A Diamond in the rough
In a world where games are seemingly being remastered it appears nothing is exempt from becoming the next remaster, both notoriously big PlayStation mascots Spyro and Crash have had all of their original PlayStation games spruced up and to positive reception. Croc Legend of the Gobbos was a game released originally in 1997 and I vividly remember it being quite a big thing as there was an advert for it, I had also played it for much of my childhood and enjoyed it a lot. Croc Legend of the Gobbos played very different to other platformers that I had played such as the aforementioned Spyro and Crash but also Rayman. This was not the first 3D platformer I had played but the only other one I had played where the controls took getting used to as it had what is known as today as tank controls. The only other platformer I had played prior to this was Bubsy 3D but let’s not talk about that one.
So my nine year old self was a big fan of Croc and sure it didn’t really have many unique ideas at the time but I enjoyed it for what it was at the time, 28 years or so later here I am enjoying the game but with a fresh coat of paint to a degree but do I find myself engaged and enjoying it as I did all those years ago? Well not quite.
Croc Legend of the Gobbos has a simple story and it is all told withing the first short cutscene, in the land of the Gobbos, King Gobbo can be seen casually walking by as he finds baby Croc floating downstream in a baby crib, it then shows him watching Croc grow and teaching him how to walk and do a tail whip in comedy fashion, soon after Croc immediately grows huge just in time as Baron Dante the big evil villain of the game arrives and captures all the Gobbos including the King himself and it is now up to Croc to save them. What is great about these cutscenes is there is no dialogue and even though the game has just a few short cutscenes they tell the story without the need of dialogue, a clever premise that makes the game playable in any language and anyone would still be able to understand it.
The game then begins and you soon take control of Croc, after moving Croc it feels completely different to what I remembered and this is because hooray! no more tank controls, I find myself flying through the levels early on because of how well the game plays, you can press the left analogue to instantly get the camera behind Croc but overall the Camera does a good job of being where it needs to be. If you use the D-Pad to control Croc instead then you can play with the tank controls should you wish. Croc Legend of the Gobbos introduces short and simple levels that become slightly harder as the game progresses. As you progress each level you go onto the next which is indicated by a 3D map where Croc can be seen and move to different points on the Map, Croc has a very standard structure in game design. Each level has six Gobbos that can be rescued one of which will always be in the bonus level of each stage, to get to the bonus stage you need to find five coloured gems within that stage to unlock a door near each exit to the stage, there are two secret levels per World which become available should you rescue all the Gobbos prior to these secret levels, the secret levels themselves are essentially a small gauntlet where you will run through the level and at the end a Jigsaw piece can be found and collecting these will end the stage, collecting all the Jigsaw pieces will unlock an extra World at the end of the game where you will unlock the true boss and the true ending.
Graphically Croc Legend of the Gobbos Remastered looks good thanks to its graphical update but unlike other remasters we have had previously, I felt somewhat disappointed by Crocs update. This is because the other aforementioned games felt like remakes even though they kept to the original source material and were labelled as remasters, I do not blame the developers here as this is a Remaster in the very definition of the case so we know exactly what to expect, this is the same original game but the graphics are smoother as also the enemies, characters and minor effects such as weather and backgrounds in the worlds themselves.
But herein lies the issue, Croc Legend of the Gobbos is a game I fondly remember and the nostalgia playing through it is wonderful and I very much loved hearing the music which I also remember however the Remaster itself has made me realise the flaws of the game which I may have been blind to at the time but they have definitely been exacerbated tenfold. Environments have seen an improvement in quality but one thing I noticed especially inside Cave segments of levels is the Grid or the Mesh of how the game was built upon, if you’re in an open area you will notice squares on the floor where the stone design is, you can quite clearly see the lines in the formation of squares and the floor pattern within the square looks like it has just been copied and pasted over which I hadn’t really noticed in the original but in the remaster I do. Caves have no skybox and when you aren’t in a cave the skyboxes outside still look like a still image and even in this Remaster still have some noticeable pixelation to them.
While the game does feature four different worlds the levels all end up feeling the same and this is due to the level design of Croc. Croc Legend of the Gobbos does a good job of introducing game mechanics and various ways in which to explore, Croc will smash open boxes and collect gems while doing so, Croc will jump across circular platforms, climb across grills, push boxes, activate moving platforms and press buttons which will activate something in the level. All these mechanics are simple in execution but due to how short the levels are and having all these mechanics used over and over the levels seem to feel samey. I believe the overall issue is that the mechanics are not being used to their full potential. The desert world is the most annoying in that the levels are not particularly difficult but a lot of the levels are dark so you’re limited to what you can see and you will have to backtrack which can be annoying. The final Castle World is the hardest by far and has some unique mechanics but the circular platforms are still very much overused.
Boss fights are extremely easy and definitely the weakest part of Croc Legend of the Gobbos, they require you to run and wait for the boss to attack and wait for them in their vulnerable tired mode before attacking them back, every boss has 3 hit points which was never known in the original game but they now have life bars and when you defeat them they stop in the tracks where the level abruptly ends, sadly the bosses remain the same and even before delving into the remaster, I knew I would find them easy and being the weakest aspect of Croc, the underwater boss felt only slightly different due to it being underwater but the mechanics remained the same. I am all for keeping close to the source material as possible but in this case I would very much would have welcomed harder bosses with new mechanics. The game still uses it’s original password system although i’ve not tried to see if it actually works, the game does not give you passwords for completing a level and the game autosaves but if you wanted to try I suppose that is an option.
While it was definitely fun to return to Croc Legend of the Gobbos with the remaster I did feel underwhelmed and I think this is to the fact that the remaster itself did show a lot of the cracks which were not as noticeable in the original and also to the fact that younger me was not aware that Croc Legend of the Gobbos is a game that has mechanics that are used far too much but not in a way that makes the game difficult, Croc is an amalgamation of mechanics that were used in other games but done a lot simpler which I definitely have noticed now which I didn’t before. The strongest aspect of Croc is by far the music and sound design and anyone who has played it knows just how good it is, it’s Jazzy, fun and having the same music used within each world and having a twist depending on which world it is a part of was unique especially at the time. I appreciate the team for putting in the reverb of Crocs voice during Cave segments which was missing during initial footage of the game, it shows they truly listen to the fans, I also appreciate the team for going above and beyond by adding graphic options to play with smoother graphics but you can play in the original more pixelated style which in all honesty I enjoyed. You can even mix and match should you wish. The team behind Croc even added a digital museum with development insights and some rare unseen footage and materials about the game’s history and creation. That on it’s own is fun and enjoyable to delve into if it is your sort of thing.
A PlayStation 5 Review code was provided by Argonaut Games. This review is featured on OpenCritic
