Game Review: Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus

Sly Cooper is one of my favourite of PlayStation’s line of mascots. While not nearly as recognizable as other franchises, there’s a lot of iconic appeal behind the cunning thief that deserves a lot of praise.  My history with the series is long and storied, but my earliest memory of it is playing a demo of the very first game at a video game store when I was a kid. I still remember how intrigued I was by the games inherent charm.  I’d never really seen a game like it before, with it’s 3-D cell shaded graphics and focus on stealth platforming. Fast forward a couple of months and I was lending a copy of it off a friend from school to sit down and play fully and I remember getting fully enraptured by the game’s unique story and colourful characters.  All these years later, I find myself with a deep aspiration to replay the series once more while I wait ever naively for some sign of a sequel that might never come.  So, after all these years is Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus still deserving of the legacy that it started? Let’s dive in and see.

Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus was developed by Sucker Punch studios and published by Sony Computer Entertainment.  It was released exclusively on PlayStation 2 consoles in 2002 and went on to sell a recorded 800,000 copies by 2006 and accrued a respectable 86 on Metacritic. On the year of it’s release the title was awarded with a plethora of awards from gaming media outlets, praising it’s platforming and graphical scope. As of today, the first entry in the trilogy is playable on across PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5.   I personally picked up and played this entry on Sanzaru Games remastered collection for the PlayStation 3 which is recognized for it’s enhanced HD visuals. 

The story behind Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus follows the titular character who is an anthropomorphic racoon with a skill for thievery.  He comes from a long line of master thieves known as the Cooper clan.  At a young age, the young Sly was witness to a terrible crime in which his father was murdered in their home by a nefarious gang called the Fiendish Five.  Not content with destroying his father, each member of the Fiendish Five then followed by stripping numerous pages out of the Thievius Raccoonus, a personal tome of the Cooper clan with knowledge and learnings of all of Sly’s ancestors. Despite being orphaned by the traumatic events, Sly soon grows up along his adopted brothers Bentley and Murray and they form their own crew with a talent for pulling of heists. Now he’s come of age, Sly and his crew set forth to confront the Fiendish Five and retrieve Sly’s precious heirloom piece by piece. This journey will take the Cooper gang on a worldwide journey from the tumultuous seas of Scotland all the way to the snowy peaks of China. 

The setup of the first games narrative is remarkably unique all things considered.  I like how distinct the world feels here.  Sly and his friends have a lot of character about them which you get to appreciate over the course of the game.  The idea of Sly taking revenge against his fathers’ killers and bringing justice to his family’s legacy is an easy enough story to follow as well.  It allows the game to smartly segment itself into an episodic format, accompanied with unique title cards to accompany each level.  This in itself helps each of the Fiendish Five feel fleshed out from a villainous perspective when they have their own dedicated environments.  I think the story does struggle to conclude all of its narrative cues consistently however, as I feel Sly’s relationship with his crew is hard to truly represent when the game doesn’t feature them as much as they do Sly.  I also feel the leading member of the Fiendish Five, Clockwerk; gets the least definition within his level which is an unfortunate case considering how interesting he is presented to be. It’s worth noting these are all critiques the developers take and improve upon in the subsequent sequels however. 

The foundation behind the gameplay of Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus is one primarily based in platforming and stealth.  Sly as a character isn’t equipped with a considerable weaponry or armor, he’s a very agile but ultimately weak hero, which makes his reliance on stealth a key and understandable decision. It’s a conciliation in that case that Sucker Punch made the approach behind the games stealth/platforming gameplay so satisfying.  The game recognizes the idea that Sly is used to sneaking across rooftops and jumping from pillar to post and that’s a key feature of the gameplay. As Sly you’ll jump, run and crouch across numerous terrain which will get progressively trickier with each episode you progress through.  When you aren’t traversing the games well constructed platforming levels though, there’s a nice touch of variation with the addition of minigame levels.  You’ll be shooting, racing and hacking your way through several missions across the games 5 distinct levels which adds a nice change of pace to help prevent the game from falling into monotony.  There are some nitpicks I want to raise when it comes to the gameplay though.  I don’t feel the games suited to the one-hit approach when it comes to death, as it comes off as more punishing than anything and makes the game feel like it’s diminishing your right to make a single mistake. 

What helps add a distinct flavour to the games platforming levels as well is the additional content layered throughout them.  Each level has a range of clue bottles for you to find which will allow you to unlock a safe where you can find additional pages of the Thievius Raccoonus and learn new skills to traverse levels with.  On top of that is also the time trials, in which you’re tasked with traversing the level within an allotted time limit in return for some insightful commentary from the developers on their thought processes behind the construction of the respective levels. It’s nothing much in comparison to other PS2 game’s extended content but it’s still a nice inclusion all the same. Special posthumous shout out to the game’s composer Ashif Hakik as well, who brought an exclusive musical tone to this game that helps separate it from the later two games in the series in a distinctive way. 

While definitely not my favourite of the three Sly Cooper games I’ve played, I have more positives to say about Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus than negative.  It’s clear Sucker Punch launched themselves at this concept and realized it to the best of their ability considering it was the starting point in what would become an illustrious franchise.  The visually intriguing cell-shaded art style accompanies the games strong stealth/platforming gameplay to make a truly memorable experience that still holds solid value to this very day. It’s fair to say though, the quality of this trilogy only has one direction to go, and I cannot wait to talk about that with Sly 2.