Croc 2: Kingdom of the Gobbos returns on 29 October on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series, Switch and PC, twenty-seven years after it first came out on the original PlayStation. This remaster comes from Argonaut Games, which brought the first Croc back last year, and its Steam page credits Titanium Studios as developer. I found everything I loved about it back in the day: an adorable little crocodile, music that’s as catchy as ever and challenges that keep changing. I also found everything that used to drive me mad, starting with frustrating gameplay and very nineties platforming logic. Croc 2 is a very good trip down memory lane, but I can’t help feeling it deserved more than a remaster.
At a glance
Croc 2 runs on nostalgia, with a hero who’s as cute as ever, a great soundtrack and a wide variety of challenges.
The Croc2pedia, a digital museum packed with development archives, is a real gift for fans.
A jump that responds a beat late and a game that punishes every mistake make some sections genuinely painful.
Croc goes looking for his parents as Baron Dante returns
The story kicks off on the beach at Gobbo Valley. Croc finds a bottle washed up on the sand, with a message revealing that his birth parents are searching for him. So he sets off for the mainland, except that Baron Dante, the villain from the first game, has been brought back to life by the Dantinis and has sworn revenge. The plot is simple, and that suits the game perfectly.
You travel across four villages, each with its own Gobbo culture: the coastal Sailor Village, the wintry Cossack Village, the prehistoric Caveman Village and the mountaintop Inca Village. The game promises more than 40 levels of open-ended 3D platforming, according to Argonaut Games’ overview as published by Sal Romano at Gematsu, with new Guardians to take on, such as Soveena the Squid, Cannon Boat Keith and Flavio the Thermal Fish.
The nostalgia kicked in within the first few minutes. Croc is still as cute as he ever was, and the music is just as catchy, two ingredients that are enough to take you straight back to 1999.
Wildly varied challenges are Croc 2’s biggest strength
This is what I enjoyed most, by a distance. The challenges in Croc 2 are wildly varied, and the game keeps hopping from one idea to the next. On its Steam page, Argonaut Games lists car and speedboat races, minecart rides, hang-gliding and even an aeroplane, on top of the classic missions where you rescue captured Gobbos.
Between missions, you spend your crystals at Swap Meet Pete’s General Store, run by an enterprising cat who sells handy gadgets and can teleport you between villages with his Crystal Ball. Croc has also picked up a triple jump, which gives him extra height when he needs it most.
Retro or remastered, the choice is yours
One smart touch in this remaster is that you can choose between the retro version and the remastered version. Anyone who wants to replay the game as it was in 1999 has that option, and everyone else gets an updated world that’s brighter and sharper.
The remaster also brings improved visual fidelity, tweaked controls and a few quality-of-life updates, as Kris Moyse reported in Time Extension’s report on the release date. Despite those tweaks, some of the original’s flaws are still there, and I’ll come back to them below.
The Croc2pedia is a digital museum worth exploring
The other big highlight of Croc 2 is the Croc2pedia. Argonaut Games has gathered long-lost production materials in it: full game design documentation, marketing assets, promotional merchandise, animation test videos and 3D model galleries of characters, levels and items cut from the shipped game.
You’ll also find interviews with members of the original Argonaut team, the remaster developers and the producers. It’s fascinating to browse for anyone who loves the series, and it’s the kind of extra that makes a remaster feel worthwhile.
A late jump and no mercy for the slightest mistake
Here’s where it falls down. Croc 2’s gameplay is frustrating, and that’s the biggest weakness of this remaster. The game is unforgiving about mistakes, and even the smallest slip costs you dearly.
Much of the problem in Croc 2 comes down to the jump. There’s a delay when you press the button, and that slight lag sometimes had me tearing my hair out.
You also have to accept nineties game logic, which won’t be for everyone. The way the game punishes your mistakes is a clear throwback to that era. Nostalgic players will feel right at home, while anyone used to modern platformers may lose patience quickly.
Croc 2 is a very good remaster that deserved a full remake
All told, I had a very good time with Croc 2, carried by its nostalgia, its lovable hero, its music and the variety of its challenges. The Croc2pedia adds real value for fans. But this game deserved a full remake, the way Spyro got its Reignited Trilogy, to properly fix that frustrating gameplay and that late jump.
If you grew up with Croc, go for it. If you’re discovering it now, bring plenty of patience. On PC, Croc 2 is coming to both Steam and GOG, according to Gematsu.
| What we like | What we like a lot less |
|---|---|
| Nostalgia that works from the very first minutes | Frustrating gameplay |
| A Croc who’s as cute as ever | Nineties game logic that won’t suit everyone |
| Music that’s as catchy as ever | A game that punishes every mistake |
| Wildly varied challenges | A delay when you jump |
| A choice between the retro and remastered versions | |
| What might make you buy itThe Croc2pedia, a fascinating digital museum | What might put you offA remaster where a full remake was called for |
To see what’s landing over the next few weeks, the Hitbox release calendar lists every date with its official source.