Platformation Time Again # 9: Croc: Legend Of The Gobbos PS1 | PS4, PS5 | GBC

HISTORY

Given it’s quite well known how Croc came to be, i’m tempted to brashly summarize things, as most you already know this was originally a Yoshi game Argonaut Games (more famous for their collaborative work in the original Starfox/Starwing on SNES) proposed to Nintendo in 1994, only for it to be rejected, but instead they reworked the prototype (which was a mix of Mario Kart and Super Mario World called Yoshi’s Racing) into their own IP as 3D platformer, and since they cut direct ties with Nintendo after the original Star Fox 2 – which also had Argonaut involved in developmente – was cancelled, in 1996 they shopped around for publishers until settling with Fox Interactive, as they wanted to make a multimedia franchise out of it.

This is a very succint digest of the story… or is it?

Yes it is.

It said that since the Yoshi Racing prototype was presented in 1994, and it might have strongly influenced Nintendo with the “similar project” they had already in development, which would turn out to be – what else? – Super Mario 64….. but then again, this was said by Argonauts Games founder, Jez San, in 2013 Eurogamer interview, while in a 1997 interview he more cautiously – and correctly – said the similarity between the two games might have been completely coincidental.

Even more so since – as just pointed – Nintendo already had SM64 in development and it’s not like they were many example of 3D platformers before 1996, aside from the original Jumping Flash, which is still peculiar since it’s also a first person 3D platformer, and no, Beam Software’s Bug! was more of a 2.5D affair than a proper 3D platformer.

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[EXPRESSO] Toy Story 5 (2026) | Adeptus Ludicrumicus

I’ll skip the spiel about the increasingly pointlessness of the series’ messages as just Toy Story 4 existing made clear there’s no “growing out” of Pixar’s most profitable long-time franchise, there’s no letting go while we make this much money.

Actually, no, since there’s this implied sense of resignation about the idea of growing up that permeates Toy Story , as Bonnie is basically the same age as she was in TS4 (released in 2019), the movie just acknowledges smart devices and social networks, but it also glosses over much of the ramifications of these with wanton, lazy optimism; “ the technological divide will work itself how somehow, whatevs”, the movie seems to say.

Also, the way which some characters like Woody return basically retroactively invalidate previous resolutions, they are back for nostalgia’s sake, and this isn’t clearly about keeping in touch with the child inside, but an implied capitulation to the nurturing of an “eternal manchild within” that can never stop (or wanna stop) buying the same old toys.

But most of you already knew that, and despite all of the above, i have to say this is at least better than Toy Story 4, it has bit more of a reason to exist since the plot is about the toys having to content with generations raised on smart devices, with Bonnie pressured to conform in order to make friends of her age, which results in the parent buying them a kids tablet, a “Lilypad”.

All things considered, it’s a decent movie in itself, the animation is great as always, and the highlight is indeed the army of Buzz Lightyears (alongside the “dream sequences”), but even that feels kinda random, like they had the idea and kinda crammed it because they already had the marketing lean heavily into that.

[EXPRESSO] Yoshi and The Mysterious Book NSWITCH2 | Creature Comforts

Yoshi games nowadays seem to have a bad rap and this subseries has definitely struggled to forge its own identity while people (allegedly) just wanted a “proper” Yoshi’s Island 2, and struggled to co-exist with another less challenging Nintendo platformer series, Kirby, somewhere above that but below the average 2D Mario in terms of difficulty.

Yoshi and The Mysterious Book more than Crafted World (also developed by Good Feel) looks back at the long time maligned N64 entry, Yoshi’s Story, in terms of taking risks and skewing the old classic formula for something a bit different, while building on the old gameplay basics that do make a Yoshi 2D platformer.

With the premise of helping a mysterious illustrated talking encyclopedia, Mr. E, we go inside his pages to basically play a saurian Mr. Attenbourough, as it ain’t much about reaching a level “exit” but researching the mysterious odd creatures (which you can then rename) that dwell inside the mustached tome, by interacting with them, which also means using the new gimmick of tailswiping a creature-enemy on your back and using its abilites, which range from spreading spores, blooming flowers, creating bubbles, exploding, etc.

It focuses so much on exploration and a puzzle-like usage of how the various critters interact with the enviroment that while there are some platforming challenges and fail states objectives in the various levels, there’s no real health bar or deaths per sé, which is undeniably a radical choice in addressing the often lamented low difficulty of Yoshi games.

Honestly, i think it works because it’s still a joy to explore the levels, find all collectables, and the creature usage isn’t a cheap gimmick, since it helps in keeping every level full of new little surprises and creative ideas, though it’s a bit on the short side.

