► TIMESTAMPS ⏱ 0:00 Intro And Background 1:39 The Premise 3:35 Presentation 5:37 Expanding On The Past 11:31 Horrendous Writing 18:00 Episode 1 - Turning Japanese 21:20 Episode 2 - Go West Young Raccoon 25:27 Episode 3 - Clan Of The Cave Raccoon 29:42 Episode 4 - Of Mice And Mechs 39:38 Episode 5 - Forty Thieves 44:00 The Ending 50:25 Concluding Thoughts Yeah uhh... I wasn't expecting this video to be this long either. But at the end of the day, I'm really proud of it. I've had plenty of people asking me to cover this - it's been a long time coming so I hope it's everything you guys were hoping it'd be and more! Just a heads up there probably won't be another video for a couple months again. Work is about to get even busier and after running myself into the ground constructing this behemoth I could really use a break for a bit before I get working on the next video, so I hope this will be enough to hold you guys over! And finally, thank you so so much for all the support you've shown me, especially this year - it's truly been incomprehensible the speed at which the channel has been growing. It won't be much longer until we reach 1,000 subscribers which is absolutely surreal to me. It's a goal I've been chasing for soooo long so to see it quickly approaching suddenly is just insane. Love you all so much, thank you again for your time and endless support, enjoy the video! 😁❤️

the fact that Henriette Cooper and Sly's Dad were skipped over as ancestors was a massive missed opportunity

Penelope was actually portayed as pretty friendly in the 3rd game, and was one of the nicest player characters of the thieves that sly teamed up with in that game, so it made absolutely zero sense that Penelope becomes a money hungry villain in this game. She was literally guilt ridden when seeing Murray was captured due to her plan in that game... Senzaru assassinating her character for shock value makes absolutely zero sense.

You could fix a large chunk of the plot and remove some stupid coincidences by making one single change: Sly is happy with his life and has no plans to change. The plot is kick started when he notices weird shit, like his hands flickering in and out of existence etc, as his history is messed with. He SEEKS OUT Bentley out of desperation, who looks up suitable artifacts rather than them falling into his lap. This also adds a layer of tragedy to Sly and Carmelita's whole deal. Now instead of him going back to crime because he was "bored", he's forced to break his retirement, but all she sees is him leaving her for his old life, and now he has to prove himself to her again in the face of her towering grudge. The situation becomes more "oh how sad that circumstances forced Sly to break his loved ones heart" and less "girl just throw the whole man away". Further wrinkles could be added by Sly realizing how much he missed hanging out with his friends, and while the main plot line is Sly trying to save his present, the emotional stakes is Sly choosing whether to choose a familiar past or an uncertain future.

I can vividly remember following the black knight into the castle and as Bentley talks about Penelope I literally said, “why are you bringing her up? You haven’t mentioned her since the intro. “

Honestly it should've been that Penelope has been hypnotized by Ms Decibel, and that's how we get the Arabic artifact. It connects and doesn't ruin Penelope and all is good in the world.

If you ask me, the boss for medieval england should’ve been Sir Raleigh instead. It makes total sense because he was the fiendish five’s engineer. He would hold penelope hostage and threaten/blackmail her into building his robots and mech suits or else bentley and the gang would be hurt if she doesn’t cooperate. Then during the boss battle, penelope swoops in to save bentley and sly where she and Raleigh engage in a sword fight. Penelope defeats Raleigh, she rejoins the gang and she and Bentley are still a couple.

32:55 "We could have made billions in weapon designs!" [Norman Osborn has entered the chat]

I wish the plot twist was that Penelope was really the one brainwashed

You are mistaken about one point Bob is not the only really muscular Cooper, Slaigh MacCooper was the cooper famous for being super big and strong. "The strongest of the Cooper Clan, Slaigh MacCooper, could break any lock with a single blow." was the quote about him by Sly in the vault.

