playstation 2 Archives • The Lifecast Network

Games Gone By: Sly Cooper

June 30, 2016 Ricky

Sly Cooper is without a doubt one of the best games series I have ever played. It constantly tried to do things new and expand the universe in many colorful ways. And while a new game may seem like a good idea with its movie supposedly scheduled for 2016, it’s still without definitive plans to continue, so why not take a look.

So simple yet so profound. Image Source: Amazon.com

The first game, Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus was released for the Playstation 2 in 2002. The game had a very simple design and a simple concept, but what they ended up doing with it made it work in a way no one imagined.

The premise is a raccoon that’s a thief (because they look like they wear masks, get it?) named Sly who wants to recover the book his ancestors created detailing all of their secrets. This book being the titular Theivius Raccoonous. The book was taken by a gang known as “The Fiendish Five”. Along the way to help him are Bentley the turtle, the tech guy, and Murray the hippo, the driver. You were also on the run in each stage from Sly’s police pursuer/love interest, Inspector Carmalita Fox (whose accent changes in each game). The game’s sense of humor and dramatic storytelling keep it from being too serious but also too grim, finding the perfect sweet spot for a thrilling story of revenge and growth. Especially with an amazing final villain like Clockwerk, an immortal mechanized owl surviving solely on jealousy and hatred.

When your final villain is built up with silhouettes like THIS, you’re doing something right. Image Source: Villains’ Wikia.com

The gameplay was very simplistic. Sly could use his cane to hook onto objects as well as smash enemies and boxes holding loot. There was also a large focus on stealth as well, having Sly avoiding spotlights whenever possible as well as avoiding enemies that could only see you if you walked into their flashlight. However, what a lot of people found to be irritating was the one-hit kills from all enemies. Sly could pick up a lucky-charm that could let him take one or two shots, but that was the limit, frustrating quite a few fans. Another source of frustration were the turret and driving mini-games that were often brutal and unforgiving.

However, the game managed to fix a lot of its problems with its sequel, which is often heralded as one of the best Playstation 2 games of all time.

One of the best sequels to come out that improved on nearly every aspect. Image Source: Amazon.com

Sly 2 was released on the Playstation 2 in 2004. The game centered around trying to collect pieces of Clockwerk that were stolen by a new gang known as “The Klaww Gang”. Each stage centered around getting a piece or two back, and seeing how each gang member was using them, often in inventive ways (this was seen in using the tail-feathers to print money or the lungs to help fuel a train indefinitely).

Although now, Sly wasn’t the only one out in the field. Now you could play as Bentley and Murray, who both grow as characters the more you play them. Bentley is not as strong as Sly but much more technical and gadget based. Murray on the other hand isn’t as quick or maneuverable but more than makes up for it in brute strength. The game also has a health bar, no longer being limited to one hit kills.

The bosses may overstay their welcome however, as many of them aren’t limited to just one stage. It works for darker characters like The Contessa, but for the forgettable Rajan it just feels like padding.

One character I wanted to get more from was Arpeggio, the leader of the Klaww Gang who was reduced to a joke. Image Source: Sly Cooper Wikia.com

While the story went much more in-depth in terms of character and villains, it still has too many holes in the armor to be truly amazing. Thankfully, the next game in the series manages to keep things concise with even MORE characters.

A game with a few rudimentary backdrops, but an even stronger story. Image Source: Amazon.com

Sly 3 came out for the Playstation 2 a year after Sly2, in 2005. The story picks up a little after the last one ended. Bentley is now in a wheelchair, Murray has gone off to seek redemption as he feels responsible for Bentley’s condition, and Sly is trying to bring his friends back together and claim his birthright: a vault of loot hidden by his ancestors on a remote island.

The game is even more character-driven than the last. Instead of trying to take down each member of a gang, each level is about trying to persuade different expert thieves to join Sly and the gang take the vault back from Dr. M, the “tech guy” character from Sly’s father’s previous gang and the series’s most interesting villain yet, sans Clockwerk.

