Originally launched in 2002, theSly Cooperseries was a sort of late-stage attempt at giving the PlayStation 2yet another mascotto capitalize on alongside the likes of Jak and Daxter and, later that same year, Ratchet and Clank.
It was a bit of a scattershot approach to giving your console a standout brand image against the likes of Nintendo and Mario, but it gave us some pretty good franchises in the process, so who’s complaining?
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The throughline of the Sly Cooper series is its titular protagonist who, alongside his friends and conspirators, travels the worldstealing valuable treasuresfrom master criminals and, time permitting, foiling their evil schemes in the bargain. My personal interest in the Sly Cooper series helped spark my long-running obsession with gentleman thief characters and stories; he’s calm, confident, and a little snarky, all qualities a good thief should have.
While Sly’s characterization has remained fairly consistent over the years, though, his games are a bit of a different story. While there’s no Sly Cooper game I would call “bad,” they have gone through a few different phases of gameplay style and visual aesthetics, some of which hold up better than others. If I had to rank the series’ four games from least good to most good, it would look a little something like this.
4Sly Cooper And The Thievius Raccoonus
Unsure Of Its Identity
Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus
Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus is the very first game in the Sly Cooper series, and also only the second game ever developed by Sucker Punch, back when they still made cartoony stuff. Since it was the first game in a brand new IP, it didn’t really have anything to go off of, so it just kind of had to throw some gameplay concepts at the wall and see what stuck. The result was less of a game about thieving and subterfuge and more like Crash Bandicoot with extra steps.
Unlike every other game in the series, Thievius Raccoonus is a wholly linear affair. You guide Sly through individual levels, smash the shiny cage at the end and take the treasure key. Getting enough keys from the levels opens the way further into the villain of the day’s hideout, eventually leading to a big punch-up with them at the end. As you progress through the game and reclaim pages of the titular book of thievery, Sly learns new navigational techniques like landing on narrow points or sliding along railings.
As I mentioned, this game cribs more than a few notes from Crash Bandicoot.There’s no real thievery involved; it’s just platforming with a small pinch of stealth elements.Sly can’t take a punch, so every enemy attack or pitfall means instant death. As much as I like this game’s aesthetic, it simply isn’t the form Sly and friends are supposed to be in.
3Sly Cooper: Thieves In Time
Cool Concepts, Lacking Execution
Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time
Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time is the most recent release in the series, which is depressing, because it came out all the way back in 2013. It was also the first game to release on the PS3, as well as the first not to bedeveloped by Sucker Punch, who had moved onto more serious stuff like Infamous since then. I can’t say for certain if it was because of the change in developer, but while this game had some of the best elements from those that preceded it, it was missing a certain je ne sais quoi.
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As with the second and third Sly games,Thieves in Time opts for an open-ended approach, placing you in multiple large mapsand having you tackle missions with Sly, Bentley, Murray, Carmelita, or one of Sly’s ancestors. This is where the problems first manifest: pretty much any part of the game where you’re not playing as Sly kind of feels like an afterthought. Sly gets the most abilities, Sly does all the cool stuff, Sly gets all the special costumes. Yes, he’s the lead and usually the most fun to play, but we have all these other characters, and we’re not doing anything with them.
I also have some long-standing beef with the game’s presentation and story. While Sly Cooper games have always been a little tongue-in-cheek, Thieves in Time feels a little too quippy and unserious given the circumstances of the story. Don’t even get me started on Penelope turning heel, I’m still mad about that.
2Sly 2: Band Of Thieves
The First Game In Its Proper Format
Sly 2: Band of Thieves
Sly 2: Band of Thieves was a major departure from the first game, and the entry in the series that would begin to solidify its true identity. It was in this game that the series began its open-ended design, with the big marketing point being that you could play as Sly, Bentley, or Murray as missions dictated.
Thanks to the switchover from linear levels to open maps, not to mention adding proper health bars,the game became more of a proper stealth-action affair. It added many of the series’ gameplay hallmarks like pickpocketing guards and stealth takedowns, intermixing that with platforming sections that required a decent bit of problem-solving rather than just leaping from platform to platform.
The only real reason this game isn’t number one is that the level design and antagonists are a little on the weak side. Some of the areas are a little hard to navigate, even with Sly’s fleet feet, especially when trying to stay out of the way of guard patrols. The Klaww Gang is also somewhat poorly defined as far as villain organizations go, with the only real standouts being Dimitri and The Contessa. Neyla, in particular, isn’t a particularly interesting villain, which is why it annoys me a little that she’s the one with the most lasting impact on the series at large.
1Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves
Best Story, More Characters, Most Fun
Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves
Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves is the third game in the original PS2 trilogy and is, at least in my opinion, the best game in the series to date. It’s got a great story hook, all the best parts of the previous game’s gameplay, and some of my favorite missions and action setpieces in the series.
Moment-to-moment gameplay is largely the same as Sly 2, placing you in a series of open maps and having you tackle objectives as Sly, Bentley, or Murray. However, there are two major differing factors.
First, Sly’s new disguise ability allows you to quickly bypass guard patrols with a ten-second game of Simon, which makes getting around and to mission areas much quicker. Second, throughout the game are mission-specific instances where you get to play as the other members of the newly-grown Cooper Gang, each with their own distinctive abilities and gameplay mechanics that we don’t get in the main trio. This was also the first game where you got to play as Carmelita, which was nice.
I also really like the overall setup of assembling the larger Cooper Gang for the Cooper Vault heist,tackling individual villains along the wayinstead of one large organization. It’s got a very Lupin III vibe, with Sly and company pursuing their own goals and taking down punks in the process. It also had a much better instance of a character flipping allegiances in the form of the Panda King and his quest to save his daughter than Penelope’s heel-turn in Thieves in Time. Part of the reason I’m still mad about that is because I liked her introduction and characterization in this game.
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