3.5/5 ★ – FoofDeckman's review of Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus.

The Sly Cooper series is something I hold very close to my heart. Its simple yet stylistic platforming mixed with unique stealth mechanics makes the Sly series great. It meshes the elements of an animated series that doesn’t exist with a mysterious noir tone that works way better than it sounds like it would. Sure its mechanics feel dated at points and yeah Sly’s voice actor delivers every line in complete monotone, but as a whole this game honestly holds up pretty well. The level design is great, each of the five areas of this game feel stylistically distinct from each other, while also still building off of the previous sections. In one level you’re sneaking past guards and in another you could be grinding on metal bars like you’re playing a Tony Hawk game. The levels in this game never feel repeated, as there’s always some kind of twist to keep the game fresh. This game heavily relies on stealth and planning your approach, as Sly is extremely vulnerable and will typically die after one hit. You can alert guards to your presence or activate traps by touching lasers just by moving in the wrong spot at the wrong time. Even though a lot of the levels are incredibly short and don’t really have enough time to breathe, they’re still fun to play and id rather that than a level that overstays it’s welcome. This game can feel dated at points unfortunately. While Sly Cooper and the rest of the characters are fully voiced and the performances themselves are competent enough, the expressionless character models can make this game feel very disjointed. I know the early PS2 hardware probably couldn’t handle seamless fluid animation, but this game already incorporates a lot of 2D animated segments for cut scenes and I would have loved to see more of those integrated into the levels themselves. Sly Cooper in recent years has been completely buried by its publisher for no good reason, and it’s a shame. It’s like Sony doesn’t want you to even remember these games exist as the last time they were even playable on a console itself without streaming or emulation, was during the PlayStation 3 era. Thieves in Time released over a decade ago, and it’s been radio silence since for the series. With Sucker Punch working on Ghost of Tsushima games for the foreseeable future and my PlayStation 3 in a landfill somewhere, the only legal way for me to experience this game was through PlayStations godawful streaming service. One of the worst things about this game was the input delay, and it’s not even the games fault. For whatever reason Sony decided to release this busted service with some of the worst input delay I’ve ever seen. Now my internet is pretty good, and I’ve used other gaming streaming services before almost flawlessly, but for some reason whenever I stream a game through PS Now I have nothing but issues. Sony fix your stuff, and please re release these games on modern hardware, I am begging you. Check this game and the rest of the series out if you haven’t already.