Though the inclusion of Don Octavio is fantastic as well. A lion-mobster whose obsessed with people hearing him sing? You couldn’t get more ludicrous and yet so amazing. Image Source: Sly Cooper Wikia.com

The game also includes a lot of new characters that are added to the gang such as an Australian koala guru, a mouse technician, and even a few old enemies have come onto the gang’s side. Those being Dimitri from Sly 2 and the Panda King from Sly 1, who brings much more sympathy as all he wants is to redeem himself for what he has done and save his daughter. These additions help to foster new interactions and help the group feel more dynamic with its mix of colorful characters.

The gameplay this time around is very similar to Sly 2, however, now Carmelita is also playable, as well as many more mini-games involving the already seen hacking and helicopter/turret stages, but also new ones such as bi-planes and pirate ship battles. This game helped to trim the fat of the last game and make the experience even better. The same was attempted by its sequel many years later, although that unfortunately didn’t live up to expectations.

Too little too late unfortunately. Image Source: Amazon.com

Sly Cooper Thieves in Time came out for the Playstation 3 in 2013. The game was green-lit after Sanzaru Games took the previous three games and remastered them for the Playstation 3. With Sucker Punch more focused on making the Infamous series, Sanzaru Games was given the reins on the long-awaited sequel.

The story has Sly and the others going throughout time to save his ancestors, as parts of the Thievius Racconous have been disappearing. Determined to find out what’s going on, Bentley makes a time machine out of the van and they set off to different time periods such as feudal japan, the medieval times, the old west, and even the ice-age.

It can’t be denied that the use of color and lighting in this game makes it look BEAUTIFUL. Image Source: Analogaddict.com

The game had gameplay slightly updated and easier to pick-up, but not enough to be totally foreign to fans of the old series. Also, playing as each of Sly’s ancestors feels welcome and very fun to play, especially Ser Galleth Cooper, the best ancestor in my opinion. However the story seems to fail on building any excitement for the conclusion, especially with a lackluster main villain whose less interesting than his lieutenants. Another strike against it is that it has established characters change personalities out of nowhere (cough Penelope cough cough)

The game also didn’t sell as well as once hoped. With that being a factor, the cliffhanger ending seems like it won’t be fulfilled anytime soon. However, with the movie coming out presumably sometime this year, the attention it could get may warrant a return of the master thief in the near future.

Here’s hoping we’ll see him back soon. Image Source: news.cheatcc.com

Remade, Rebooted, Redundant?

Oftentimes its hard to stay original in any creative industry, most especially gaming. What play-style can you create that no one has seen before, or what new story can you use to hook an audience? Oftentimes, big-developers will put stock into these new innovations, however for the most part they will push remakes or sequels as they are sure-fire ways to get profits. And why wouldn’t they? These are franchises that we love and we want to see continue. Oftentimes, if a particular sequel is met with in-adequate sales or critical reception, then most likely the next number will be forgone in favor of a remake. Fans could be asking for a sequel for years while others think it would be best to try and start from scratch. And then there are times when a franchise that has no desire from the community to continue.

Dead to Rights was a great deal of ridiculous fun, but way too past its prime. Image source: Amazon.com

This can be seen in games such as Dead to Rights Retribution, which was meant to revitalize the franchise after the mediocre Dead to Rights 2. Ironically however, the remake didn’t do much better in either sales or critical reception. The franchise tried to stay relevant, but with a hap-hazard remake coming out four years after the its popularity went stale, there was so little interest in what was done different that it seemed to be the final nail in the series’s coffin. But there are cases where the fans can end up being blind-sided by a remake when what they really wanted was a sequel. Fans of Devil May Cry know this feeling all too well, as the outrage soared over the announcement of its grittier reboot.

