Like this video? How about another classic Sony franchise, Spyro the Dragon? Check out my 1.5 hour analysis of the first game! kzfaq.info/get/bejne/h5edn7BimNDYe6M.html&ab_channel=NopNapNarp

I won't lie, I find it a little jarring that Sanzaru couldn't find ANY other way to get sly back into thieving for the plot. I feel that Sly's ancestral legacy fading away is a good enough reason, that can actually be explained to Carmelita mid-way through the story, without creating meaningless conflict between the two for so long.

If they wanted to make Penelope a bad guy, they should’ve had Miss decibel hypnotize her. Then after the giant mech boss battle, Penelope snaps out of said hypnosis, rejoins the gang and she and Bentley are still a couple. She also provides them the Arabian coin which connects miss decibel and doesn’t ruin Penelope’s character. Or better yet, have Sir Raleigh be the boss of episode 4! It makes better sense because there’s a little frog theme in the level (the tavern) and he was a tech genius himself. He would hold Penelope hostage and threaten/blackmail her into building his robots and mech suits or else he would harm her friends and boyfriend. Then during the boss battle, Penelope swoops in to save Bentley and sly, defeat Raleigh in a sword fight and she rejoins the gang.

Sly's "itch" to steal again was not necessary at all. The writers could've had him reluctantly participate because of the game's main plot. Sly and Carmelita's breakup unfortunately was necessary, at least at first.

I’ll never forget this game for breaking the tradition of having Carmelita help out during the final boss fight. That was always such a staple of the sly games and it really helped solidify sly and Carmelita‘s relationship. Having Carmelita be the damsel in distress, not once but twice was a terrible choice, and robbed her up most of her authority that she had during the previous games. This coupled with her over sexualized design, and the dancing mission just make this game completely unplayable to me

I doubt that Bentley doubting of dragons existence is just an oversight. I feel it's more of Sanzaru just ignoring what happened in the games before. Same with Sly claiming "I don't recall you watching my back on any jobs". No, scratch that, that's even worse. Do they forget the time that Carmelita helped Sly to get his cane back in the first game? Or the time she assisted him as a pilot while facing Clock-La in the second game? Or the time she saved him when he was getting crushed by Doctor M beast in the third game? Or how, always in the third one, she took down M after he had attacked Sly? Apparently Sanzaru doesn't, or, even worse, they just don't care about the trilogy, and just want to write their own thing, taking what they want from the original and casting aside all the development the characters went. Same goes with Murray. Him getting depressed over just not managing to climb is stupid. He has always been a great help, even when he was a sniveling coward in the very first game, not to mention how necessary he was in both 2 and 3. Also, may I ask why did Bentley sent Murray to do a climb mission, when Bob was clearly more fit to do the task? Oh, right, silly me, is beacause Sanzaru writers are freaking hacks, that have to make things stupid for then fixing it so they can pat themselves in the back.

Its got problems with writing and some character regression and flanderization issues but in terms of gameplay it feels like the two previous games in the series. The prehistoric level is my least favorite in the entire franchise though and the missions don't feel like you're slowly weakening the main villains hold on the level like in 2&3. It's just "free ancestor, do a few random missions, fight boss, get ancestors cane stolen"

That health pickup after death at 1:28:31 was funnier than any dialogue this game had to offer. Funny as fuck.

I’ve had a few ideas of small improvements to this game. 1. Instead of starting with an animated cutscene, start with the cookie heist. The orphanage should be something child friendly which would suit the rounded graphics. I think this would ease the players in to the art style while also giving a good piece of fan service. It also brings up the idea of time. I think I’d have this be something of a dream Sly is having before he leaves Carmelita sleeping in the bed and goes out to the balcony to consider. This brings me to improvement two. 2. Sly doesn’t get “an itch.” This completely threw out the ending of the trilogy and showed a complete lack of understanding of the franchise (at least it’s honest to what would come). Instead, Bentley pleads with Sly for help in finding Penelope who is lost to time. Sly feels that he can’t play along with his love while letting Bentley lose his. It has Bentley and Penelope drive the plot rather than Sly. Speaking of which… 3. I would make Penelope the main villain. Le Paradox just feels soooo detached and ineffectual. At the very least Penelope has history. I also like the idea that she could potentially build clockwerk. The whole idea coming from Owls being predators of both Racoons and Mice. 4. If Carmelita is included I would limit her to the last 2 chapters and maybe the intro. She needs to maintain her ethical objection to Sly at all costs. Having her justify it mid story is character destroying. Perhaps you could have Penelope kidnap her. There’s an idea of her thinking, “Bentley was still obsessed with Sly (in her mind) Bentley grew distant because of that. Sly took who I loved. I’m going to take who Sly loves.” I think it would be best to have Sly apologize to Carmelita and try and explain the situation in order to get her on board. You could also have Sly argue that since Carmelita was lying to someone she thought had brain damage she’s not exactly innocent either. She doesn’t agree with the Cooper Gang, but she accepts that Sly had a duty to his friend and he is trying to turn over a new leaf. I’d also have him use this line as a flirt. “Do you know the greatest heist I ever pulled? Stealing your heart.” It’s a touch cheesy but I think it fits the series. 5. Regarding the dance scenes. I honestly kinda like it with Murray. It kinda expresses his latent bisexuality that never really got explored. For Carmelita, if the plan happens at all I would have it be a bait and switch. She starts dancing for a few bars then goes, “I’m through with this.” And pulls out her gun. She shoots all the guards in a scene that you still play a rhythm game to. It’s somewhat like a dance fight that allows her to do a bunch of splits and flips as she dispatches everyone. 6. If I could add ancestor it would be Henriette Cooper. She might be my favorite ancestor we didn’t see, and I loved the pirate ship mechanics in Sly 3. Additionally I would’ve had this be a final use of the dance mini game. This time, Sly has to pose as Henriette doing some pirate bar wench dance. It’s just a little something that lets Carmelita get back at Sly for the mission she had to do. 7. Instead of random items from some point in history, I would’ve had the time travel be based on the thievious Raccoonus. They put in a page of whatever ancestor’s time they need to visit. I’m this way you tie the game into the first. In the first game, the gang saved the Thievious Racoonus, in this game, the Thievious Racoonus saves the gang. Some changes and I don’t know if it would’ve saved the game, but I think it would’ve at least made it more palatable.

