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Legend of the Gobbos Remaster Evaluate

April 2, 2025

Within the mid to late 90s, 3D platformers had been experiencing an enormous spike in each high quality and recognition. With the unique PlayStation and the Nintendo 64 having simply been launched, builders had been attending to stretch their legs into a complete 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 thousands and thousands of players, and the medium would by no means be the identical afterward. These video games had been seminal moments in gaming that rippled all through historical past.

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Smack-dab in the course of these different titles that might 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 finally garner reward from some shops 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 cellular titles, the franchise finally fizzled out and has remained utterly dormant for 20 years.

Due to all of this, it was a bit of stunning to be taught {that a} remaster of the unique title from 1997 was coming again in 2025. Would a sport that bought left behind within the 90s actually have the ability to have a renaissance and seize fashionable audiences?

I jumped in to seek out out.

A Respect For Its Historical past

Essentially the most pleasing expertise I had with the Croc remaster was with the actually beautiful historic “Crocipedia” that the devs included with the title. Very similar to 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watch goofy and endearing Japanese TV commercials from the time, browse a set of enjoyable merch, and flip by way of outdated journal protection from publications lengthy defunct.

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There’s even a step-by-step tutorial on methods to crochet your individual Croc plushy, which is really lovely and endearing. It’s totally 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 have a look at.

I went by way of the entire Crocipedia earlier than leaping into the precise sport. It gave me hope that this remaster would someway translate to the fashionable period in ways in which I wasn’t anticipating, and I might finally find yourself having a great time with the title even within the possible occasion that it hadn’t aged the most effective during the last 28 years.

I generally is a little naive at occasions.

Gentle Modernization

Croc took an attention-grabbing 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 trying, simply with a recent 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 suppose that this additionally finally felt like a fairly low effort endeavor.

On the one hand, it is form of neat to see a sport introduced again in a means 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 pondering, “Whoa, this seems means worse than I bear in mind,” so it is cool in some ways in which Croc actually simply aimed to deliver the sport to the requirements of our recollections.

On the opposite, I could not assist however suppose that this additionally finally felt like a fairly low effort endeavor. The sport provides you menu choices to flip between the unique and remastered model of the graphics, even with the power to throw a VGA or CRT filter on prime for further nostalgia. It is right here that you could additionally actually see simply how related this sport nonetheless someway seems to the 1997 model.

All of it form of finally ends up feeling like remastering for the sake of remastering. It wasn’t mandatory, and the result’s largely underwhelming within the fashionable panorama. From a historic preservation angle, this can be a cool thought. However it’s additionally possible 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 had been nonetheless determining methods to get their characters to maneuver round a 3D area most successfully, and the outcome 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 precise stick with reposition as you please. The tank controls are nonetheless out there 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 straightforward with fashionable 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… virtually anything within the style.

Degree designs are extraordinarily fundamental and now painfully straightforward with fashionable controls. The well being system of Sonic ring-like crystals that scatter if you take harm feels horrible if you’ve collected round 80 after which are solely in a position to get well 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 seek out, apart from getting access to a brief bonus ending to every degree, that’s normally not enjoyable both.

Croc skates round a bit like he is at all times on ice. Platforming is imprecise and infrequently enjoyable or attention-grabbing. Puzzles are by no means greater than pushing a field or dangling from the underside of a chain-link platform to cross a spot.

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.

LittleBigPlanet on left, Banjo Kazooie in middle, Fez on right

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On the finish of the day, Croc actually has subsequent to nothing that’s enjoyable to finish or value going again for. I discovered myself typically simply utterly 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 love platformers, and I really like many collect-a-thon variations of them. For me to only need to beeline on to the exit of each single degree as a result of nothing optionally available was ever enjoyable or worthwhile is solely not a great signal.

Solely For The Extraordinarily Nostalgic

On the finish of the day, I am unable to see Croc remastered touchdown with anybody outdoors the choose few that performed it as a child in 1997 and want a fast shot of nostalgia to make it by way of their day. For this viewers, I am positive they will 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, nonetheless, will discover nothing right here value experiencing. I do not actually even suppose youngsters of the day will discover a lot enjoyment from the fast 5 or 6-hour journey, both. There are many different fashionable contemporaries that may 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 folks that liked this title as a toddler. I do know the devs are happy with the product and needed to deliver Croc again to have fun the enjoyable historical past they had been part of. All of that could be a bummer to consider as you are enjoying by way of a clunky, boring platformer that actually does not have to exist within the fashionable panorama.

Not each retro sport wants or warrants an encore-type remaster to deliver it again into the highlight, and I can not think about that exposing a contemporary viewers to this title may have individuals 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 suppose I will be alone in that sentiment.

Nonetheless, you possible already know if this sport is for you, then by all means, get pleasure from your journey down reminiscence lane for those who 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 stricken by cumbersome controls, generic worlds, and uninspired degree design that had 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… need not. People who liked the sport again within the day and know what to anticipate can be completely happy, however that is actually only a remaster for the nostalgia-starved. It is clear that the builders have loads 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.