The remake of Devil May Cry, or DMC: Devil May Cry, was a complete overhaul of design and tone for the series. The once cheesy and anime-like setup and style for the Devil May Cry characters were replaced with more gritty and modern styles that more reflected the hipster and internet activist crowd. While it kept the supernatural elements of the old series, such as the main protagonist Dante being the son of the demon lord Sparda and fighting demons to protect the world, it darkened his backstory at the same time making his attitude more rebellious. Instead of wearing a red trench coat with white hair, he instead sported a modern-punk faux hawk with a tank-top and a black jacket. Fans were bashing this design the second it had come out, and while Ninja Theory, the new developer on the game, tried to tweak it to fit the fans’ tastes more, it still was bogged down by hatred of change. But did that make it a bad game? Not at all. I even felt it was an interesting change. Don’t get me wrong, I still revere Devil May Cry 4 as one of my favorite games for the Playstation 3, but while this new game made a lot of changes, I felt the changes worked. Although there were of course some eye-rolling lines as well.

Only a slight change in Dante’s design. Image source: Butterfly Samurai.com

But what of the gameplay? The game was very similar to the old, having players utilize a variety of different guns and swords against different types of demons in the general hack-and-slash style. However, fans didn’t like some changes to it, such as the update to the style system. The system used to reward players for attacking enemies in different combos, dodging hits, and doing so in short amounts of time. The new system however just allowed a player to rack up points until they got hit, which for some felt overly simplistic, losing the reward for skill the game once had. Another factor was the lack of lock-on targeting which had been essential in every game so far. Thankfully though, Ninja Theory included it within the remastered DMC: Devil May Cry Definitive Edition for the Playstation 4. But all things considered, the story remained very similar, if only re-updated. Dante and Vergil are still brothers, and are still trying to take down the Demon king Mundus. However, while trying to keep the game fresh, it only turned off more people than it pleased, which is unfortunate because I consider it a great game,and I’m a huge fan of the series. And much like how this remake won’t be expanded, neither will the out-of-left field Prince of Persia from 2008.

When I read that a remake of Prince of Persia was being made for the Playstation 3 in Game Informer, I was confused. I had Two Thrones on PS2, and I thought it was great. Only later did I find out that it did the most poorly out of the three Prince games, Sands of Time and Warrior being the previous in the “Sands of Time” trilogy of the game. The game wanted to branch off of the original trilogy instead rather than continue the current. Now the game was based around a completely new character, having no name and not even called “The Prince”, as the previous protagonist had been, and his main goal is to help mystical princess, Elika, free the land (which has several Persian aesthetics and motifs) of corruption. While a lot of focus was on acrobatics and platforming, the game was now an open world game wherein the player could go after any of the four bosses in any order. After beating one, the player would be given a new ability to explore the world better. Erika also helps the player in acrobatic platforming. However a noticeable departure is the loss of the time reversing mechanic, relying more on a variety of gained abilities to make up for it. These abilities weren’t as powerful as time-reversing, but each was gained from a boss and allow the player to explore the world more.

Elika clearing the darkness from another section of the map. Once this finishes the player gets a new power. Image source: Destructoid.com

Another interesting note is the use of cel shaded graphics which helped set it apart. Unfortunately, the game received a luke-warm reception. Fans of the game series felt it was too easy and disliked the one-on-one QTE based fights that were based off of the original trilogy. The game would get an epilogue in DLC, however it only prolonged the gameplay a little bit while not furthering the story nearly at all. Prince of Persia would again be rebooted with The Forgotten Sands. However, with the most it could tout being the ability to run up frozen water, it seemed a desperate attempt to once again revitalize the franchise, but sadly enough it may have been the final nail in the prince’s coffin. At least for now.

So in summation, what can be said about remakes and reboots, and can they really work? It makes a lot of sense why someone would try to re-energize a series. It helps to bring them back into the limelight and possibly be improved for the modern times. For instance Far Cry seemed to get a complete tone shift in the third came which made it one of the best selling games in 2013. And while Ratchet and Clank may not be old, the new reboot released helped it break away from what a lot of fans saw as being a stale formula from titles sushi as All 4 One and Full Frontal Assault. However, there are times when people aren’t ready for the change and aren’t as receptive, such as with Prince of Persia or Devil May Cry. And even then, some franchises may seem only the more dated when being brought back such as Duke Nukem Forever or Star Fox Zero. The remakes and reboots that work do so because they know what made the original great, and instead of copy it, change it just enough to be interesting, but still be recognizable, getting the same emotions from fans as well as possibly some new ones.