[EXPRESSO] Milky Subway: The Galactic Limited Express Subway – The Movie (2026) | Cyborg Deliquents Of Gold

It warms my heart to see how the author of the astondishingly excellent 2022 ONA Milky Highway has now a movie streaming on Netflix, Milky Subway: The Galactic Express Gateway… which is actually a film recut-compilation, i somehow missed (or fogot) that Yohei Kamiyama made a sequel series, Milky Subway, that aired on Youtube and television.

I really don’t know how i could have missed that, but i’m making amends now by reviewing this recut that compiles the 12 short episodes into a 47 minute film, that also introduces a couple new side characters (at least so sayeth the articles and the Wikipedia page).

The premises follow Makina and Chiharu, arrested for the events of Milky Highway, and now joined by four other young delinquents, all sentenced to do community service by cleaning an old rundown space express train, but when they all set foot on the vehicle, it goes off by itself, so the group has to collaborate in order to find a way to stop the train, and along the way deal with other weird malfunctions….

It’s a compact story that actually has enough going on, and it uses the time to develop not only the returning duo from Milky Highway, but also the new deliquent youths, making for some really good charaterization and dynamics, also due to the dialogue going for a more realistic style than most anime.

THAT aside, the retro scifi aesthetic is perfect, the character designs are amazing, animation is beyond impressive, it’s unbelievable how this is a self produced work (manned by a VERY young author, too) that in less than a hour puts stuff from experienced studios to shame.

I really wanna see more of these characters, of this world, so give the series and this compilation film some love, will ya?

Mario & Wario SFC [REVIEW] | Bucket Mario Mouse Adventure

One of the Mario titles that have been long since been an exclusive to the Super Famicom (the Japanese version of the Super Nintendo), but last October it was rereleased officially, in this case as part of the Super Nintendo Classics app/service on Switch and Switch 2.

It’s has been a long sought after title that it would be logical to assume might have gotten a rerelease on Switch 2, since it has a mouse-style control set up for the Joycons, and it wouldn’t have required much fnagling as the game was already full translated in English in its original SFC release, kinda surprising it didn’t actually get a NA or PAL release, despite there having been plans at the time.

I guess besides Mario Paint there wasn’t much interest in games that used the SNES mouse peripheral, but regardless, you can now play it on Switch 2 or even Switch 1, for the latter you will need to connect an USB mouse… which is how i played it, with the old Switch 1 docked and with a cheap random USB mouse anyway, at first anyway.

I tried that but i guess my USB mouse was too shit, since i later tried the mouse mode on a Switch 2 joycon (both in docked and handheld mode), and that was actually WAY better, like usual an actual proper modern mouse, even with the game mouse speed set to low, so i stuck to that for the rest of my experience.

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[EXPRESSO] Kensuke’s Kingdom (2023) | Island Survival Of Age

While i wasn’t able to see the French animated film Arco, i was able to see this one, Kensuke’s Kingdom, which actually debutted at Annecy 3 years ago, but just now is in theathers here.

Better late than never, i guess.

Based on a children novel of the same name by Michael Molpurgo, Kensuke’s Kingdom is the story of Michael, whom is travelling with his family in a worlwide sailing trip, when he and his dog Stella (sneaked aboard by the boy) fall overboard during a storm, only to find themselves swept into an isolated island in the Pacific Ocean, which turns out to be inhabited by Kensuke, a WWII japanese struggler from Nagasaki….

I’ll be honest, i decided to see this mostly because i felt like spotting a unicorn when i saw the trailer for a modern animated film actually done in 2D animation that isn’t spun from some popular battle shonen manga, and indeed the 2D animation is as gorgeous as it looks, expecially the backgrounds are amazing, though i find it funny that this also shares an island survival theme with that Ghibli coproduced French-Belgian film from 2016, The Red Turtle.

Most likely a coincidence since this one takes more stylistical clues from French-Belgian comics and it’s more a family film, down to being a fairly typical coming of age story at heart, complete with the boy and his dog, but it’s done fairly well, because you end up caring for the characters, and the themes of friendship and caring for nature don’t feel preachy because the movie also doesn’t shy away from darker scenes to balance things out, and it doesn’t gloss over Kensuke’s backstory and what it obviously entails.

Overall a familiar but well done coming of age story that’s moving AND sports amazing visuals.

Platformation Time Again: Summer Dong Expandion Pak

Enough foreplay, i guess.

Or actually, a teensy bitsy more, because Nintendo did release about everything DK related on their Classic catalogues/apps leading to Bananza’s release, but despite being announced as coming to Switch eventually alongside other N64 titles, the now infamous N64 adventure of the Nintendo primate was missing.