This girl is going to be honest with you her favorite mission is dynamic duo from Sly 3 honor among thieves where you get to play as Bentley guiding Penelope. This holds a special connection to me due to the fact that I was completely blind as a baby wasn't even supposed to live past the age of two years old do to hydrocephalus and LMC as well as multiple sclerosis so in a way it really felt like I was getting back to my roots and I got to guide someone like me in the process

1:53:52 According to the credits, Penelope went to jail but escaped. If they ever make a sly 5 her character better be fixed 😔

I always hated how the binocucom cutscenes will cut around and move, when their whole point it that it's from the player character's perspective. It makes no sense!

The game isn't _bad._ If Sly 2 and 3 were many leaps and bounds forward, this game is only a few steps back. Not as good as 2 and 3, but it's serviceable. Not that it makes the "twist" of Penelope's betrayal any better, though.

Sly never should have gotten an "itch", its one thing to miss ones old lifestle, but the call to adventure was sly's past being undone. Carmelita accusing him could've been a tragic misunderstanding and they still treat it as such but it isn't. HE WAS STEALING and he wanted to steal. He was already planning to commit larceny it just happened to line up with his rapidly vanishing timeline

I have never played any Sly Cooper but I've now watched 12 hours of video about the series lol. Thanks for the giving me something interesting to listen to while I work.

I just finished your Sly series. Don't worry. It was well worth my time. :) Here are my thoughts. Another thing about the music (that I haven't heard anyone else point out) is how many of the pieces are just remixes of scores from the other games. Reusing music makes sense for the Paris and hacking levels since you're revisiting locations/missions that the gang has done before. But stuff like reusing the Venice theme for the Penelope reveal just felt cheap and made no sense. As if Peter McConnel knew Sly 4 was subpar and just phoned it in. Granted, half-assed Peter McConnell is still better than 90% of other composers out there. But still, the amount of reused musical pieces was very distracting at times. I suspect breaking up Bentley and Penelope was a "One More Day" move on the part of Sanzaru. Sanzaru was clearly making Sly 4 primarily for immature, horny, young male furries. And they must have figured those types of fans wouldn't be able to relate to Bentley if he was in a happy, stable romantic relationship. So they thought, "HEY! We've already rehashed a bunch of other stuff from the previous three games! Why not rehash the Neyla twist with Penelope so their relationship can have some drama!!". The way Sly 4 treated females in general was just weird and made me uncomfortable playing it as a female fan of the series. Both Carmelita and Penelope received hideous, over-sexualized redesigns (though at least Penelope wasn't dressed like a stripper). And all three female characters in the game primarily exist as worthless plot devices for the male characters. I wont go too much into Carmelita because you already covered how massively disrespected she was in this game.That belly dancing mini game was gross on SO many levels. And it was especially vile to see Bentley & Sly (who is supposed to be the love of her life), force her to act as a sex object when she was clearly NOT consenting to it (and Murray was more than willing to take her place). Just....ugh. Seeing Sly and Bentley act that way almost makes you understand why Penelope betrayed them. Just....gross. That version of Sly DESERVES to rot in an ancient desert! As for Penelope, if Sanzaru wanted to make her the villain, they should have respected the character enough to go all the way with it! Penelope is a former crime boss! She built the time machine and most of La Paradox's tech. It makes ZERO sense for her to be his minion when SHE holds all the skill, money, and power! The twist would have been slightly less stupid if it turned out La Paradox was hired by Penelope to act as the Big Bad while she ran stuff behind the scenes. And the twist had no impact because she's barely mentioned in the story and Bentley never acts like he's scared or that he misses her until five minutes before he uncovers her secret. And its kind of gross that Bentley's "empowerment" comes in the form of beating his ex-girlfriend unconscious while he screams about her being an idiot. Like, its bad enough that fans of Penelope (and people who loved her romance with Bentley) have to deal with her turning evil for no good reason. But we also have to play a boss fight where we have her boyfriend punch her and shout about her being a dumb, incompetent girl. And, after he punches her lights out, the player doesn't get any indication of what happened to Penelope until the end of the game. So, for all we knew, The Cooper Gang left her for dead in Medieval England after Bentley's foray into domestic violence. Again...gross. As for Decibel, her entire character was just "LOL. La Paradox doesn't love her back because she is gross, old, and fat!! LOL". Which is a really bad direction to take the ONE female character in the game who doesn't look like she's wearing a sexy halloween costume. I think it's telling that they couldn't be bothered to include ONE female Cooper ancestor. Sanzaru literally made up a new ancestor just to have a Flintstones episode! Why couldn't their self-insert Cooper ancestor be a woman? Was it because they couldn't figure out how to make a neanderthal woman look like a prostitute? I hate to play Anita Sarkeesian here; but it's REALLY hard not to feel like Sanzaru was actively trying to repel female fans when so much of the game feels designed to make us uncomfortable. This is why I hope that, if Sony ever picks up this franchise again, they just pretend Sly 4 didn't exist. Most gamers are blissfully unaware that Sly is supposed to be trapped in ancient Egypt. And the small, diehard Sly Cooper fanbase is bitterly divided on Sly 4's story (so a good portion of the already small core fanbase probably won't buy it if hell freezes over and Sly 5 is made) Sorry if that was too long. But your video really got me thinking about these things! :)

Easy fix for the narrative to justify needing a 4th game: Bentley starts to notice the pages are disappearing, Sly is reluctant to leave Carmelita and they argue about it, he decides to leave anyway and that makes Carmelita mad.

