Croc: Legend of the Gobbos

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Croc: Legend of the Gobbos
System(s): Sega Saturn
Publisher: Fox Interactive (US/EU), Media Quest (JP)
Developer: Argonaut Software
Distributor: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment (US), Electronic Arts (EU)
Sound driver: SCSP/CD-DA (35 tracks)
Peripherals supported: 3D Control Pad
Genre: Action
Number of players: 1
Release Date RRP Code JP 1998-03-26 ¥5,8005,800 T-26410G US 1997-11-24 T-16105H EU 1997-10-10 T-5029H-50 DE 1997 T-5029H-18 ES 1997 T-5029H-06 FR 1997 T-5029H-09 UK 1997-10-10 T-5029H-05 BR 199x 191x58
ESRB Sega ELSPA USK Tectoy

Croc: Legend of the Gobbos, known as Croc! Pau-Pau Island (クロック！パウパウアイランド) in Japan, is a 3D platform game developed by Argonaut Software for the Sega Saturn, Sony PlayStation and Microsoft Windows. A 2D version exists for the Game Boy Color.

Story

Croc: Legend of the Gobbos stars the young crocodile, Croc, who is found drifting down a river in a basket by a tribe of small brown furry creatures called Gobbos. Adopted and raised by them, Croc quickly shoots up in size and begins to feel isolated from his adoptive family.

The peace of the land is broken when the evil Baron Dante and his army of Dantinis invade the Gobbo's home island, capturing all of them and spreading them all over the chain of islands on the archipelago, with the Gobbo leader King Rufus encaged in the Baron's castle. Croc, who was spirited away by a bird called Beany at the last minute by the King before his capture, must now travel the island chain with Beany and rescue all the captured Gobbos, defeat the Baron and save the King from his prison.

Gameplay

As a 3D platform game, Croc sees the player traverse over 3D levels, collecting crystals, defeating enemies, and exploring in an attempt to free all of the captured Gobbos that Baron Dante has spread around the various islands of the game world. Each level usually has six Gobbos, usually hidden in crates or locked inside cages, with the sixth one usually placed in the sealed off bonus section towards the end of the map.

Similar to Sonic the Hedgehog, crystals act as hit points - as long as Croc is carrying a crystal, he cannot be killed, but coming into contact with enemies or dangerous obstacles will cause Croc to drop his crystals. Coloured "bonus crystals" are also scattered around the levels, which may also be locked up or inside crates, or disguised as normal crystals. If each of the five bonus crystals are collected (one each of red, green, blue, yellow and purple), the bonus section becomes available.

Croc has the ability to strike back at enemies with two different attacks - a tail swipe, or a stomp (performed by jumping in the air then pressing another button to drop down heavily on the target). The latter move is also used to open crates, while the former is used to strike the "Beany Gong", used to to summon Beany and complete each level. Enemies that are defeated don't stay gone for long, however - they will respawn within a fairly short time, making the aim of the game more about saving Croc's friends than killing every enemy in sight.

Levels

The game world of Croc is broken up into five distinct islands:

• Croc saturn eu world1.png

  World 1: The home Gobbo island. Grassy levels, with lava.

• Croc saturn eu world2.png

  World 2: A snowy island, with icy cold water.

• Croc saturn eu world3.png

  World 3: A desert island.

• Croc saturn eu world4.png

  World 4: The Baron's castle island.

• Croc saturn eu world5.png

  World 5: A mysterious crystal island.

Each of the first four islands has the same structure - three regular levels, each with six Gobbos to find, then a mid-world boss. Finding all the Gobbos in the three regular levels will open up a secret level, usually on a miniature island away from the main one (though not always - in world 4 one of the secret levels is in the dungeon of Dante's castle). The pattern then continues in the second half of the world, with another three levels with six Gobbos to find, an end-world boss, and another secret level with a jigsaw piece.

Secret levels contain a hidden jigsaw piece which needs to be found, and once all eight jigsaw pieces are collected, a fifth and final island is unlocked, with four more levels on it. Each level is a more difficult example of each of the four previous world's levels (i.e. there is a grassy level, an ice level, a desert level and a castle level). Completing all of these (there are no Gobbos to be found here) will unlock the game's real final boss, which upon defeating shows the true ending.

The bosses themselves (with the exception of the final world 4 Boss and the world 5 boss) aren't actually Dantinis - for each, the Baron has transformed an innocent creature it into a vicious being with the objective of stopping Croc. Upon defeating each of these non-Dantini bosses, a cutscene is shown of the spell being dissipated and Croc helping the ex-boss back towards its friends before Beany spirits him up again and on to the next challenge - in this way, Croc is helping the non-Gobbo creatures the Baron has been terrorising too.

Level List

Just about every level and boss name in the game is a pun or reference in some form - the below table lists the levels and where known, what the pun/reference is.