Sly 4 had a good idea and interesting story with the time travel plot and Cooper ancestors, the graphics were good, and the gameplay and mechanics were good, but they really dropped the ball with the writing and the characters. The majority of the main heroes feel like downgraded versions of themselves. Sly felt disrespectful to both Carmelita and his ancestors and Penelope's whole betrayal felt completely out of left field and just ruined a fun and likable character. Also Penelope's reveal and twist with being the Black Knight was the exact opposite of the reveal of Penelope being of the Black Baron back in Honor Among Thieves. The reveal in 3 was a clever twist and made sense.

what i dislike about sly 4 is how the game really has a sad cliffhanger ending with no real explanation since DLC was planned for it but scraped. would have love to seen bentley with penelope and sly with carmelita to really end of the franchise on a positive note, but thats just me. the ending of sly 4 left more thoughts, questions and urge for more than how sly 3 ended, and honestly wish that the franchise ended there.

The villain motive could’ve easily been fixed if Sly’s return to thieving involved him stealing many of Paradox’s earnings and treasures. After getting hit by Sly so many times, and hearing how his contacts keep coming up empty thanks to Sly, he’d finally break and try to rid Sly and his family for good. The justification is there. Having it all and making it despite the rocky start of his life. But now slowly starting to sink because of the same family line that got his father arrested, and him to fumble at the start of his life. Something about this game just screams “too many rewrites” or “first draft” kinda thing. Maybe that’s the reason for the delay (though could be something completely else). Edit: Actually, maybe Sony’s demands and PS Vita compatibility caused the delay. Makes me wonder if the story was hastily rewritten at points, due to the changes they had to make and scrapped content. Makes me curious how much cut content there is for this game.

38:39 Here's the thing, Sly never even stole Bentley's "potential" in the first place since he was long retired for several years to live a normal life with Carmelita post-Sly 3 So that makes Sanzaru's Penelope motivation even more retarded & illogical. And plus, Sly saved her life from General Tsao's giant temple Dragon in Chapter 4 in Sly 3 and helped with the rescue mission in the Chapter 5 Pirate episode! Showing her that they have a "No Team Member Left Behind!" mentality and we saw she was clearly scared for her life when Captain Lafwee kidnapped her and held her hostage! I really missed SuckerPunch's Penelope...

Man I can't get over how weird Carmelita looks in this game

Sanzaru when writing the characters for this game: Murray: hungry all the time Sly: sarcastic all the time Carmelita: just sit there and look "sexy". Oh and stay mad at sly until the very end so you can have an emotional moment when he is sent back in time permanently Bentley: ...just be Bentley idk

As a dude who worked at Party City when this game was released, I do remember selling Carmelita that costume. Also, the word you were looking for to describe Murray's horrendous writing is Flanderization. 😁 Congrats on the 200 new subs, dude!

“I felt his (Tennessee Cooper) voice actor did a great job with him” Man oh man let me introduce you to Sam Riegel

I honestly loved thieves in time, despite its flaws. Can't wait to hear what you have to say about it.

If Le Paradox was mainly mad at Sly's dad then why he didn't just attack him on that night when he framed his dad? Or as you mentioned and did the most logical one kill Bob.

Can we talk about how dirty the cooper gang did Toothpick? They basically just bullied the the ever loving crap out of him. Even stole man's lollipop 😂

I think a big improvement to some of the coincidences involving time travel would be short mini-missions involving you stealing an artifact from the time period you wanted to go to in the present as a sort of intermission between chapters

I'm still holding out hope for Sly 5, OR remakes of the original trilogy with PS5 graphics, OR a complete reboot of the series. I just want something, absolutely anything! We just can't leave this series that's so widely loved and cared for with the ending Thieves in Time gave it. Our boy Sly needs to get out or Egypt, so maybe 2024 will show us news... We just need to hold out hope.

Even though they made this game. They didn't deserve the fate of Facebook buying them for VR games. And proceed to not have them make any games

Probably a happy accident on the writers part, but Murray's fossil necklace has one less bead than it did in Sly 3, possibly pointing to the idea that Penelope took a chunk to give to le paradox/ use for her time machine and so for that reason Murray's necklace gets them exactly when they need to be, not by coincidence but by design/ betrayal

