The first in the Sly Cooper franchise, released back in 2002 and developed by Sucker Punch Productions. A game I missed in the PS2 era, but thanks to a HD remake on the PS3, I finally got to it.
Sly is a raccoon and master thief, born from a family of many master thieves. Sly was to inherit the Thievius Raccoonus, a book full of skills and abilities from the Cooper family. The fiendish five, a gang of the world's most wanted criminals steal the book and kill Sly's father in the process. With the help of his friends, Bentley a brilliant hacker who's a turtle, and Murray, the driver and Hippopotamus, will fight off the fiendish five and return the family book back to Sly. Described as a master thief because he only steals from other criminals.
Each of the fiendish five is a boss fight, and their own level variation. There are a bunch of levels to each bosses area, where you'll have to complete the levels to unlock keys to progress to the eventual boss fight. You can also collect messages in a bottle that'll allow you to open a safe and learn some new skills. Sir Ranleigh is the first of the fiendish five, an aristocratic frog. Next up Muggshot, a game gangster dog, followed by Mz Ruby, a voodoo priestess crocodile. Martial arts expert, Panda king is the final boss before the leader of the five, Clockwerk, an immortal metal owl. Inspector Carmelita Fox follows you around the world as you take out the fiendish five, hoping to finally put Sly behind bars for his thievery.
The level designs are really well do and made far better with the cartoon noir style. Most of the levels are really fun, I wasn't into some of Murray's, they were usually races or guiding him through a long winded section were you'd be forced to restart as Murray could be killed from one hit. The boss fights are enjoyable, albeit easy. A couple could be beaten with just a few hits. Ms Ruby's boss fight is literally a long quicktime event.
The gameplay is pretty good, swinging and sliding along vines were fun ways to platform through the levels. The one hit kill was infuriating at times, but the game was pretty easy, horses shoes would also give you an extra hit before dying. You were also forced to start from the very beginning if you had run out of lives. You could unlike lots of moves, but most you wouldn't really use, like the explosive hat. Slo-mo was a cool and very useful power, made sections even easier. You unlocked all these cool moves only if you were getting all the collectables as you play. Once you complete the game and find all collectables to unlock all the moves, there's no point in replaying the game to test them out. You also collected coins throughout every level and they seemed to serve absolutely no purpose.
The art style and enemy design was by far the best thing about it. Sly, Bentley and Murray all are designed and portrayed well, as well as Carmelita. The fiendish five all look great too, the standouts are the first two bosses, Ranleigh the frog and Muggshot the dog. The levels are brilliant, they're fun to play and each suits the world they're set in. Sly travels through American casinos, boggy swamps, snowy Japan, and all the levels are well suited.
It's just too easy, mainly with boss fights and too short. I'm looking forward to playing through the rest of the Sly games. It didn't wow me as much as I'd hoped, but I'm definitely contiuning the franchise.
7.4/10
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