into existence, and all this gathered materials was genuinely heartwarming to take a look at.
I went via the entire Crocipedia earlier than leaping into the precise sport. It gave me hope that this remaster would by some means translate to the fashionable period in ways in which I wasn’t anticipating, and I would in the end find yourself having a very good time with the title even within the seemingly occasion that it hadn’t aged one of the best during the last 28 years.
I could be a little naive at occasions.
Gentle Modernization
Croc took an fascinating strategy with its ranges of remastering. We have seen different throwback titles be revived and seem like from-the-ground-up recreations of their earlier iterations. Video games like Spyro Reignited and Crash Bandicoot N. Sane trilogies clearly come to thoughts as nice examples of this.
In excessive comparability, Croc opted for a way more low-key strategy to the time period “remaster.” The sport remains to be polygonal and fundamental wanting, simply with a contemporary sheen that brings the sport to the 4K period and runs a lot extra easily from begin to end.
Nonetheless, I could not assist however assume that this additionally in the end felt like a fairly low effort endeavor.
On the one hand, it is sort of neat to see a sport introduced again in a approach that appears on display the way you at all times imagined it as a child within the 90s. Each gamer has had the expertise of going again to a childhood title and considering, “Whoa, this seems approach worse than I keep in mind,” so it is cool in some ways in which Croc actually simply aimed to convey the sport to the requirements of our recollections.
On the opposite, I could not assist however assume that this additionally in the end felt like a fairly low effort endeavor. The sport offers you menu choices to flip between the unique and remastered model of the graphics, even with the flexibility to throw a VGA or CRT filter on prime for additional nostalgia. It is right here you can additionally actually see simply how comparable this sport nonetheless by some means seems to the 1997 model.
All of it sort of finally ends up feeling like remastering for the sake of remastering. It wasn’t needed, and the result’s largely underwhelming within the trendy panorama. From a historic preservation angle, this can be a cool concept. However it’s additionally seemingly not sufficient to entice most gamers to offer Croc one other look.
The Identical Boring Gameplay And Ranges
Probably probably the most notable characteristic of 1997’s model of Croc was the sport’s tank controls. Devs on the time have been nonetheless determining how you can get their characters to maneuver round a 3D area most successfully, and the end result for Croc was a super-clunky and bad-to-handle model of motion compared to just about anything on the time.
It is good that in 2025, we will now play Croc with typical joystick controls and a digicam on the appropriate persist with reposition as you please. The tank controls are nonetheless accessible on the d-pad if you wish to expertise what the sport was like again within the day, however… do not do it.
Degree designs are extraordinarily fundamental and now painfully simple with trendy controls.
Whereas this up to date management scheme is clearly good, it does not do something to cover the truth that Croc actually has by no means been a enjoyable sport as compared with… nearly anything within the style.
Degree designs are extraordinarily fundamental and now painfully simple with trendy controls. The well being system of Sonic ring-like crystals that scatter once you take harm feels horrible once you’ve collected round 80 after which are solely in a position to get better 2 upon taking a success.
Enemies are tremendous generic and annoyingly respawn after a brief timer. Not one of the collectibles really feel rewarding to search out, except for having access to a brief bonus ending to every degree, that’s often not enjoyable both.
Croc skates round a bit like he is at all times on ice. Platforming is imprecise and infrequently enjoyable or fascinating. Puzzles are by no means greater than pushing a field or dangling from the underside of a chain-link platform to cross a niche.
Boss fights are actually abysmal, boring, fundamental, and irritating, weirdly missing sound results for incoming assaults and easily anticlimactically ending with a “degree full” display when you land your third, awkward-feeling tail-swipe in your foe.
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On the finish of the day, Croc actually has subsequent to nothing that’s enjoyable to finish or price going again for. I discovered myself typically simply fully skipping a collectible Gobbo in a room as a result of I knew it would not be rewarding to get to, and it would not matter if I collected it anyway.
I like platformers, and I like many collect-a-thon variations of them. For me to simply need to beeline on to the exit of each single degree as a result of nothing non-compulsory was ever enjoyable or worthwhile is just not a very good signal.
Solely For The Extraordinarily Nostalgic
On the finish of the day, I can not see Croc remastered touchdown with anybody exterior the choose few that performed it as a child in 1997 and wish a fast shot of nostalgia to make it via their day. For this viewers, I am certain they’re going to love what’s been packaged collectively for them to time journey again into.
Longtime followers of platformers that also have not performed Croc by 2025, nevertheless, will discover nothing right here price experiencing. I do not actually even assume children of the day will discover a lot enjoyment from the fast 5 or 6-hour journey, both. There are many different trendy contemporaries that can maintain their consideration extra efficiently.
What sucks probably the most is that it feels dangerous to come back to those conclusions after enjoying the sport, too. I do know there are those that beloved this title as a baby. I do know the devs are pleased with the product and needed to convey Croc again to have a good time the enjoyable historical past they have been part of. All of that may be a bummer to consider as you are enjoying via a clunky, boring platformer that actually does not have to exist within the trendy panorama.
Not each retro sport wants or warrants an encore-type remaster to convey it again into the highlight, and I can’t think about that exposing a contemporary viewers to this title can have folks clamoring for a real reboot of the franchise. By the point I beat the ultimate boss, I had been ready for the sport to finish for hours, and I actually do not assume I will be alone in that sentiment.
Nonetheless, you seemingly already know if this sport is for you, then by all means, take pleasure in your journey down reminiscence lane in case you select to test it out.
Sadly, Croc: The Legend of The Gobbos actually by no means wanted to come back again. Even in 1997, it was a title tormented by cumbersome controls, generic worlds, and uninspired degree design that have been left behind by its extra prolific contemporaries. Whereas a pleasant sheen of additional polish and modernized motion does make this one of the best ways to expertise Croc in 2025, you continue to actually simply… needn’t. People who beloved the sport again within the day and know what to anticipate will likely be blissful, however that is actually only a remaster for the nostalgia-starved. It is clear that the builders have a variety of love for his or her inexperienced, reptilian hero, but it surely’s merely not sufficient to make Croc a enjoyable 3D platformer for anybody else.
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Reviewed on Change
Platformer
Motion
Journey
- Launched
- April 2, 2025
- Developer(s)
- Argonaut Software program
- Writer(s)
- Argonaut Software program
- ESRB
- Everybody
- PC Launch Date
- April 2, 2025
- Xbox Collection X|S Launch Date
- April 2, 2025
- PS5 Launch Date
- April 2, 2025
- Nintendo Change Launch Date
- April 2, 2025
- Variety of Gamers
- Single-player
- Up to date controls and digicam
- Fashionable visible constancy
- Cool inclusion of 90s historical past
- The naked minimal of a remaster
- Boring gameplay, enemies, and executives
- Generic worlds
- Fundamental degree design
- Platforming annoyances