Croc: Legend of the Gobbos Remaster

About

Croc, also known as Croc: Legend of the Gobbos is part of a franchise originally published by Argonaut Games in 1997. It was ported to many systems, such as the SEGA Saturn the Playstation, and the Windows Operating Systems. Originally thought to be a long-dead franchise at the turn of the millennium, an unexpected remastering of the original title was announced by the Argonaut Games Twitter account in late August 2024. This would, in turn, spark celebration from many dormant fans of the original series, spawning fan art and fanfare.

History

Croc: Legend of the Gobbos was originally released on September 29th, 1997 on Playstation^[1]. It is a 3D platforming game focusing on action and exploration. It featured a young Crocodilian, aptly named Croc. Croc was found as a baby, and raised by a race of small, fuzzy creatures known as Gobbos, in their nation spanning four island worlds. When Baron Dante kidnaps the Gobbo race and causes destruction to their world, Croc sets off scouring the island to free them, and showdown with the villainous Baron to save them all.^[2]

The game and its ports received mixed reception, but would ultimately be considered a great success financially, selling over 3 million copies on the PlayStation version alone.^[3][4] While Croc and a subsequent sequel Croc 2 had a small cult following, the franchise would slowly disappear from the public conscience, as the last set of games would be released only on mobile phones. Similarly, there were originally plans for a "Croc 3" to be made,^[5] but were cancelled due to Argonaut Games supposedly going under in 2007.^[6]

Remaster Announcement

As early as June 6th of 2023, there were rumors of a "Croc HD Remaster" by one of Argonaut's founders, Jez San^[7]. Jez outright said on Twitter.

Argonaut Software reappeared on Twitter in July of 2024, and on August 28th, the account released a trailer of a Croc Remaster. It received 5,400 likes and 2,300 retweets within two days of the announcement.

Croctober

"Croctober" is a hashtag used by Argonaut Games to talk more about Croc during the month of October and to keep Croc's remaster in the public eye. Every day, starting October 1st, Argonaut's Twitter page would drop interviews, bits of scrapped content, and added features found in the upcoming remaster.

Fan Reception

Fans of the original games were ecstatic over the news, with many praising how the HD Remaster still preserved the low-poly and cute charm of the original. Many voiced relief over how it refused to "modernize" its art style, akin to what happened to Crash Bandicoot or Banjo-Kazooie in the late 2000s. In particular, Twitter user Chaofanatic praised how it made HD versions of the classic 3D models (shown left), whereas user SpennyEcks made a joke mockup of what Croc would've ended up with a modern game design treatment (shown right)

Analog Control update

Fans went especially wild on October 7th, for a much desired quality-of-life updated. During Argonaut's month of "Croctober", their twitter page would drop a feature of the remake, stating that the game's "Tank Controls" were now optional, and had been updated to support analog controls. This would make for one of their most popular posts, receiving 5.9K likes and 1.3K reposts as of October 18th, 2024. Shown below is a demonstration of the gameplay's new controls.

🎊#Croctober Feature Reveal! 🎊Croc originally had D-Pad “tank controls,” and the most requested remaster upgrade has been to add smooth, modern analog controls with an improved camera. But if you’re into old-school cool, never fear--we still support tank controls on the D-Pad! pic.twitter.com/3XB5nHJd5i

— Argonaut Games (@ArgonautGames_) October 7, 2024

This in turn received unanimous fanfare from many users. Notable names include SomeCallMeJohnny and Caddicarus, two well-established Video Game Critic channels who are familiar with Croc's games.

Caddicarus in particular was one of the original game's biggest critics back in the 2010s. While he didn't particularly call the tank controls good or bad – per se – he did cite it as being "Flawed" back in his 2013 review of the original PS1 game (shown below, timestamp 7:20).

Fan Art

Alongside their cheers of joy, several users on Twitter would also post new and previously made Croc fanart to state their satisfaction with the news from Argonaut.

Search Interest

External References