This was a nice video, and I agreed with a lot of its' contents. I really don't like the cutscenes. The Sly cutscenes throughout the trilogy were interpretive, illustrating actual events, but without literal detail. It never attempted to make half-baked, unfinished animations pass off the footnote of each chapter. They picked their poses and relied mostly on tweened stills in order to sway the emotion of the viewer. They maintain thick borders and lineless backgrounds to always maintain a specific focus in any particular scene, and their shots are all thought out illustrated by actual comic book artists with some inspiration for the animations themselves coming from contemporary SatAM cartoons. Thieves In Times' cutscenes rely too heavily on bad tweening animations. They struggle to strike the dramatic poses we're familiar with in the original trilogy, and for something stylized around something as organically dynamic as comic book drama, Sly needs those poses. They used a lot of raster work on these new Thieves In Time cutscenes, and I feel like it's to add unnecessary detail. If they had left a lot of things up to the funkified cartoon pop of the original trilogy, the detail would be implied anyways, so it seems like they underestimated the power a standalone image can have, and relied on generated stenciling to try and give their environments life, something the original trilogy never struggled with. I have no real comments about the writing. LeParadoxs' design is meant to be something of a mockup of Sly - stinky french rat who brings Sly back to their mutual homeland, both have a family business in thieving - and that alone would be a cool idea for a villain. They then imbued him with a lot of flaws without enough time to pick at - be it womanizing, pridefulness, list them off - and he kind of comes across as some mischievous underling more than an overarching bad guy. The creative syntax simply can't save poor writing. And last, the 3D stuff. A lot of it is ok. Some of it leaves really good impressions, but there's always some kind of problem in pacing with their 3D cutscenes. I feel like the animation missed the mark a little bit as well. Some impacts don't work right, a lot of the characters show their gums off so you can actually count how many teeth they have - feels less like funkified cartoon pop, more just like a lot of attention going to the wrong places. They don't have it being interpretive as an excuse because they struggle to be so literal now, but they don't use the vertex animations or modelwork to make any of it really look good - and so every cutscene feels a little bit off. This could be because they don't play with lightring enough, or didn't take the colors of the characters themselves into consideration when building them or their environments. That wouldn't be too big an issue and a minor foot off of the original trilogy if it weren't for the childish "gotcha" humor, even going so far as to be meta about it - which in Sly Cooper where every character is supposed to show some agents of cynicism comes off as more like insecure writing. Oh - and the level deisgns sucked nads. Go West Young Raccoon worked out really well, but any other level as severe weenying issues, to the point that you need the map to figure out where you are, an issue I'd never had with any Sly Cooper game before. That hurts. Well hey, good video, that's my wall of text for the day.

What I always loved about the Sly franchise was the boss fight curve balls. I wasn't expecting a mech suit fight

I love the Sly Cooper franchise, it's faint because I remember watching videos of the games back in 2008 when I was little and if Sly Cooper 5 comes out, I definitely would want to play it for the high-quality graphics and game mechanics.

3:57 Sanzaru didn't make Secret Agent Clank, only ported it to PS2.

One good thing fos Sly 4: The worlds (hub worlds) are colorful and the music fits them like a "fist in the eye" (a Finnish saying) PS: Grizz has become a meme in Finns Sly community. At least some Finns think so. PSPS: Grizz's (English) voice actor voicing him makes Grizz really sound like a gangster.

Video idea: Take the main 3 PS2 boys, Sly, Ratchet and Jak and give a quick review on each of their main PS2 trilogies then rank them all. Each entry would have like a 3-4 minute quick review and you just go one after another, then ends with a ranking of the 9 games worst to best

It’s good to see new Sly related reviews to this day.