Carmelita's angrier demeanor feels justified to me. She has just been thrust into a plot and situation she's not exactly in control of at the same time as learning her romantic partner has been lying to her for the better part of a decade. The game's tendency to sexualize her is... Not good, but I feel that, as opposed to almost everyone else in the game, TiT is the game where her characterization is probably at it's strongest

Y'know I thought of this a long time ago, instead of a time travel plot involving Sly and the gang, why not just make this game an anthology of the Cooper ancestors. Picture this: each episode takes place in a different time period and stars a different ancestor. Each hub world is designed around its respective Cooper's skillset. For example, feudal Japan features an abundance of spire points more than anything. But it doesn't have anything that Rioichi wouldn't have knowledge of, which would also force the devs to get creative with their level design. The final heist of each time period would be that ancestor's biggest score, like Tennessee's train heist. And since this doesn't involve time travel or a linear narrative, they can have more ancestors appear, like Henriette one-eye Cooper and Slaigh MacCooper to name a couple. Some ancestors might have their own teammates a la Bentley and Murray, while others are solo but may still have allies who assist them by doing little things like feeding them intel. Also, they should have their original cane designs, especially since we're not trying to make them play exactly like Sly here.

Thieves in Time even for all it's sins will still be my favourite one, because that's how i got introduced to the franchise.

I mean, In all fairness Salim’s ability is kinda like Tennessee’s rail slide, but vertical. That was probably the inspiration.

Something I wish that more people talked about in regards to Carmelita, is the fact that she got mad at sly for lying to her, but completely ignore the fact that she was when she thought he had amnesia more than willing to lie to him about him being a cop and her partner so she could date him.

I may not be a huge fan of what they do with Carmelita in chapter 5 but the scene where Bentley has to uncomfortably explain to Carmelita what she needs to do, Sly’s insistence on her modeling the outfit, and my favorite part, Murray practically begging to let him wear the outfit several times over is honestly one of the funniest scenes in the entire series for me and I’m honestly okay with this weird subplot just for that scene alone.

38:06 I just want to comment on how In Sly 2 Sly and Murray getting arrested was the emotional high point of the game. It meant so much and caused so much fear. It felt like the characters were just as afraid as the player. The Prague environment also reflected this. It speaks to who they are as thieves that imprisonment is such a nightmare. Sly is forced into a permanent crouch. A poetic punishment for a life of crouching and stealing Here it’s in a happy campy western level. Being arrested is the plan. The jailhouse costume they give you gives you a power up

i know i'm a few years late, but i just had this idea as to how to make the game better. instead of shoehorning in a way to reach the next level at the end of each chapter, have a level in-between each where they have to go to a present day museum to steal a new item, and during one of these heists Carmelita ruins it by trying to catch them, but then Le Paradox's goons start attacking at the same time and she is forced to join you on your time travel in order to escape, and have this failed heist be the one that leads to getting trapped in 10,000 BC because in order to escape they need to use anything in the time machine, which would be Murray's dreamtime necklace. that way Carmelita has more of a reason to storm off at the beginning of 10,000 BC, we get more heists and things wouldn't feel contrived, it would show more of Le Paradox's influence as he'll have some level of control over all of these museums, and give Carmelita a better reason for joining the gang too, because after what she saw happening in 10,000 BC, she realized how important the mission was both for Sly (who she still cared about) and to stop criminals. they'd have to rework either the order things were done or the wild west world to not need Carmelita, but most of her involvement in that world existed solely due to her being captured and sent there in the first place

I can't believe I watched this at 3 A.M. and actually finished the whole video. I liked it. Everything said is something I resonated with. Especially being a Sly for a decade by the time Thieves In Time came out. There select few who do enjoy the game through and through. However, everything done with the characters and stories is such a huge turn around and disappointment. Great analysis.

Honestly the idea of a fourth Sly taking place between 1 and 2 is something that never occurred to me but would have fit so well; gives context to that two years between, lets the team experiment with different gameplay ideas (e.g. the different hacking types - Bentley by the start of Sly 2 has found it more efficient to just use the one) and doesn't encroach on the ending of the third game. I grew up with sly, and was incredibly excited at the notion of a fourth installment when I was a wee lad, but even when I played it for the first time on release I could feel that something wasn't clicking. At first I thought it was the updated visuals and animations messing with me and making certain actions look weird by comparison, but as it went on I found myself not engaged in the story and more just going through the motions, checking boxes of what I considered to be a sly experience. It kind of sucks as well; In interviews leading up to release the team kept talking about how excited they were to be making a fourth game and how it was essentially a passion project for them after loving the original trilogy, being absolutely made up when SP gave them the go ahead. You can tell they studied the hell out of Sly 2 in particular, and maybe if the story had been given a few more look overs it could have been different. Since Sanzaru is now owned by Facebook, we're probably never going to see them take another crack at Sly, and reckon the only chance we'll have of another game is SP themselves taking back the reins for one more run. Every time there's rumours of a new sly in development I still get giddy as a kipper, but since they've got their hands full with Ghosts of Tsushima 2 I doubt we'll see anything, probably ever. Selfishly, I would want a hypothetical fifth game to simply be a corrective course and just get us back to a happily ever after (have them use the time machine to stop Bentley making the damn thing so 4 never happens lol). For now though, I just treat this one as a non-canon "what if." It's written and made by fans so can I just consider it fanfiction???? I've been watching through your series of critiques over the past week and while I don't necessarily agree with all your takes, it was lush to hear an incredibly passionate fan of this series giving a full and proper breakdown, cheers!

Honestly, Uncharted 4 was everything I wanted out of a Sly 4. I know they’re very different franchises but they both have very similar story beats and Uncharted 4 imo was the textbook example of how to do a good Sly 4 story.

36:54 I think Sanzaru thought they could essentially start the character arcs over The characterization wasn’t great in sly 1 but it built a foundation that led to great arcs The problem is, when you’re rebooting a franchise, you aren’t given the grace to just start an arc over.

