Croc 2

Croc 2 for PlayStation is a 1999 3D platform game from Argonaut Software, published by Fox Interactive. It continues the story of Croc: Legend of the Gobbos, returning the small crocodile hero to a colorful fantasy world of Gobbo communities, Dantini troublemakers, and the villain Baron Dante. The PlayStation release arrived in North America in August 1999, with regional editions following that year; Japan received it as Croc Adventure through Koei. This sequel shifts the series toward a larger, hub-linked adventure while keeping Croc's approachable cartoon character and movement-based platforming at its center.

The journey begins when Croc discovers a message in a bottle that may have been sent by his long-lost parents. King Rufus sends him across the sea to the Mainland, where his search becomes intertwined with another emergency: the Dantinis have revived Baron Dante and taken Professor Gobbo. Croc travels between four distinct Gobbo villages, helping their inhabitants while pushing toward confrontations with Dante's forces. The premise gives the individual missions a common purpose without making the game depend on lengthy dialogue or cutscenes.

Rather than presenting its stages as one fixed sequence, Croc 2 uses an overworld hub to connect the villages and their missions. Many levels begin with a specific job for a Gobbo, such as rescuing someone in danger, retrieving a stolen object, or pursuing a fleeing Dantini. Completing enough assignments opens boss encounters and the route to the next area. This structure lets the game mix traditional finish-the-stage platforming with short objective-based challenges, and it encourages players to return to familiar places when they have found a new use for an item or ability.

Croc runs, jumps, climbs, swims, and attacks with a wide tail swing. A ground-pound move is useful against enemies and breakable crates, while flip jumps and a three-jump sequence help him reach higher ledges. The game supports both the PlayStation D-pad and analog control. Health is represented by hearts: crystals collected during a stage contribute to restoring Croc's condition, and larger heart capacity can be gained through the hub's shop. Losing all available hearts sends Croc back to that area's hub rather than simply treating every mistake as the end of the whole adventure.

Collecting is woven into exploration. Ordinary crystals are spread through the stages, but the more important colored crystals are commonly hidden behind puzzles, detours, or platforming tests. Finding a full set reveals a Golden Gobbo trophy at the level's end, and trophies contribute to access to extra content. Jigsaw pieces earned from special challenges lead toward the final secret world, where revisited village material is altered by the Dantinis and Croc can pursue the eggs connected to his family. The result is a PlayStation platformer built around completing a mission while also searching for optional routes and rewards.

The villages vary in theme and activities, and Croc does not spend every moment on foot. Particular challenges put him in or on vehicles and contraptions including a go-kart, speedboat, hang glider, hot-air balloon, and a rolling snowball. Hub shops add another layer of experimentation: Swap Meet Pete sells useful objects, including upgrades, a portable trampoline-like item, and the Clockwork Gobbo, a wind-up helper used at designated points to collect otherwise unreachable items. These tools make parts of the world feel more like connected places than a simple menu of stages.

Croc 2 also includes OmniPlay, an unusual cooperative control option in which two controllers can share different duties for the same Croc, with inputs such as movement, jumping, attacks, camera control, and item use configurable between them. The core PlayStation game is otherwise a single-player adventure. A Windows version followed in 2000, while a proposed Dreamcast version did not ship; a separate 2D Game Boy Color adaptation arrived later. For PlayStation players, Croc 2 remains the series' more mission-driven follow-up, combining its hero's familiar moves with bigger hubs, collectibles, gadgets, and a longer search across the Gobbo world.