If you were a gamer growing up in the mid 2000’s to early 2010’s then you’ve more than likely heard of the Sly Cooper series. Sly Cooper was a game series that released its first iteration: Sly Cooper The Thievius Raccoonus in November of 2002. It was released as and still to this day is a playstation exclusive title, one of which the biggest Sony exclusives to ever hit the market. In July of 2024 Sony released a remastered version of the original trilogy (for the second time) and it quickly became the biggest Playstation Plus monthly release to date. Because of the franchise’s success coupled with fan pressure, rumours of a new game in the works are starting to make the rounds. With it being almost twelve years since the last release in the series and a potential new one on the horizon, there’s no better time to look back at everyone’s favourite Robinhood and look at what exactly made Sly Cooper so special.
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The Series follows the Cooper Gang in an all animal world, where Sly Cooper the cane wielding racoon and leader of the gang and his best friends: a turtle named Bently (the brains), and a hippo Murray (the brawns), steal from other thieves in the pursuit of becoming a Master Thief. Sly comes from a long line of master thieves all of which detail their experiences and tricks of the trade in a family heirloom, a book called The Thievius Raccoonus. This is where the plot of the first game starts. On the night Sly was set to inherit the family book from his father, five villains dubbed “the fiendish five” broke into Sly’s family home murdering his parents and stealing the Thievius Raccoonus before splitting the pages among themselves.
Now that we’ve established the backstory, let’s get into what makes this first game so special.
Although it was by no means the first platformer to be released, with iconic games like Mario and Donkey Kong having been around for decades prior to the playstation release. Sly felt like a first of its kind game. The open world, stealth elements it introduced brought something new to the gaming world. These elements would only be pushed further in the sequels to come. The story of the first game follows the Cooper gang as one by one they visit each member of The Fiendish Five and their respective “world” where you the player (as sly) pull off a series of platforming heists, stealing a key at the end of every level to unlock the boss fight at the end of the world. However the game opens perfectly as you’re thrown right into the prologue, where Sly breaks into a police station to get his criminal file while teaching the player the controls along the way. The game and the series for that matter does a fantastic job of telling a story as you go, adding tidbits of backstory and information between levels and worlds. But what makes the first game so special? Let’s start with level design. The straightforward design of each level guiding the player throughout without the use of cliche arrows or audio queue makes for a simple and easy to understand objective. Additionally the break from the straight and narrow to play “minigames” like racing the team van as Murray or hacking into a computer as Bentley was a nice touch to prevent over repetition. The ambience and detail to each level perfectly captures what the game was trying to achieve. Additionally it reflects the world you’re playing in for example; in the second world where “Mugshot” the Jacked up dog is the big bad, this is reflected by his henchmen being other breeds of dogs. Each level offers the player a stealthy approach while also allowing for the player to use brute force to chug through the level if they so choose albeit this is a more viable approach in future titles.
This game being the first in its series standouts out the most from the three sequels. Some of the key differences include a one hit death system unless you have a horseshoe allowing for an extra hit before death, both of which features were thrown out in its successors. The animation in the game is less defined but almost carries a certain charm to it when playing the later games to realise just how far the series has come. The boss fights aside from the final big bad, all follow a simple to understand pattern whether it’s tapping buttons in rhythm or jumping in circles to avoid water until the boss is tired enough to strike.
The climax of the game was a masterpiece in how to create a final boss fight. Starting with a jetpack dodge and shoot minigame of sorts before transitioning to a timed trial where you use all of your thieving skills to maneuver an obstacle course climbing up the defeated boss as he attempts in a last ditch effort to kill Sly as the lava rises. The setting of this occurring in a volcano is perfect for what the story and climax led up to. Bits and pieces of the boss were dropped leading up to the end, and painted a perfect story of (Clockwerk’s) hatred for the cooper clan. Having watched the family for decades, even to the point of replacing his body with mechanical parts for immortality because of his hatred for the bloodline. The revelation of the mysterious antagonists motives and backstory just added to what was already a perfect final sequence.
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I think it’s the simplicity of a game with so much depth that appeals so much to the fanbase. Although the following three games are without a doubt a better gaming experience the magic that was captured in Sly 1 was something special that is so seldomly captured. It laid the groundwork for its forerunners to build and improve upon. The refinement that this series went through in just about every game was something special that I don’t think we’ve seen since in a video game series. Everything from level design, to storytelling was nailed to a tee and left the player craving more. Even to this day, well over a decade after the final release, players are still asking for more and going back to try and capture the nostalgia of the famous Cooper Gang. Only time will tell what’s in store for the series and we can only hope there’s a comeback on the horizon for our favorite thieves. Next article we’re going to be looking at Sly 2 Band of Thieves and how this was the game that truly defined the franchise.