Why are all my childhood PS1 games so strongly criticized by Gamespot?
User Rating: 7.5 | Croc: Legend of the Gobbos PS
Games like this and Crash were given such negative feedback by gamespot and ign when they first came out, yet a majority of the gamers would say these games are much better than they look. A 6/10 is a joke, this game may be flawed but it does have its challenges and strong points. First of all, the camera is pretty annoying and doesn't follow you properly, but it can easily be fixed and worked around. The second thing is the controls for moving are pretty flawed since you move backwards very slowly and croc feels somewhat hard to maneuver straightly. Besides these problems the game plays fairly well, you are an alligator who must collect gems and make it through various levels, very similar to crash bandicoot, and spread throughout the level are various furry creatures you need to rescue. Each level has 6 of these and to get the final one in the level, you must collect all the hidden colored gems and use them to unlock a door located at the end, which will take you to a hidden area where you must complete a challenge to get your final Gobbo. Throuout the level, you encounter enemies, although you do much more platforming than fighting, you usually climb around, jump platforms, and gather keys to access the next area. There is a pretty diverse group of enemies and environments ranging from snow levels, to desert, to castle, to grass. You die if you are hit once with no gems in your possession. There are some secret areas in this game that you need to look hard to discover as well as bosses, some who are fun, others who are just frustrating. Once you rescue all the Gobbos in the game, you unlock a secret world to get to the true final boss. The challenge of the game is here, its just the camera and controls that make it a little more frustrating, but the length of the game and level designs make up for this.
The graphics are pretty good and smooth, but not the greatest of Playstation. The sound quality is also pretty good but crocs voice can get annoying after a while. The music is fitting.
The replay value is relatively low unless you haven't rescued all the Gobbos. Once you rescue all the Gobbos and beat the final world, which is typically easy to do, there really is nothing else to do and this game losses some value there. But for a kids game, it is better than most kids games today and has very fun platforming elements. The only main problems I see in this game besides the camera and moving controls are the somewhat annoying parts of certain levels and slightly repetitive design patterns in similar level types. It is definitely a worthy game and although not one of PS1s better platformers, offers a decent playthrough.
