Of all the original PlayStation games I played in my childhood, Croc: Legend of the Gobbos was not one of them. To be fair, I was three years old when it came out in 1997, and I’ve only ever heard of Croc being discussed on rare occasions as I got older — in a YouTube video listing the best games of the ’90s or, more recently, my partner recalling memories of playing it during his childhood. Playing Croc: Legend of the Gobbos Remastered on PS5 recently allowed me to experience what I missed when I was too young to hold a controller. Argonaut Games upgraded the grainy graphics to HD while retaining Croc’s PS1-era charm, but kept all the fundamentals intact.

That led to a trickier experience than I was anticipating. Croc’s attacks are so poorly timed that I would still get hit by an enemy even after swinging his tail, and I would lose all the diamond orbs I’ve collected and not have enough time to pick up everything. The jumps are such that I can’t get high enough to reach to certain areas or collectibles even when I’m jumping on Jell-O mounds like trampolines. When I was in a cave, I saw a heart hovering above one of the holes where the worms would come out and peck at me. I bounced on the Jell-O after the worm slithered back down to obtain the extra life only to discover that it was too high even if I ground pound the Jell-O in an attempt to jump higher.

As a platformer, it’s rudimentary at best and frustrating at worst. It enraged me so much that I couldn’t get past the first island without wanting to throw my controller at my partner’s new 75-inch TV in a rage. By the time I reached the second fight, I came to the conclusion that a graphically enhanced remaster wasn’t enough to revive Croc: Legend of the Gobbos. It’s the kind of game that actually could have been the same retooled care that Spyro Reignited Trilogy received.

From one reptile to another

There’s value in bringing a game back untouched for the sake of preservation, but Croc: Legend of the Gobbos feels lacking even as a faithful remaster. The new version brings the cult hit to PS5, Xbox Series X/S, but it doesn’t do much to freshen up a game that could have used some respectful adjustments. I imagine that Argonaut Games may have wanted to jump on the trend of bringing back old games to introduce Croc to a younger audience while tickling the nostalgic bones of older gamers. I fear that the lacking remaster doesn’t leave a great impression of the series, though. Croc may look cute in his original design and I would’ve love playing his game had I been introduced to it in the latter days of the PS1’s lifetime, but I had a hard time connecting with its frustrating controls and dated quirks in 2025.

It presents a challenge for developers seeking to revive classic games: How do you remain faithful to something old while still polishing them up?

Spyro Reignited Trilogy is a special case study for how to revisit a game without compromising its identity. Insomniac Games designed the original Spyro trilogy to be polygonal to the point where the characters looked flat and indistinguishable from one another, especially the adult dragons Spyro rescues in the first game. Awkward animation couldn’t hurt it, though, as it was celebrated as a unique platformer from the early PlayStation days. Video games were undergoing a rough transition from 2D to 3D graphics in the late 1990s, so some growing pains were to be expected.

Twenty years later, Toys For Bob remade the Spyro games by reworking the polygonal visuals and working in modern quality of life improvements. Spyro Reignited Trilogy isn’t officially considered a remake per se because it wasn’t rebuilt from the ground up, but developer Toys For Bob did a deep remaster of the games while getting consultation from Insomniac Games to maintain its faithfulness to Spyro. It made impactful changes while keeping the classic control intact. One of those changes is the character design for the dragons that Spyro rescues in the first game. They were given more personality and outfits appropriate to the hub worlds they lived in. For example, dragons in the Artisans world dressed as artists of every discipline (painters, bakers, poets, etc.), while dragons in the Peace Keepers world donned warrior gear. Plus, the crystals they were imprisoned look less like paperweights and more like sculptures at an art museum.

Meanwhile, Croc: Legend of the Gobbos hasn’t changed much in its remaster save for a minor graphical touch-up. The character renders for Croc, the Gobbos that raised him, and the villains he encounters still retain their unremarkable polygonal shape. The environmental design is similarly weak. Where the mountains and grassy fields in Spyro Reignited Trilogy look like something out of a recent Disney movie, the level design in the Croc: Legend of the Gobbos still bears a resemblance to a late ’90s computer game. You can still see the outline the mountain terrains, but otherwise everything from the grass to the lava to the castles feel flat.

Reimagining the art or making more detailed levels would have made for a very different game, but it could have benefited something like Croc. It does at least include including a behind-the-scenes documentary as a bonus feature, a nice touch to give the package some extra historical context, but it otherwise feels lacking as a proper remaster. If the goal here is to introduce newcomers to a 1997 classic, it’s not the most welcoming experience. Between the flat visuals and a frustrating control scheme that makes it tough to get through, the remaster feels like it’ll only satisfy fans of the original. That’s fine, but there was an opportunity to do more here. If Argonaut decides to remaster the next two Croc games, I hope it can take a page or two out of Spyro’s book.

Croc: Legend of the Gobbos is available now on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, and PC.