Honestly Bentley telling Sly that someone is screwing with the past would be reasons enough for him to do this.

thinking about it, they could've used old villains instead of these new ones who would've have a axe to grind with Sly similar to Paradox to match his MO, Penelope could've went in as a spy on her own time only to get brainwashed, and of course have Sly and his gang at peak performance with the villains using new tricks, at least storywise, otherwise, does explain why it feels off, missed the Grapple Cam tho

Great review. I appreciate your attention to detail and passion

Only during the third act once you said that their communications with the present time were nonfunctional i realized that across the game you collect coins to buy upgrades via the internet, in time eras where internet didn't exist. Does the time machine sent the packages with the upgrades back in time?

I think that you should have unlocked the belly dancing outfit for Carmelita, but that Murray should have been the one to do the dance after he suggested it. It would have been far more humourous and given that he suggests it I don't see the excuse not to, it would also be a good moment for Carmelita to appreciate Murray for his consideration.

Honestly, when I first played the game I was excited but frustrated. It definitely wasn't what I was expecting, but it was still a fun game for the time. The second time I was so shocked by the ending cause I had blocked it out lol. It's nice to hear I'm not alone in saying that it was a disappointment, especially the ending.

Great video! Hope the series gains more traction!

This video was amazing! Awesome job dude👍 you just earned yourself a New subscriber :)

Never clicked on a video faster.

Okay I’m coming up with a weird pitch idea Instead of Sly gets jealous that Carmelita seems to like his ancestors more than him Have it kinda be a bit of a Meet the family Type story She could say she was dating Sly and Tennessee could shake her hand aggressively There was apparently a fox geisha that it’s assumed Ryoichi had a relationship with, I’d add a cut scene to really parallel and say something about Sly and Carmelita’s relationship. Most importantly I’d have every ancestor yell at sly, “STOP FUMBLING THE BAG!”

Sly 1 introduced the hacking levels for bently, man was pulling his weight even back in the day, put some respect on Bentleys name😂

I’m not sure it was necessary for Sly to want to get back into the life of crime. If you look at Uncharted 4, Nate didn’t want to take the risk of getting back into that life. He missed the adventure and his friends sure but he knew he wanted to be with Elena. Same could’ve been true for Sly. He and Carmelita could’ve made a similar promise to each other, after Sly eventually came clean about not having amnesia, to not go back into that life for the sake of their kids or something. But then something might happen to the kids and they would need to revert back to their expertise in order to save them. Idk something better and more respectful to the character growth Sly went through in the original trilogy.

I won't lie the first time I touched it a few months back I instantly remembered how hateful it was of a decision to break up Bentley and Penelope that really was a huge letdown for me seeing as they were a cute couple and those two characters didn't deserve to be

50:08 I feel you're overlooking one major part of this scene, a detail all in video gaming know... Those are CUTSCENE guns, feared throughout the medium!

I really love chapter 4 map. The music is so top notch. Its my third fav map. Right behind india and paris from sly 2

6:20: no, Sly need to go back stealing isn't at all necessary, and it is, in fact, something that goes against what Sly learned in the last game. Ask yourself this question: was it necessary for Sly to have this urgency back for the story to work? For him to go back to his thevius ways? Would he just sat back and allowed himself to either end up either deleated from the timeline, or ending up in a situation where he could never meet Carmelita, thus ruining his chances to be with her? The answer to all the questions above is one: no. So no, Sly urge to go back stealing makes no sense, is stupid and is just one of the many proofs that Sanzaru just didn't give a damn about the characters in their game.

1:01:40 sits a mechanical bird. Loving this essay btw, suprised it doesn't have more views.

We didn't ask for better graphics and character designs. We asked for a better game/story. If they simply just gave us that then I would have favored this game.

I'm working my way through the video and I agree with many of your points so far, just wanted to say that Carmelita being designed "by men, for men," while it seems that way for sure, is actually not true. The for men part may be, but Carmelita's design was handled by Genevieve Tsai, a woman who, if you check out her portfolio of work, draws many, MANY, skimpy characters with absurd proportions. I hate it but I did just wanna let you know of that correction.

27:24 I'm pretty sure this is the first time in the series Bentley has used it. In 3 it was Penelope's thing

Another issue that I had were the hacking Fields the first two were fine but then you add in the ball hacking filled with the six access controls and oh my God what a cluster stink I hated that field I never could do it which is bad as seeing as being partially blind makes things even worse either way

i just wish sly 4 was about sly discovering what makes him a cooper, where 1,2 and 3 discover what made the coopers and their lineage, i want sly to slot himself into their history, as you have said, most the ancestors are just sly with a new ability, sly might as well be a fanboy, hes not unique to the coopers, and having these now relatively individual characters figure out how to reslot themselves into a team would be a nice topic

Something im suprised you didnt notice is that in the England level, sly's wall hook jump had its height lessened to make Galleth's ability seem better

Plot and writing were always the reasons I liked sly cooper most, more than platforming or game play or graphics And Sanzaru just showed a real lack of effort in those areas. It felt like they didn’t spend enough time on it. Either they thought it didn’t matter or they thought they did a good enough job And then When the fanbase was outraged over what they did they just stopped They ruined the franchise and didn’t even have the grace to stay and rebuild it.

I should also bring up the fact that between honor among thieves and thieves in Time I noticed that they erased the password system how when we were in disguise we used to have to enter passwords to talk to the other guards I wonder why they eliminated that

the missions in this game were so unmemorable even watching it here, none of them barely helped the final mission or changed anything, just random one offs. i think what made sly 2 and 3 great was the intelligent way the missions were intertwined. i still remember every mission and why it was done while here, i forgot why the mission was here even while it was on the screen. i hope with sly 5, they just take elements from each game and just make the story more intelligent and serious.

