Sly like a… wait – Sly Cooper and the Thievius Racoonus Review
Developer: SuckerPunch Studios | Platform: PS5 (PS2) | Playtime: 8:05 | Platinum@: 10:10
Despite being a PS1 and PS2 platformer kid, I never actually played the original Sly trilogy. I had played the Ratchet and Clank games, later playing the Jak trilogy but Sly was my blind spot until I played the HD collection in 201N and absolutely loved them. So when Sony finally sorted their PS Plus Premium tier to have some actual bangers like Sly Cooper on, I was happy to dive in again.
The story of the game follows the titular Sly Cooper, the latest in the long line of the infamous Cooper Family Thieves. As a child, Sly saw his father killed by a group of rival thieves known as the Fiendish Five. The group came to steal the Thievius Racoonus, a book containing the thieving strategies and teachings of each member of the Cooper line Now as an adult with the friends he made in the orphanage – Bentley the tech guy tortoise and Murray the drive – they seek the pages of the Thievius Racoonus to restore the Cooper family honour.
To this end, the gang travel across an animal version of the real world, hunting down the pages. Levels concepts such as the sea, the jungle or the mountains are contextualised into Off the Coast of Wales, Haiti and China respectively.
Save for the last which is a linear narrative driven affair, the chapters all follow the same kind of structure – an intro stage that leads into a main hub with six levels. 3 Keys (earned from completing stages) are needed to access the latter three levels of a group but all 7 are needed for the boss fight. Most of the stages are linear platforming stages and are all decently fun, well decorated and designed but there are also stages that change up the gameplay. None of them are fantastic and honestly some dip into just not fun. The turret stages are fine, the races are a wee bit boring, the smash stages and vehicle stages border on infuriating. Thankfully these make up only a small portion of the experience.
The game does place some focus on stealth. Like marginally. Guards carry torches and levels are littered with spotlights and tripwires aplenty. Thankfully there’s no “instant fail” states here as these are platforming levels rather than narrative missions so the worst that happens is the player takes damage. As the game was made in ye olde days, it subscribes to the rather annoying policy of one hp characters. This can be improved temporarily thanks to Lucky Horse Shoes (a clever touch) but when combat is a bit finicky and imprecise with enemies attacking within a frame or too, it can make things a wee bit annoying.
The game is a platformer rather than a collectathon like Super Mario 64 or Spyro. I make this distinction as it’s relevant to the games collectibles, or lack thereof. Coins aren’t currency but are your usual “Collect 100 for an extra life or more HP” which leaves the Clue Bottles. Each level (save for vehicle stages) has a Safe that can only be opened after collecting the levels 20-40 odd clue bottles. Doing so gives Sly a new move he can use like throwing down a decoy or just a land mine. Save for the ones that let you avoid damage from water and bottomless holes, these are all pretty useless. Well not useless but I feel like you’d have to go out of your way to use them when it’s just as easy if not easier to just not use them.
As I was playing the game on PS5, I had access to the Rewind feature. It exists in many rereleases, letting you put yourself back to an earlier part in case you make a mistake or what have you. For my playthrough I tried not using it and for the most part I didn’t save for a couple scenarios – the entire last chapter (which is made more difficult by less than perfect controls), the time trials (call me a cheater I don’t care) and the Ms Ruby boss fight in Chapter 3. A rhythm based boss, I thought it was
just buggered in the HD version on PS3 but no, definitely having the issue of buttons not registering here as well. Rewind was sometimes more of a hindrance than a help but I used it regardless.
I really like the first Sly Cooper game but I’m finding it hard to not compare it to its sequels which drastically improved upon the formula. This isn’t like ‘Jak and Daxter’ to Jak II, which are basically in different genres. Sly Cooper and the Thievius Racoonus is incredibly fun on its own merits though and I hope Sony bring back 2 and 3 over the coming months.
