Game Review: Sly Cooper - Thieves in Time
Thieves in Time follows Sly Cooper an undisclosed period of time after the events of Sly 3. We find Sly is pretending to be suffering from amnesia so he can live an uncomplicated life with his romantic partner Carmelita Fox who works for Interpol. While content with the peace of his newfound life, Sly can’t help but yearn for the thrill of his old life being a master thief. It just so happens that his old pal Bentley has been keeping tabs on Sly despite his retirement and informs him of the mystery revolving around pages of the Thievius Raccoonus going blank. Suspecting there’s someone is meddling with Sly’s family history, Bentley constructs a time machine and alongside Sly and their old pal Murray, the Cooper gang reform to go on a mission through time itself to rescue Sly’s ancestors before Sly and his lineage can be wiped from history completely.
I like the narrative portion of Thieves in Time a fair bit. As an avid fan of Doctor Who, anything to do with time travel always captures my attention with ease and this game really hones in on the concept of travelling through time and experiencing these vast and distinct eras, all the while smartly tying it to Sly and his family legacy. Each era of time you visit has their own plots you will be tasked with unravelling and it gradually reveals how these seemingly distinct encounters are all tied together as part of larger thread. Sly is a franchise that works through its embrace of the episodic format that is tied together into one larger narrative and Thieves in Time gets that clearly. On the negative side; I do think the other games did make more of an effort of diving into these characters a bit more intimately though and I also can’t help but feel the concluding segment of the story felt oddly rushed in comparison to its earlier segments. The biggest gripe for me however is the cliffhanger ending that has never been resolved, I understand Sanzaru intended to do DLC to cap off the story with an epilogue episode of sorts but because that never happened, fans like myself are left knowing our favourite franchise has a major unresolved plot point that may never be answered.
On the gameplay end, Thieves in Time does a good job in incorporating the key formula Sly 2 introduced and Sly 3 refined. You’ll still be in open-ended maps and tasked with completing missions to help set up your heists with the additional option to explore and nab collectables. Clue bottles and treasures make their illustrious return after being wrongfully cut from Sly 3! In terms of the level design, you can really see where the PlayStation 3 hardware works to the games benefit with how larger these levels are. Sanzaru games really worked to make each level in this game feel expansive and layered with so much detail. Exploring these levels is a lot of fun in light of the verticality and terrain that Sly and his crew can play around with too. Sanzaru really try to justify your time within these levels too as the mission variety offers a lot for the player to do all the while injecting the world with three different forms of collectibles means you feel truly rewarded for exploring. There’s also a nice minor element of Metroidvania to encourage returning back to these levels later on once you unlock new abilities to find additional secret areas.
One of the main touting points of the gameplay though is Sly’s playable ancestors. In Sly 1 these ancestors are referenced largely as it’s their pages in the Thievius Raccoonus that teach Sly key techniques he uses in his day-to-day operations. Sanzaru not only allows Sly to meet these ancestors in person for the first time but smartly allows them to be playable within the episodes themselves. Each ancestor moves and platforms in a similar vain to Sly, they each however have a distinct move set which helps separate them apart from one another. These unique abilities go a long way in keeping the gameplay feeling fresher without resorting to the overabundance of minigames that Sly 3 had in their attempt to keep the gameplay varied. If I had to pick a favourite ancestor to play it would have to be Tennessee Kid Cooper with his trusty six-shooter cane, he has the ability to deal with enemies from a range while employing all the familiar platforming and combat motions Sly has.
Alongside the ancestors; Sly, Bentley and Murray all come with their trademark gameplay but are given a bit more functionality to work with. Sly’s new abilities come in the form of his costumes. Each episode will offer Sly a new costume to wear which offers him unique abilities such as firing arrows or slowing down time. Bentley is equipped with a more modern-day wheelchair which offers him the ability to move around more efficiently. Bentley also has a range of new darts and explosives to deploy. Murray is back as the brawn of the operation with new combat moves to deploy that he’s learned from his time in the professional wrestling industry. Alongside the primary gameplay, the game also does offer its own smaller range of minigames including Bentley’s hack attacks or dance/button matching segments. These are fun for the most part, but I will argue they can become repetitive after enough time, especially Bentley’s hacking segments.
On the visual end Thieves in Time makes excellent use of the updated hardware of the PlayStation 3 to bring the art style of the franchise to a more modern era of gaming. Sanzaru clearly wanted to keep the cell-shaded/cartoon style intact as they recognized that was a key identifier for this franchise but the visual upgrade is night and day when you compare it to the original trilogy. There’s more detail to the environments with dynamic lighting and sound alongside an abundance of animations that really make the world feel more alive. Character models including the main cast as well as enemies all offer more animation to help exude their personalities. The cutscenes are all hand animated too as Sanzaru worked with animations studio Ghostbot to produce some really fun and memorable cutscenes which do a good job keeping true to the traditional sequencing form the original trilogy. On the sound front, the GOAT Peter McConnell returns to once again pick up composing reigns on the score for the game and as always, his music goes a long way in ensuring the core theme of this franchise stays intact.
It’s a shame I had to wait all this time to play and experience Sly Cooper Thieves in Time. Upon reflection I think my apprehension to pick it up was down to the less-than-ideal reputation the fanbase associated with it. After playing it for myself though, I would argue that consensus is wrong. Even if Sucker Punch weren’t behind this one, this game nails all the core impressions that the franchise is beloved for. It launches itself at its time travel storyline with complete determination and does a good job in delivering a core episodic experience imbued with all the fun gameplay and narrative fun that we come to expect from the series. It’s not without its fault though, I’m not blind to the limitations of its design and I do feel sad they choose to leave the series on a cliffhanger considering we’re now 13 years passed with no sign of a new title from Sony. What is here is more than enough to justify its place alongside the other three games though and I had a genuinely fun time playing through Thieves in Time from start to finish.
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
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