Hey bro was thinking of starting of KZfaq again and channels like yours have been motivating me and this is genuinely one of my fav games that I eventually wanna talk about and honestly idc who or what style of commentary someone is talking about sly cooper in I appreciate all sly vids and personally I love them to be in depth because the game got zero love since in its initial release in the main stream. Bottom line thank you and hope I can give people the same feeling gave me today with my videos

My biggest gripe about the game, which is saying something considering everything else, is that it's literally unplayable without a Dualshock controller. I bought three separate controllers just to play this game. The gyroscope was broken on the first two and the third doesn't hold a charge and is very sensitive when plugged in. So in order to play the hacking missions it takes forever since the controller keeps disconnecting. The horrible Carnalita mission takes even longer bc I have to switch controllers back and forth which usually causes several job failed screens. If there was an option to turn it off like the 3D thing in Sly 3 that would be one thing but nah they decided to make an unplayable game without a functioning gyroscope.

Finally finished the video, so some final thoughts: I still view TiT as a good game with the unfortunate position of following up an amazing trilogy with an inexperienced team dealing with executive meddling. Don't forget, this isn't a PS3 game. This is a PS3 AND Vita game, and you know how first party games need to push system gimmicks for some reason so we get the gyro stuff. Additionally, while I'm not completely familiar with the details, Sony apparently wasn't the best at handling the project, moving episodes around (supposedly Egypt was supposed to be the FIRST episode before getting relegated to DLC that never coalesced). Knowing how Sony was handling other projects at the time, like PS All-Stars, that doesn't surprise me. I'd argue that Sly and Carmelita's relationship is one of the better parts of the plot... Which is admittedly less of a bit of praise for their subplot and more a commentary on the rest of the story. At the very least, the story handles it in a way that doesn't make it's ending in Sly 3 feel moot, a plot thread that could have easily been even messier than it already is. I also don't envy Sanzaru having to pick up the time travel angle 3 mentioned, that was always more of a joke than a serious sequel hook. If I saw another Sly game, I'd want it to continue from where TiT ended, and give Sanzaru another chance. I have this mini fanfic in my head of where the story could go, being a smaller tale focusing on one hub locale in Egypt that expands with each episode, focusing primarily on Sly and an ancestor's gang working together. I feel like Murray's status as wheelman has been vastly underappreciated in the series. The most love it gets is in 1, where it's used for some racing mini games. I'd love a more involved motorized getaway, heck make it a set piece at the end of a few Operations, that'd be sick. Also shoulda put Murray in Jak X, I mean Ratchet got to be in it, I'm just saying complete the trinity... Why does Penelope have an hourglass figure in this game. The joke in Sly 3 was that she was a mousy smaller woman that pretended to be gorgeous online to Bentley, and he did the same to her. I remember Episode 5 running like hot garbage in terms of inconsistent frame rates to the point I got headaches, as well as feeling really uninspired. On the other side, I feel Episode 2 is the strongest in the game, and feels similar to the quality of the rest of the series. Toothpick is still such a forgettable character I legitimately forgot who that Episode 2 villain was before this video. It also introduces my favorite of the costumes, as rolling around on the ball is fun. More Sly 3 related: I find Bentley's growth throughout the series really compelling. He's nervous and doubtful in 1 before becoming more inquisitive and confident. He returns to being doubtful and nervous in 2, which would seem like a regression at first glance EXCEPT for the fact this is because he's taking a bold new step by being a field agent. And ironically, despite being physically disabled now and having a lifelong friend leave the team, he spends 3 far more confident and devious than ever before. Guards in TiT seemed more aggressive in their pursuits and tankier in combat, making fighting with Sly much less appealing than in 2 or 3. Granted, I haven't touch this game since like... 2018 at the latest, so finer balancing parts might that may be misremembered. Ping pong is secretly 2 player. The multiplayer of Sly continues! The unlockable canes aren't just cosmetic, they have actual uses, either adding a shock effect or making bolts replace coins, which are more valuable. It's not that necessary, but hey I like it when number go up! I love that Sky's health icon gets unique icons for the costumes. It's a nice touch. You ever notice that by Sly 3, Bentley seems more focused on protecting the Cooper legacy and the Thievious Raccoonnus and the Vault than Sly is? It's to the point that from Sly 2 onwards Bentley is practically co-protagonist.

always thought they could have had something happen with Carmelita and he needs to get the gang back together to help/save her. "sly got bored" is so dumb

I am trying to finish this game for what it seems to be forever but it just sucks. I hate the new character models, both in game and in cartoon. I hate the ancestors. The story etc. What pisses me off really is the color scheme in some missions where everything looks the same and finding enemies is really hard.

Sly 5 started development in summer 2021...

honestly while the new personalities of the gang is borderline character assassination, i’d like to think of it as just them being much more confident in their skills and also happy they’re doing missions together again after so long (in-universe and irl since sly 4 came out like 8 years after sly 3) the trio is noticeably jolly as for… carmelita i cant get too mad about her changes her excessive anger is justified so i try not dwell on that too much, also i really like Grey DeLisle work and penelope… well… yeah hoo boy, but who knows we only got to know her for half a game maybe some of the Dr. M talk got into her head at the end of sly 3 while the final boss is pitiful but it was not their intents to make it cinematic, other interviews with Sanzaru reveal due to time and budget constraints they had to choose between the Final level including all Ancestors or an epic boss fight, and they chose the ancestors level im not really offended by the low lows this game achieves, retrospectively at the end of the day this series is dead, so at least we got one more game and that’s a net gain… we already got a cohesive trilogy so getting a different game is neat, hopefully they do native ports of the entire series

I feel like the excuse I gave to sly 3, that the short production schedule led to a lack of polish, and a “toss everything at the wall” attitude Works in the opposite way with Sly 4 They were remaking the series, they should’ve had much much more time to polish up the story, but they didn’t. This may be too forward of me, but I feel like the writers looked to establish their takes on the characters, rather than taking the characters that sucker punch developed and moving them forward. I can Understand the want to make your own take on the characters, especially if you plan on taking them somewhere in further sequels. Perhaps this was their idea for the beginnings of character arcs and by game 3 they would be much more likable. On the other hand, not respecting the work that came before will and did lead to fan outrage. Sucker punch’s versions of Sly, Bentley, Murray, Carmelita, and Penelope had all finished their arcs. I could argue Penelope still had room for development which is why I push for her to be the main villain, but the point still stands. They felt like they couldn’t move forward with the characters the way Sucker Punch left them, so they felt they had to change. Perhaps it would’ve been a better idea to make sly 4 plot driven much more than character driven The plot that should’ve driven this more is very fan servicing Meeting cooper ancestors especially Ryoichi and Tennessee Kid Cooper was a great choice.