The thing that sunk this game for me was the uncomfortable sexist overtones I got while playing it. Firstly because of the needlessly sexualized redesigns of the female characters (while the returning male characters were basically unchanged). Then there's the fact that they couldn't be bothered to include any female ancestors (Bob was a character Sanzaru made up. Why couldn't they make him a beefy cave woman instead?). Then there's the fact that the only non-sexualized female character (Miss Decibel) is constantly subjected to jokes about how fat and unappealing she is to the man she fancies. The Penelope twist was awful for a multitude of reasons. But it was especially bad because nobody in the gang shows a shred of concern for her until five minutes before The Twist happens. The twist would have had a bigger impact if you saw Bentley and the others worry about her and show distress about her being missing throughout the game. But they're having a great time without her until Sly awkwardly reminds us that she's missing right before the Black Knight shows up. And then the story frames Bentley going all Oscar Pistorious on his girlfriend as an empowering moment for him?? As if he was lacking in confidence before engaging in a little domestic violence and knocking his ex unconscious?? WTF? And then there's Bentley's speech about how Penelope (the ONLY female member of the Cooper Gang and Bentleys intellectual equal) was actually a moron the whole time. And only succeeded in the last game because she was aided by her much smarter boyfriend. Why would Sanzaru write her like this if we're supposed to take her seriously as a villain? Why would she choose to be some jerk's lapdog when she has the funds and criminal experience to be a crime boss in her own right? Why would a pilot/engineer suddenly want to be a weapon designer so badly that she'd throw away everything she has in order to do it? Oh, and don't even get me started on how gross that belly dance mini-game was. Carmelita is supposed to be the love of Sly's life. And he doesn't slap the sh!t out of Bentley for degrading her like that!? I'm supposed to root for him to get the girl when he treats her like trash!? Ugh! TL;DR Playing Thieves In Time as a female fan of this series was painful. It honestly felt like the game was actively telling me, "The Sly series is just for immature boys now! Go away!" the entire time I was playing it. I don't know what the hell Sanzaru was thinking when they made it that way

definitely the only sly cooper video essay series i’ve ever enjoyed. really awesome work here dude, you pretty much nailed it when it comes to what brings the game up and down. for the sake of discussion, the villains kill me more than anything else really. as good as the interactions can be at times, it just sucks how much they don’t really matter. at the core of the series is the constant feeling of being in hostile, unfamiliar territory. every past villain has been inseparable from their environment; the area can’t exist without them and vice versa. the tension is constant because just walking thru the level gives the villain a sense of grandeur and power, something to be feared. in thieves in time, the whole point of each villain is that they Literally are not supposed to be there. at it’s core it’s meant to break your immersion. and not only do the really gorgeous hub worlds not really reflect this strong outside influence wreaking havoc (almost entirely period-appropriate guards, minimal traces of LeParadox forces) but the characters devolve into madlibs. they can be anyone from anywhere doing anything for any reason. all we get is a small brief at the start on the who and what and why, but we’re given really nothing to care about. whoever this villain is, they’re kinda just some chump on leparadox’s payroll. and since the writing already doesn’t do much justice here … you get the point. would’ve loved to play as kid cooper against like, a fucking wild west carmelita type sheriff or something more period accurate

Personally I didn't mind Penelope being evil since she did shady stuff as the Black Baron. But you're right. Sly left her the Cooper Vault with a damn pirate ship. That aint billions. Also her motivation was weak. Like maybe she had the itch to be something similar to the Black Baron

Plot wise it's rather hard to accept how a certain former party member becomes a rat. Despite having tons of fortune as a well known champion. My take, and in an ironic way, she had a fleet of airships, planes and even a small army. Sounds familiar, instead of being a edgy bird She controls a mech and lives. But as it is, i hope Penelope just gotten convinced like Ms. Decibel.

10:28 I... it's been over 10 years since I first played this game... I've finished the story multiple times, and yet I never even realized that the green, blue and pink hacking avatars Bentley uses were meant to represent the main trio. It seriously never even crossed my mind and now that I see it, I can't believe I never noticed myself.

SUCH A GOOD AND WELL THOUGHT OUT VIDEO. captures all my thoughts exactly. I needed this and immediately watch it after seeing the thumbnail. thank you so much for your great work!!

Great video! What I really don't understand is why so many people on places like reddit try as hard as they do to rationalize this game's writing and design decisions. Like Carmelita's new getup and personality, Sly in Egypt, and especially the Penelope betrayal. They treat any criticism of the game's story either as childish whining or a refusal to give Sanzaru Games a chance. Sanzaru is hyped by them as just a poor victim of Sony and the fanbase. "They were just passionate fans of the series with the noblest of intentions. With all the right ideas and brilliant observant minds who paid close attention to the trilogy were going to make this awesome trilogy/story saga of their own. But you ungrateful fans and Sony's executive meddling ruined any chance of the series continuing." "So shame on you for spitting on poor, poor Sanzaru. How dare you criticize and be upset by cliffhanger endings, cringe dialogue, lame villains, forced nonsensical betrayals, and character assassination. They just needed more money and time to let the game cook, and it would've been a masterpiece. You're just idiots who don't get the big picture, like I do."