It will arrive on the N64 Nintendo Classics app (which requires the Expansion Pak tier of Nintendo’s online paid subscription) on June 3/4 (June 3 in the US, June 4 in Europe and Japan), so in a week’s time.

I was “Sun Tzu-ing” this occasion for a DK 64 review, i have the game on original hardware, bought years ago before the WIIU Virtual Console rerelease was a thing, i have finished it, and i have been itching to make a big ass PTA review/piece on it, and i do look forward to have a new fresh run and hopefully a better understanding of the game.

BUT since i have already all the schedule set and completed for June and July, and August being very short due to the usual summer break, i have elected to instead move the full lenght Platformation Time Again piece to September.

If Nintendo waited till now to release it, i really don’t feel bad in post-poning my article, i mean, the game came out in 1999, almost 30 years ago, at this point a couple of months won’t age Chunky Kong any further.

Not that you could corrobate that since he’s been M.I.A. since (or worse).

Jokes aside, i’m curious to see fresh reactions and opinions on its design, given it has become a very divisive game over the decades, in terms of platform games anyway.

Raging Blades PS2 [REVIEW] | Arcade Axe

Yet more fuel for the bargain bin PS2 bonfire with an arguably even more obscure niche hack n slash title from an even more forgotten ilk, as Bujingai was at least co-developed by Taito and Red Entertaiment, the latter being behind the PS2 Gungrave games as well as Sakura Wars So Long My Love, the Fossil Fighter games, or much of the Record Of Agarest series.

Instead Raging Blades (originally called Raging Bless in Japan) comes from a developer pretty much unknown, Pacific Century Cyber Works (PCCW), whose portfolio mostly consist of this, something called Dream Audition and some racing or idol games that never left Japan, and was distributed by Wanadoo, one of those European publisher that no one remembers but did have a presence back in the day, though i remember them mostly for their logo on PC graphic adventure like the Necronomicon titles, and later a lot of tie-in shovelware… but also the PS2 reboot of an old Tecmo series, Rygar The Legendary Adventure, which i will eventually feature here.

That aside, this is even more distant, because while Bujingai was surprisingly pretty nifty and complex for a 2003 release, Raging Blades also released the same year yet it’s at the complete opposite end of the spectrum, being pretty much a 3D styled take on Golden Axe, its roots in the arcade years of the genre pretty much unfazed by how the genre evolved in the third dimension and especially from Devil May Cry on forward.

It’s so arcade there’s no “Continue” option from the main menu, because you’re expected to beat the story mode in one setting.

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[EXPRESSO] Mortal Kombat II (2026) | Sequel Syndrome

It would have taken some actual fuckin effort in actively trying to sabotage the film for this follow up to the 2021 Mortal Kombat to be worse than that… well, that film wasn’t really horrible, but it was an ensemble of random, unpopular and ineffective – at best – narrative choices made just so the film based around a fighting videogame series revolving around a mystic deadly fighting tournament could put on the side doing the titular bout of Mortal Kombat.

It all felt like it was just someone at WB mandating it to be so in order to lure doing the actual MK plot in a sequel that was actually about what people wanted to see… and Mortal Kombat II is indeed that, as Shang Tsung’s plan to kill Earthrealm champions before the tournament could begin fell apart, so now Earthrealm has to compete against Outrealm, commanded by the tyrant Shao Khan (served also by the necromancer Quan Chi), and a new warrior has been chosen by the gods to fight for Earthrealm, a washed up 90s action movie hero called Johnny Cage…

And yes, Karl Urban as Cage already makes this one the better film, but yes, overall this is actually what people were expecting from a MK movie, lots of fights, the tournament, lots of gore, fun videogame-fantasy nonsense, absurd characters duking it out in mystical realms, going to Hell, the effects are better and the plot is actually okay, doesn’t have pacing narcolepsy or occasional tone issues the 2021 had, this time around embracing wholeheartedly its inherent trashy nonsense.

While i had have honestly a very fun, silly time with this one, i will have to dock the rating down a notch because.. well, because this is the film they should have made back in 2021.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II X360 [REVIEW] | ♬ ‘Cause every chromosome is a hand-me-down ♬

The first Force Unleashed was good, not original or amazing, but good hack n slash fun, it was.

So a sequel wouldn’t be surprising, given it was the fastest-selling Star Wars videogame at the time, even if the first one actually had a proper ending and a definitive fate for the main character, Star Killer, so how do you continue the story?

Since i’m about to discuss the story of the first game and spoil the ending, i’m gonna have to make it extra CLEAR.

As in.

SPOILER WARNING

SPOILER WARNING, again.

You have been warned.

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