1:53:54 did you watch the credits

I just watched through all these Sly videos of yours. Very enjoyable. I mostly agree with many of your points throughout the series, even though I thought you were a bit nit-picky at times. As someone who didn't play these games until I was an adult, I didn't have any nostalgia goggles with me and thus, I'm probably a bit more forgiving of Sly 4. I find the gameplay to be the best of the series, and the moods and atmosphere of the hub worlds are fantastic. (Except prehistoric times, which is just ok.) Most of the characters being different is noticable and at times irritating, but not to such a level that I find it to be a deal-breaker. Except two things; 1: Murray's sudden low self-esteem and his food obsession. And 2: the Penelope plot-twist. Fuck that shit! The sexualization and and disrespectful treatment of Carmelita is also horrible. The first time I played through the series, I actually had to stop playing for a while after the belly-dance scene, I was so mad! That being said, I think Carmelita's reaction and feelings towards Sly in this is good and very realistic. This might be controversial, but I didn't really like Sly 3's ending with Sly faking the amnesia. Felt very much like he began the relationship with her built on a lie. That's not a healthy start for a relationship, and Carmelita's feelings of betrayal are completely justified. And yeah, final boss fight is absolutely horrible. All-in-all I think Sly 4 has some of the best of the franchise, and some of the worst.

The one thing that pisses me off about the cliffhanger ending is that before the game came out sanzaru said that sly cooper franchise was complete and won’t be any sequel after this which makes me question why did they gave it a cliffhanger ending!

Ranking Every Mission: Turning Japanese: 8: Tiger Tail 7: Spiked Sushi 6: Photo Op 5: Altitude Sickness 4: Pretty In Pinker 3: Something’s Fishy 2: Breakout 1: Sushi House Startup Go West Young Raccoon: 8: Saloon Bug 7: Grand Key Larceny 6: Blind Date 5: Jail Break 4: Gold Digger 3: Under Arrest 2: Cooper For Hire 1: Jailhouse Blues Clan of the Cave Raccoon: 8: Starving Starving Hippo 7: Going Up 6: Ice Ice Bentley 5: Unexpected Ties 4: Jurassic Thievery 3: Stone Age Reconnaissance 2: Duty Calls 1: Getting Stronger Of Mice and Mechs: 8: Shell Shocked Heart 7: Cane Swipe 6: Mechanical Menace 5: Mousetrap 4: Eye In the Sky 3: Short Supply 2: Hard Target 1: Juggling Act 40 Thieves: 7: Up In Smoke 6: Rug Rats 5: Lost and Found 4: Copy Cats 3: Open Seasame 2: Heavy Metal Meltdown 1: All Rolled Up

One thing about Galaths sections, Sanzaru purposefully nerf slys launch move compared to galeths just for the chapter, to make Galeth more useful. He really is, the worst one out of all.

1:04:37 I lightly disagree, while I do believe that Rioichi and Tennessee are more iconic than Bob, Sir Galleth, and Saleem and were blown too early, I feel Sanzaru picked bad/boring follow ups, namely Slytunkhamen I, Henriette Cooper, and *especially* Conner Cooper/Sly's dad would've all been better

1:57:30 Don't worry, the old Picasso was already evil. So the metaphor tracks.