The thing i hate about this game is how they ruined Penelope I mean it wouldn't be as bad if she actually got a redemption moment like i spent the entire game thinking she was gonna show up and help during the final fight but no. they just ruined her for no reason making everything that happened with her during sly 3 pointless

This game would have been 100% fixed if at the beginning Bently reached out to sly about the book, and sly decided to go for broke and just confess to Carmelita about the amnesia and to ask for help saving his family's history. And then we could have had the amazing moment of Carmelita immediately agreeing to help because she cares about sly, and a comedic bit of her already knowing he'd been lying the whole time. Because ofc she would, she's a detective and sly is a dumbass lol

The idea of Siril overreacting to such a minor thing is not really a "bad" reason that I personally wouldn't be against. You got villains that turn good, have very good, and justified reasons for their actions, or are such magnificent bastards that you love to hate. Siril would be the kind of villain that's a hate sink; the kind that have no good qualities and are meant to be hated (though more on the scale of annoying that actually hated). He should've been revealed from the start as the villain with the rest of the time being used to showcase how petty he was, thereby making his pettiness his fatal flaw and the reason he gets taken down.

This is my least favorite Sly game. Not to mention, Penelope's betrayal came completely out of nowhere. EDIT: Or have Le Paradox threaten Bentley and the rest of the Cooper Gang if she didn't cooperate. That would've been a better explanation of WHY Penelope betrayed the gang than what the game gave us!

I heard the reason Sony refused to greenlight the Egypt DLC was because the game sold poorly, which is probably why there isn't (and won't be) a Sly 5

Honestly im happy to blissfully say this game isnt canon because WHY

35:46 Okay, I’m gonna come in here, I like a thing of FanFiction, where she’s not doing it for money, she’s doing it against her will because Le Paradox is holding Bently hostage in a time loop, to explain it, Le Paradox both killed and didn’t kill Bently after a check up on his spine. And has a communicator like Bently gave to Lizard guy, but a bit more primitive which sends just a red dot or blue dot, red was kill and blue was leave. That’s why I liked the fanfic better than the game when they went over the game for its arc. 42:00 also, during this chapter’s…”finale”, it also allows Penelope to be a part of it. 54:16 I’ll bring up a bit of the ending of the fanfic. Due to Le Paradox’s plan he partially succeeded because his partner in this crime killed the first ancestor from Egypt and they need to find a way to kill the killer and put time back on pace. They kill the killer because if they didn’t all of time would be destroyed, and the reason Sly didn’t instantly disappear was because of divine intervention of the only time god, and in a sad ending, Sly and Carmalita had to give up their first child to put time back on track. THAT, is why I feel the one fanfic is better than this game. In its entirety.

This is the first I'm hearing sly escaping the past was cut content, I always thought it was failed sequel bait

Bro you deserve so many freaking subscribers. Your video games you reviewed and the games I grew up playing are so closely intertwined. Sly is my favorite game series of all time and it never gets enough love!

That’s exactly how I found out about sly 4. I remember where I was sitting in a hotel room in Minneapolis Minnesota.

This review is insanely saturated with wrestling references and memes I absolutely love it and the Its Me Austin part was genuine comedy gold

Gameplay wise it was great, but story wise it didn't make fans happy as characters were flanderized and important elements like how time travel works were not explain, it can be Fixed with a sequel that improve gameplay. Mainly by making Carmelita more of a playable character, give 'The Murray' a more fitting ark of being the main man needed as Sly and Bentley recover from the last chapter. Also maybe fixing Penelope story by getting rid of the money and more focus on her feeling over shadow by Sly and felt like she knew more about Sly then Bentley and getting rid of Sly would give her a dream life where her and Bentley would have everything, making every great invention they can think of. Other things like a Crime Family/ Mafia that LeParadox was in to explain why he became so big, and to be are new group of villains as they were secretly helping and supplying him with stuff for the Time Travel thief plot well using the time machine Blue Prints to make a smaller one that let them come up with there own rewrite of history so the Mafia can be the one ruling Ancient Egypt during the time of 1 of the 3 Slytunkhamen, and I say do the third one who was the one who made the Cooper Vault. Just improving on what we have is the best way to get a Sly 5 but a Reboot where we get a new trilogy thats similar but different then Sly 1-3 where events happen differently so each game can flow between each other smoothly would be better at this point.

