4.5/5 ★ – bokonon764's review of Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus.

This stone cold classic was just released on PlayStation Plus, so I thought I’d do a quick clear of it. Always down to play through this series again, so hopefully the other two from the original PS2 trilogy will end up on PlayStation Plus soon. If not, I can always stream them, play the PS3 version, or maybe I even have my old PS2 copies lying around somewhere. Sly Cooper takes place in a world inhabited by anthropomorphic animals, and the titular Sly Cooper is a master thief raccoon, who comes from a long line of master thief raccoons called the Cooper Clan. They’re criminals, but they’re honorable criminals, who only steal from dirtbag criminals. It’s such a great fuckin idea. Sly is joined by Bentley the turtle, the tech guy, and Murray the hippo, the driver and muscle. He is relentlessly hunted by a Carmelita Fox, an interpol agent. The games antagonist are a gang of criminals called the Fiendish Five, they include a panda explosives expert and a voodoo priestess alligator, among others. It’s an idea that’s been done to death, the whole anthropomorphic animals in human societies, but the folks at Sucker Punch do it really well. Sucker Punch didn’t reinvent the wheel with Sly Cooper, but they fine tuned the fuck out of the wheel. Sly Cooper has some of the smoothest platforming mechanics of its time. It’s not perfect, but it’s relatively close. Most of the moves are typical: running/sliding on rails, climbing poles, double jumping…but then, Sly Cooper is a thief, so of course he’s gotta sneak around. That’s where the stealth element comes in. There’s security lasers and searchlights you’ve got to sneak around, and if they’re triggered, alarms go off. Flashlight guards stalk the grounds, as well as a variety of stock 3D platformer enemy designs. The level design and enemy design is physically sound, but where this game really shines is its creative concept. There’s also this cane that Sly uses, both as a melee weapon, but also for platforming mechanics. This cane mechanic essentially pulls you towards hooks to swing on, poles to climb, etc. what this brilliant idea does is eliminates the need for rope swinging and messy ladder engagement animations. Everything is quick and seamless, with the clang of Sly’s cane. That creative concept I mentioned is organized world crime, but with cartoon animals. My favorite area of the game is the episode entitled “Sunset Snake Eyes”; it takes place in the fictional Mesa City, Utah. It’s essentially a Reno knockoff, and it’s run by Fiendish Five member Muggshot, a gangster dog with a huge handlebar mustache and two oversized revolvers. His henchmen include suspender wearing Dalmatians and cigar chomping Dobermans, it’s so fun. The cell-shaded art still looks so great through a current-day lens. With its episodic intros, which are brilliantly animated as well, it really feels and looks like you’re in an episode of a cartoon. It was certainly my first run-in with cell shaded animation, at least in a video game. Everything looks kind of rough as an artistic choice, but the way the models move is so smooth. I appreciate this most with the double jump animation: the way Sly kind of floats, his tail lazily following the movement. Music and SFX are awesome. Walking synth bass notes play as Sly takes steps, whistle sound when you’re spotted, all to the background of a wide variety of dope music. There aren’t a whole lot of ear worms in the soundtrack, but every time I think of Sly Cooper, I hear that accordion in the intro sequence. Ashif Hakik composed the music for this first game, before gaming legend Peter McConnell took over for the rest of the franchise. Hakik’s work is rad though. I love this game, I have ever since I rented at Blockbuster all those years ago. Still an enjoyable experience. Can’t wait to replay the rest of the series.