Sly simply having an "itch" to steal again was absolutely not "necessary in order to make this game," as you claim it was. It would have been incredibly easy to come up with something that _forces_ him against his will to steal again. Hell, the game already does that by having his family line fading from history. That would have been enough. Having him want to steal on his own before he learns about that is the very definition of UNnecessary. Moreover, it wasn't necessary to break him and Carmelita up. He could very easily explain the situation to her, revealing that he faked the amnesia and needs to pull a heist again or he might never be born, and that might cause a rift in their relationship, but it wouldn't need to completely split them up. And they _definitely_ didn't need to create any sort of rift between Bentley and Penelope. There is no reason she couldn't have just been part of the re-formed Cooper Gang. She wouldn't even need to be playable, she'd just need to be there. TL;DR, the existence of a fourth game absolutely did NOT require undoing the ending of the third. It just needed to create a good reason for the gang to get back together, for Sly to steal again, and it needed to let Carmelita and Penelope be in on what was going on. Sly having an urge to steal again was far from "the only choice Sanzaru had." EDIT: Here, I'll put down some of my thoughts for how this story could have been done right. I would start the game with a heist involving Sly, Bentley, Murray, Carmelita, and maybe Penelope (more on the maybe later) to steal back Bentley's time machine. Things seem a bit tense between Sly and Carmelita, and it's established that he recently told her that he lied about the amnesia. Sly tells her it's not fair for her to be mad because she also lied to him about being his partner. Bentley reminds everyone to stay focused due to the stakes of this mission. Once it's stolen back, we get the recap of what led to this. One day, Bentley's time machine was stolen and Carmelita was assigned to investigate. This naturally led to both her and Sly having to come clean about their lies from the end of Sly 3. Bentley also informed them of pages of the Thievius Raccoonus going blank and deduced that someone was using his time machine to rewrite history. Eventually they tracked down the time machine and Sly was able to convince Carmelita to bring Murray along so the Cooper Gang's full set of skills could be put to use in retrieving it. Carmelita agreed on the condition that they do it the legal way with a warrant. Now that they have the time machine back, they can use it to go back to the different eras and fix whatever went wrong. Instead of needing an item from an era to go there, they simply just need to punch in a time and location. In the game we got, they always just happened upon items that happened to take them to eras where bad guys were messing with the timeline, but they never learned that something was going on in a given time period until they got there. In my version, I would just explain that Sly knows his lineage and the book well enough to know which ancestors are being erased from it, so they always know when they need to go. The Ancestors' Gauntlet had 10 ancestors in it, including Sly's father. If each one of them had a chapter, you'd have a pretty good length for a PS3 Sly game. Each one would need a defined personality beyond the archetype that they are, which the Thieves in Time we got did not give them. Some of them would be upstanding like Sly, others would be unpleasant to be around but still on the side of good, and some of them would even be selfish assholes who see the "only target criminals" thing as an excuse to indulge in whatever horrible acts they want (i.e. they commit whatever crimes they want, no matter how horrible, and say it's always justified because they're doing it to criminals). This would follow up nicely on Dr. M's implication that not all of the Coopers were as honorable and heroic as Sly initially thought. Over the course of the game, conflict could naturally arise between Carmelita and Sly due to the necessity of pulling heists in the different eras. Even though they don't have a choice, Carmelita is still not happy about having to do it, but Sly tries to convince her that it's ok because they're just going to leave the time period after the heist anyway, and there are no laws for time travelers. This causes tension between the two, but they would end the game with a healthier relationship than they had at the end of Sly 3 because it wouldn't be based on them both lying to each other. Now, the way I have it now, the new Cooper Gang consists of Sly, Bentley, Murray, Carmelita, and maybe Penelope. The "maybe" is because there is an easy way to keep the plotline where Penelope is missing, and even still have her as the villain of one of the chapters, but without completely assassinating her character. It's simple really: Have Le Paradox kidnap her at the same time he initially stole the time machine. Then he put some kind of device on her, be it an explosive collar or something with poison needles, that he can activate remotely to kill her if she doesn't cooperate. This would cause Bentley to have a crisis, because he'd be forced to either let her do whatever evil acts Le Paradox wants her to, or risk her dying, but after a pep talk he'd come up with a plan. The rest of the episode would be spent setting up an operation to free Penelope from Le Paradox's control without him noticing, and the final heist would execute said operation. In addition, this would make Le Paradox both more cunning and more cruel, because he's using Penelope to mess with the one other person who can operate the time machine. It would also allow Penelope to join the team a few chapters into the game, but this would all come at the cost of making her a damsel in distress, which already happened twice in Sly 3, which is why it might be better to have her as part of the gang from the start. Having her get kidnapped and forced to do the villain's bidding isn't something I would have even come up with without the context of the existing game, so I don't know how much it's worth considering. As for the villains, I'd need to come up with new ones from scratch. There's just nothing to work with here. Even Le Paradox doesn't have anything I can work with. Beyond what I said above about making him more cruel and cunning, he also needs a completely new motivation that isn't just Dr. M again, and at that point he might as well just be a different character. I just don't have it in me to come up with 10 villains from scratch right now.

ya know, there is a lot of THINGS in the game I hate mainly with the story, but with the game itself...? its still sly. I dont exactly hate it completely, but the story is the thing that miffs me

I subscribed and keep up the good work bro don’t eaten by zombies 🧟‍♂️

They had Galleth did the ninja spire move centuries before Rioichi invented it.

I know this is old, but the idea of having the theme of "never meet your heroes" or having the rose-colored glasses removed would've been great for Sly 4, especially when, in the third game, you learn through Dr.M, you get a different perspective of Sly's father through someone else's eyes other than Sly's. It would've been great to see Sly's father for once or see an ancestor of Sly who's not like him at all or not what he expected. Possibly a more cutthroat version, more Machiavellian that treats his friends as lackeys, or you see a younger version of Sly's father, Dr. M, and Mcsweeney. You see that there's some truth to what Dr. M says, but it's poorly misrepresented, or a lot of context is missing-lastly, a boss battle between an ancestor and the Cooper gang would've been great. Lastly, I understand that it's a game whose demographic is 13-year-old kids, but it would've been great to see a sly game that's mature and has that grittiness or dark atmosphere that Sly 2 had. I agree with you about the animation style and character design; it would've been great if they stuck to the old design but made slight improvements. And you're definitely right about Carmelita. She's always had that slight sexualization to her design, especially when you see the 2D animated cutscenes, but they went over the top in this game.

I’ll never forgive them for what they did to murray 😂😂😂😂

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why doesnt any review talk about slys movement in this game. It was a pain to collect bottles with this clumsy movement

There's actually a scientific reason for using eggs for painting in the 10,000 bc chapter, and it's actually how paint used to made in historical time periods like the Renaissance. The enzymes in the eggs are used as a binding agent(like you would in many foods, like mayonnaise or custard) to mix your pigment with your base substance(like oil for oil paintings) so you could have different colors of paint. Of course they neglect mentioning that in the game, so personally it's still a contrived excuse for puns. Typical Sly 4 L

I didn't think the game was that bad personally (I prefer it more than Sly 1, I know it's a pretty hot take), but I do agree it's less good than Sly 2 and 3. The game has enough good parts for me to still enjoy the game after technically 2 full playthroughs. I do think it really sucks how they seem to have written themselves into a corner with the secret ending (teasing a sequel that never happened), making me wonder how they would even manage to get themselves out of that corner with a potential new game (either if Sanzaru does it themselves, or if another studio tried their hands at the franchise). As for your idea to reboot/reimagine the series with the next game, I think it does logically make sense to do that (due to Sanzaru leaving the franchise in a corner), but at the same time I wouldn't like that outcome, since that would make Sly 1, 2, 3 and Thieves in Time all non-canon anymore, and as someone that greatly enjoyed all 4 games, I think it would be a shame to retcon the entire series... I guess for a future game, since they've already experimented with time travel, they could try experimenting with dimensional travel maybe? Like Sly could've ended up in a different dimension's Egypt, and he could meet an alternate version of the Cooper Gang? I don't know, I'm not a writer lol. So since you've already talked about all four mainline Sly Cooper games, will you ever do a return to the "Sly-tly Long Critique" series with a 2 hour long in-dept analysis on Bentley's Hackpack? xD ... Okay maybe not specifically on Bentley's Hackpack, but maybe a smaller episode critiquing/analysing the various spin-offs/crossovers/comics/etc? That could be a fun video to talk more about Sly Cooper to be honest!