Part 4 of the Sly series was a mistake and the story was all over the place. The villains were complete idiots. The main villain was the worst villain of the Sly Cooper series. Wish the story would have been where the ancestors got pull from the past and into the future and they go on this futuristic adventure. We would also like to have Conner Cooper (Sly's Dad) appear and go on the adventure with his son. Sly, his friends, Carmelita, the ancestors, and Sly's parents have their own boss battles. As for Penelope, it would have work if she was kidnapped and hypnotized and had to work with the villains. Had a battle where Bentley was forced to fight a brainwashed Penelope. After the fight, Penelope is freed from control, but has to be taken to hospital. Bentley gets upset and angry and vows to stop the villains. That way Penelope and Bentley's relationship wouldn't have been ruined. Had it end where Sly's parents and ancestors return to their time. The main villain tries to use the time machine to destroy everything Sly tells Carmelita to shoot the machine to stop it and save everyone. Carmelita shoots the machine; however, the main villain pushes Sly into the time portal before it was destroyed. Carmelita defeats the main villain. Bentley, Murray, the present Cooper gang and Carmelita are upset of losing Sly. The credits of the villains now in jail, Penelope woke up from her coma and has to escape the hospital with Bentley's help, and the gang are searching for Sly. The twist is that they found Slytunkhamen instead. He's now in the future with the Cooper gang. It ends with Sly now in a different timeline, he's now in the future. He meets a thief that is a Cooper and the Cooper looks at Sly and said, (these two different ways) first ending would be saying 'Dad?' or a second ending would be saying 'Grandpa?'

Your videos are such quality content, with in depth reviews and fantastic editing to compliment it. I've just binged all the R&C videos and now here I am on the last Sly video! You deserve so many more subs!

I feel like having sly wanting to pull a heist immediately at the start of the game is stupid because they could’ve just had Bentley reach out to sly and tell him the thievous racoonus is disappearing and for them to go back in time, without any character assassination. and LATER ON it shows sly actually enjoying their heists again. I don’t know, on one hand I love the ending when carmelita says ‘sly…’ and sly goes ‘I know’ but their fallout is just so contrived.

The only thing that was a mistake was not giving us a sequel after ending the game on a cliffhanger. Or at least make the ending a nice conclusive ending.

Sadly The only hope for this franchise making a return is probably in a Remake of the first game.

I'm convinced El Jefe is the best written interaction her specifically and only because this boss battle was the teaster/ preview clip they pushed hard before the game came out. Like it was the ONLY thing they released for so so long that of course it had to look good and not be cringe af.

Sly 4 was my first Sly game, I tried it when it was free on PS+ on the Vita, and I liked it so much that I 100% it and immediately bought the Sly collection. Of course I loved the older games. Playing the collection made me appreciate the OG games and the progress the devs made from one game to the next. Having 100% every game in the series (screw the Sly 3 challenges!), I dont really think 4 is a bad game. Even if it doesnt hold a candle to the trilogy in character developement and writing (Penelope's plot and Le Paradox's motivation were bad even for someone new to the series), but it still my favorite gameplay of the series, going back to Sly 1 after this made the controls rough for me. Sly 4 was tight and snappy, even better than Sly 3 IMHO.

Everytime i tried playing this game, i always stop. It just doesn't feel like Sly for me. I will however watch this entire video! The intro is really gripping! - Keep it up! i Love the Sly content! :D

"But Bentley, I was just trying to persuade you to see things my way by killing your best friend!" This took me out...and the EDITING! 🤣🤣

Sly 4 had great graphics and gameplay too bad the story wasn't as good and that the game didn't sell well at all, honestly the only way I can see Sony make a new game is through a Remake of the Thievous Raccoonus. The reason I think that is the case instead of a Sly 5 is due to the sales as I mentioned, but as I said that is up to Sony. Anyways great video!