Level	Level name	Pun source
1-1	And So The Adventure Begins
1-2	Underground Overground	The theme song from British TV series The Wombles
1-3	Shoutin Lava Lava Lava	Shouting lager lager lager, lyrics from the Underworld track "Born Slippy"
1-B1	Lair of the Feeble
1-S1	The Curvy Caverns
1-4	The Tumbling Dantini
1-5	Cave Fear	The movie Cape Fear
1-6	Darkness Descends	The second album by the American thrash metal band Dark Angel.
1-B2	Fight Night With Flibby
1-S2	The Twisty Tunnels
2-1	The Ice of Life	The British idiom Variety is the spice of life
2-2	Be Wheely Careful	A pun of the general advice Be really careful - the level contains a large section with rotating cogs and a bottomless pit
2-3	Riot Brrrrr	Riot grrrl, an underground feminist punk rock movement
2-B1	Chumly's Snow Den
2-S1	Clouds of Ice
2-4	I Snow Him So Well	I Know Him So Well, a 1985 song performed by Elaine Paige and Barbara Dickson
2-5	Say No Snow
2-6	License To Chill	License To Kill, James Bond's secret agent status
2-B2	Demon Itsy's Ice Palace
2-S2	Ice Bridge To Eternity
3-1	Lights Camel Action	Lights, camera, action, the Hollywood catchphrase
3-2	Mud Pit Mania
3-3	Goin Underground	Likely the 1979 album from British punk rock band The Jam
3-B1	The Deadly Tank of Neptuna	Japanese anime The Deadly Tank, which had a character in it called Neptuna.
3-S1	Arabian Heights	The Arabian story collection of the Arabian Nights, also a song from Disney's Aladdin
3-4	Sand and Freedom
3-5	Leap of Faith	The idiom Leap of faith, but also a reference to a platforming game trope where you cannot see where your character is jumping to
3-6	Life's a Beach	The saying Life's a bitch
3-B2	Cactus Jack's Ranch	Likely a reference to the 1979 western film The Villain, named Cactus Jack in the UK and Australia
3-S2	Defeato Burrito
4-1	The Tower of Power	Likely a reference to the American soul and funk based horn section and band Tower of Power, who have been performing since the 70s
4-2	Hassle in the Castle	A Scooby-Doo cartoon film from 1969
4-3	Dungeon of Defright
4-B1	Fosley's Freaky Donut
4-S1	Smash and See
4-4	Ballistic Meg's Fairway
4-5	Swipe Swiftly's Wicked Ride
4-6	Panic at Platform Pete's Lair
4-B2	Baron Dante's Funky Inferno
4-S2	Jailhouse Croc	The Elvis Presley song Jailhouse Rock
5-1	And So The Adventure Returns	A pun on the name of level 1-1
5-2	Diet Brrrrr	A pun on the name of level 2-3
5-3	Trial on the Nile
5-4	Crox Interactive	Fox Interactive, the game's publisher
5-B	Secret Sentinel

History

Sequels and re-releases

Croc was followed in 1999 by Croc 2 on the PlayStation, Game Boy Color and Windows. Ports for the Nintendo 64 and Sega Dreamcast were planned, but scrapped.

Magazine articles

Main article: Croc: Legend of the Gobbos/Magazine articles.

Promotional material

Print advert in Electronic Gaming Monthly (US) #101: "December 1997" (1997-1x-xx)

Print advert in Sega Saturn Magazine (UK) #26: "December 1997" (1997-11-12)

Print advert in Sega Magazin (DE) #48: "November 1997" (1997-10-15)

Physical scans

Sega Retro Average
Publication Score Source CD Consoles (FR) 76 №36, p142/143 Famitsu (JP) 55 №485, p34 MAN!AC (DE) 85 №3/98, p67 Saturn Power (UK) 80 №9, p74-77 Sega Saturn Magazine (UK) 91 №26, p62-65 Sega Saturn Magazine (JP) 60 №1998-11, p195

	75
Based on 6 reviews

Sega Retro Average
Publication Version Score CD Consoles (FR) 80 Electronic Gaming Monthly (US) NTSC-U 75 Famitsu (JP) NTSC-J 55 GamePro (US) NTSC-U 88 Hobby Consolas (ES) 91 MAN!AC (DE) PAL 85 Mega Console (IT) PAL 85 Mega Force (FR) PAL 85 Saturn Fan (JP) NTSC-J 53 Saturn Fan (JP) NTSC-J 58 Saturn Power (UK) PAL 80 Sega Saturn Magazine (UK) PAL 91 Sega Saturn Magazine (JP) NTSC-J 60 Strana Igr (RU) 80

	76
Based on 14 reviews

Croc: Legend of the Gobbos

Saturn, US
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Disc Manual Reg Card

Saturn, JP
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Saturn, UK

Saturn, FR
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Saturn, DE
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Saturn, UK/ES/PT
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Saturn, BR
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Technical information

Saturn Rendering Bug

Due to programming errors caused by differences between the development and retail units, the original European and North American releases of the game had a bug where non-textured polygons are not displayed (notably including much of Croc including his head and some enemies). Faulty copies of the game were recalled in North America, but in Europe Electronic Arts included a yellow leaflet in subsequent copies of the game instructing the user on how to work around the bug. The workaround is to first switch the console on and then insert and load the game, rather than switching the console on with the game already inserted. This bug does not exist in any of the PlayStation or PC versions.