If they wanted a cinematic end fight, they could have gone The Force Unleashed route: a standard boss fight followed by a QTE finishing scene. Also, they reused Dimitri's backstory for Grizz. They. Reused. A. *_Backstory!_*

Fun fact, if played on a emulator the loading types are reduced to 2 seconds.

Since you mentioned it here is how I would rank the sly cooper hub worlds. I am not going to include Sly 1 as the hubs are not really on the same level. The Sly 3 ones will likely be lower as there is just not as much interesting content to do in them. 18. Australia (Sly 3) 17. Prehistoric Time (Sly 4) 16. India Part 2 (Sly 2) 15. Canada Part 2 (Sly 2) 14. Arabia (Sly 4) 13. Arpeggios Blimp 12. Prague Part 2 (Sly 2) 11. China (Sly 3) 10. Venice (Sly 3) 9. Prague Part 1 (Sly 2) 8. Bloodbath Bay (Sly 3) 7. Feudal Japan (Sly 4) 6. Holland (Sly 3) 5. Paris (Sly 2) 4. Medieval England (Sly 4) 3. India Part 1 (Sly 2) 2. Canada Part 1 (Sly 2) 1. Wild West (Sly 4) Say what you want about Sly 4's story, I thought the gameplay, visuals, music, bosses(barring the last one...), and hub worlds were all quite good.

The game looks beautiful visually, but they sacrificed the story and characters along the way. They fall into the modern look of design more oriented for kids than the blocky graphic versions as well as how they talk. There is no charm like the old games and no stakes. Things seem to just fall into place by chance and long winded. The costumes are great, but I hate how they are needed in every single boss fight, they are too repetitive and obvious. The villains arent memorable and hard to take seriously. And La Paradox, the guy behind all this, is just some wimp. The only value behind this game is seeing Slys ancestors, thats it. And maybe Clockwerk sitting in the background.

I really hated this game. It was boring, lazy seeming and felt uninspired overall. Instead of having the fun factor of the previous 3 games, TIT was very boring to play with clunky and floaty controls. The plot was boring and forgettable with the lamest villains of the whole Sly Cooper series. Thr dialogue was dull and clunky and lacked wit. An overall disappointing game.

59:11 I'm sorry, am i being Mandela'd here? Carmelita's design ever since the first game always had sex appeal upped as much as possible Long flowing hair ending with a braid, beauty mark under her eye, a single hoop earring, plump red almost crimson lips, tube top that can easely pass as a bra, midriff always bare, and skin tight pants, she even wears a goddamn collarm for crying out loud! Claiming that a skirt and a different type of boots is "Drumming up the sex appeal" feels rather hyperbolic, don't you think?

Justs started this vid. All i have to say i did enjoy this game 8/10 (imo 2, 3 and 4 are all good or great games but the first is meh for me)

I know that Sly 4 is, supposedly, “better” graphically speaking, but I honestly think it’s not. The original trilogy nailed its artistic style, and fit perfectly the capacities of the PS2. The cell shading was just great. It had a characteristic “stiffness” to it. In Sly 4, even the character animations feel very floaty and exaggerated. In comparison, Sly 4, while being a nice looking game, feels a bit more generic. Visually speaking. But, maybe, it’s just nostalgia speaking, who knows. What’s really a huge shame and breaks the experience is the story. Nothing new, yeah, but… man. Look. I just think it wasn’t that difficult. So many questionable decisions and outright awful ones. The best part about the Sly trilogy was the story, characters and world. They were never the best platformers neither the best stealth games. We love them because of how cool and charming its universe was. Compromising that aspect just ruins what I consider a good Sly game. I don’t want to bash Sanzaru, I genuinely think it’s just a shame, a misdirected perspective. I can see the good work and the intention, but… I just can’t ignore how it trips in key aspects. I have to say, playing as the ancestors and visiting their universes is a great idea, it’s just that the tone and the characters… feel misdirected and flat.

I don’t play this one as much of the PS2 games.

2:00:55 If you didn't bring a second opinion from someone who's Arabic, shouldn't of brought it up at all

What is this accent you have, sir?

I won't disagree on the bad writing when it comes to the ending and some of the contrivances with getting to stages. But i will say certain ideas do make sense if you think about it. Penelope for one. It makes sense when realize she's one of the more amoral characters in the game. She did the Black Baron thing to get past age restrictions, she started her own tournament that she would cheat at if things turned south on her, she had no compunctions about threatening the participants or her staff, and the she's glad to kill them off when they work for Muggshot. If she'd had a better reason than greed, it might have made sense in Sly 4. But they went with the kiddie option of greed is bad. Otherwise the game is fun to play. And the little touches they added and returned are nice too. Like bringing back treasure and clue bottles, or the addition of a minimap. Plus it looks great as a game. If they'd put more work into the story, it would have been a much better game.

This game just hurts on so many levels. Gameplay, story, and worst of all... CHARACTERS! Like man dude, ever since I was 8 years old I wanted a 4th Sly game. Now, I wish we never got one

Didn't watch the video. Just stopped by to say the pun gave me cancer.

Another issue I have is with the constant "Carmelita design is oversexualized" argument. I'm pretty sure she always looked that way. Heck, one of the first cutscenes in Sly 2 had a nice shot of her cleverage. The only differences I got is that her pants have been cutted short, but other than that, I feel this is how Carmelita classic design would look on better graphics. I sure wish Toys For Bob did the same with the characters in Spyro Reignited Trilogy.

One thing bud for being a psychology teacher you are quite daft when it comes to understanding the mind, sly 2 did not “inspire your passion for video games” what it actually did was trigger a lifelong addiction that is not unique to you, but has become a societal trend of the youth showing a degradation of our society, maybe that college degree of yours doesnt allow you to understand such things

This guy came to hate the game not even understand or genuinely play the game

I don't see the problem with Carmelita's appearance. To me it seems like they toaned her down. Considering how big her breasts were in every other game. People need to get over themselves about attractive woman in video games.