Surprised there was no mention of the originally planned PSP Sly game focused on time travel. Some concept art exists, including one some kind of evil shadow Sly (oh late 2000s)

35:13 The writer for Bentley really didn’t like the way on what the game did to Penelope

I see sanzarus main goal of sly 4, a crazy update in the gameplay for the next generation of playstaition. They still focused on the story but had the crazy coincidences to reach there goals of time travel and the cooper ancestors gameplay. To be honest, playing sly 4 is fun because of the visual appeal and gameplay. Not so much the storyline.

I remember ages ago when I first finished this game. The person I was talking to said “oh that kinda makes sense for Sly to go to Egypt. To become SLYtunkhamen”. Made sense to me at the time but I dunno now.

J.R.’s Classic “ahh son of a bitch” caught me off guard and made me cry

SHRIMPCOCTAIL!!!!

I'm sorry but I literally lost my shit at this part 10:29. And was laughing uncontrollably for 20 minutes I almost ended up in the Hospital due to lack of Oxygen. So thank you friend. You monster. 👀😲😂.

I'm no story designer, but even as a kid, I think back at how I wish they showed some insight to Sly's father in the final scene

Anyone notice how the backstories for the villains are carbon copies of some of those from Sucker Punch's trilogy? Like El Jefe is like General Tsao and maybe Sir Raleigh without motivation (like glory or boredom respectively), Toothpick went from loving the Old Western movies as a kid to being a notorious gangster as an adult with no clear connection (unlike Muggshot who was bullied and wanted to put his tormentors in their place, being inspired by the gangsters on the big screen), the Grizz is comparable to Dimitri without the passion and hard work the latter put into developing his kinetic aesthetic style and his motivation to punish the art world for rejecting him (the former's "paleo-graffiti" style just seems to be there as a way for him to get greedy and want more fame and money), the butchered version of a certain robotics expert (whom I like to call Peonlpe after another review's name for that version) was like Neyla without any of the buildup that made her villain twist work, Miss Decibel jumped from "I can't play the trumpet properly" to "I'm going to hypnotize people into committing crimes for me" without a clear reason (except maybe hypnotizing the audience to applaud her, but I still can't really see how she makes the jump from failed trumpeter to notorious criminal) unlike Don Octavio who had connections in the mafia that recruited him and were fans of his opera music after rock music took over the Italians' hearts in the form of bands like the Oscars, and Le Paradox is like a weak Clockwerk who just wanted to eclipse the Cooper line and lacked the owl's mysterious past that made him cool to many players. I hope Sucker Punch can come back to the helm someday and decanonize Sanzaru's additions to the timeline with a real _Sly 4_ game...

recent leaks says that there will be a sly 5 in the second half of 2022

The Sly 2 clue bottles were a good challenge. The hardest one for me to find I ended up having to turn off all of the audio except for the sound effects so I could hear the tiniest little clinking

This is the first video of yours ive seen, ive been a huge sly fan forever. It wqs well laced and funny with good editing. Very nicely done video. (Edit: spelling and grammer errors)

40:33 dear god kill it

No, it felt like the right progression of Sly Cooper. Knowing Sly 4 wasn’t made by its original creators, I knew what I was getting into and honestly I don’t think Suckerpunch could have done it any better! Ppl had mixed feelings about Penelope betraying the gang after all they’ve been through together but it made for drama and there’s always the possibility she could redeem herself. Everything else in the game was an improvement, he gameplay, character designs, level sizes! And of course that unforgettable music! I so hope Sly gets all his games released on the PlayStation store and we get another game to tie things up, I’ve been wanting a resolution to that dangling plot for over a decade now!

i dont know how they managed to make such great characters so wooden

On the point about Murray's personality, he didn't quite have that strength or bellowy voice he used to have. He just kinda sounds like a normal dude. And on top of the overuse of eating jokes, they found any and all times they could to have him refer to himself as "The Murray." Its like Sanzaru was like "You guys like that? 'The Murray'? Well here you fucking go" and made that precede every line of dialogue he has. He doesn't even say it the same anymore as I mentioned. It got really lame really fast, and even replaying all of the original trilogy like a year ago, it never once felt like that before. Subtlety was extremely lacking in this installment.

