Collection essentials #500-#502: Sly Cooper series (PS2)

“Mascot platformers” were quite a fad in the ‘90s, after the success of Mario and Sonic. The trend was still alive in the early 2000s, as the PlayStation 2 had its share of very popular 3D platformers. In fact, you might be surprised that I haven’t mentioned any of them yet. This includes games like “Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy”, which was a fairly standard 3D platformer that got sequels that were a little more mature and took some inspiration from other titles like Grand Theft Auto. Another popular series was “Ratchet & Clank” which featured a lot of different weapons to blow up the opposition with. And of course, there’s the Sly Cooper trilogy.

These games were advertised all over when the PS2 was in its prime. I had interest in them, but by the time I actually got a PS2, there were other games that were a higher priority. The platformers just kept falling down on the to-play list, for years and years, so I never played any of them in their prime. When I finally sat down with Jak & Daxter, I thought it was okay but I wasn’t especially impressed with it. I beat the first Ratchet & Clank game and got started in the second one, and I thought they were good, but the high expectations I was led to have were not quite met. And so, even though they’re very notable and popular games, they just didn’t quite make my list. 

I probably wouldn’t have guessed this, but the Sly Cooper games easily wound up being my favorite of the “big three” PS2 mascot platformer series. These games were developed by a studio called Sucker Punch. Their first game had been a platformer on the Nintendo 64 called “Rocket: Robot on Wheels” which was one of those games that took a lot of inspiration from Mario 64 and its ilk. The game sadly wasn’t a big success, but it was very good. It very narrowly missed making this list, and I surely would have included it had I played it in my younger days. Fortunately for Sucker Punch, the Sly Cooper series would achieve the sales that it deserved.

The Sly games in many ways remind me of a Saturday morning cartoon. They feature a version of the world populated by anthropomorphic animals, with amusing antics and action made more colorful with special sound effects that would seem at home in a Looney Toons bit. The games use “cel-shaded” graphics, which are known for making 3D games look more cartoon-ish. The games have a bit of a “film noir” vibe to them.

The games star, to no surprise, the eponymous Sly Cooper, who is a noble thief descended from a long line of others like him. (Side note: I had a great grandmother whose maiden name was Cooper, so…maybe I’m part raccoon and of the same lineage??) Sly doesn’t work alone, as the brainy turtle Bentley helps guide him, and the big and strong hippo Bentley is there for when extra muscle is needed. A recurring antagonist is Inspector Carmelita Fox, and Sly would really like to steal her heart even though she’s an enemy. The characters are very well-done, each with their own distinct charming personality and amusing voice, and good chemistry with the others.

Now, the first Sly Cooper game I thought was just “okay.” It’s a fairly standard 3D platformer with some stealth gameplay, it’s fairly short, and it didn’t leave a huge impression on me playing it many years after its release. When I posted about it on social media, my friend The_Goog commented that I ought to play the second game which is one of his favorites on the console. And so, I wound up playing Sly 2 for the first time while streaming it on Twitch with Goog on voice chat most of the time. And what do you know, I quickly realized that Sly 2 is really awesome!

What makes Sly 2 better? Well, a huge improvement is that Bentley and Murray are promoted into fully-fleshed-out playable characters, and you can generally switch between the three main heroes. And you have to, because each one has a lot of their own unique missions to do. Generally, the levels of the game serve as large areas where you can roam around looking for your next mission to do while avoiding and/or fighting enemy guards. Sly 3 follows a similar gameplay structure. There’s a ton of gameplay variety which is helped out by having multiple playable characters, plus any given mission might throw a completely different style of gameplay at you that you haven’t seen in these games before (especially in Sly 3).

Both a movie and TV series were planned at some point for the Sly games, but neither one as of this writing has ever been brought to fruition. Which seems like a shame, as there is clearly potentially for such a thing with such a likable cast of characters.

There was one more Sly game on a future Sony console, but as of now I haven’t played it (yet). The original PS2 trilogy has been made digitally available on modern PlayStation consoles, so if you own one of those and haven’t experienced this trilogy yet, I highly recommend it even though the first game isn’t likely to set your world on fire. Despite me not really having nostalgia for these games since I didn’t play them back in the day, Sly 2 and Sly 3 still managed to find themselves among my favorites of the PS2’s stacked library. Sly, you’ve stolen three spots on my list!