Damn the series really likes demitre

I was reading the comments, and have really nice ideas of solving the plot issues. I would really like a remake of this games with certain changes: 1. The Plot details 2. Sly's dialogues and "personality" 3. THE MURRAY's personality 4. Penelope don't being bad 5. The coincidence of the artifacts being handed to them 6. And the main villain introduction (it was to early Aside from that, the gameplay and animations are good, but I would like them to bring back the comic style telling

I have a theory that the reason they made Penelope evil was to try and set her up as the one who built Clockwork’s robot body or something in a sequel or maybe even the Egyptian dlc. In interviews they did say Clockwork was going to be involved it would make since for him to make a final appearance and would also explain why Le Paradox was such a weak main antagonist because it was misdirection or something.

This Whole video is right on the money! Thieves in Time is a good game that should have been a GREAT Game. What keeps it from being so, is exactly what you described. Sly being a dillhole, Carmelita being the stereotypical angry Ex for 85 percent of the game, Murray's flanderization, that damn ending, and worst of all(in my opinion) Penelope's sudden and unexplained heel-turn. There's a quote from one of my favorite characters that she needs to hear: "Intelligence is not a privilege, it's a gift. And you use it for the good of mankind." - Dr. Otto Octavius That whole section, especially Bentley vs. Penelope was painful to get through and the messed up part is, it REALLY Didn't NEED to happen. Side note: If the devs REALLY needed The Black Knight to be this big, imposing figure, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense why they had Penelope build a whole dang Mech Suit when Muggshot is RIGHT. FREAKIN. THERE! But aside from that, this is a really well done video. Your editing is masterful and you had me laughing a good bit. Can't wait to see what else you have in store!🦝💎

The unresolved ending is almost exactly like what happened to the show Ash vs Evil Dead. He wakes up in a desert of another time period and then cancelation so I'm forced to assume he's just stuck. Tragic.

Pretty wild. Loved Sly growing up. But I agree with the majority of your thoughts on Sly 4. They did Penelope and Carmelita super dirty. I don't find the game near as charming with the other characters. And it's worse because that's it. The final send off. It's been a decade and people still whisper excitedly about Sly 5 lmao. It's almost as bad as the Bully community about over hyping anything at all to make it look like a sequel is in the works. Alas, we'll never get a true finally like how Sly 3 was set up to be.

Clue bottles just listen for them they make a noise when your near them

The writer of Sly 3: *Puts a throwaway line about time travel Sanzaru: Write that down! WRITE THAT DOWN!!!

Absolutely AMAZING video my man, hilarious, well articulated, and insanely well edited as well! :) The original trilogy was a huge part of my childhood, so this was an incredibly interesting watch! I haven't played this, but I do want to eventually to obtain to same emotions you highlighted you went through while playing. Thanks again!

Sly already called a previous villain he fought an egomaniac. So WHY did he used that word "ego" twice in the game? It's like combaining that line at 22:10 with Sly's previous critic on The Boss' statuet and you will get " Talk about an overinflated ego.".

Sly 4 was not a mistake while it was far from perfect it was extremely fun to play

Damn we both posted sly 4 videos on the exact same day. That’s very convenient haha, love your video, we made some similar criticisms! I love your editing 😄

They messed up the plot, but they had the right idea

it was how badly the characters were written in this game that did me in...when sly "got that itch back"

Sly Cooper should comeback as a reboot or a remake of the trilogy

Secret Agent Clank was made by High Impact Games, not Sanzaru.

Dude. Spot on. My biggest lament is not that 4 ends on a cliffhanger setting up the next game that won’t be made. My biggest lament is the Penelope “twist”. It’s so damn unfair to Bentley. They really could have leveraged her to a much more heroic position while still providing a disguise twist to make a call back to 3.

Splendid review! I agree with you a lot on this game. While the writing has its moments, like the ancestors, it's mostly dogwater. I actually got surprised when Penelope jumped out of the Black Knight suit, I was either too dumb back in the day to detect foreshadowing or just couldn't see that twist happening due to how stupid it is. XD Ignoring that however, the gameplay is by far my favorite in the series, almost every mission being fun to play, even most of the minigames, since the controls are so tight! The emphasis on collectibles is also very welcome. Furthermore, the game looks and sounds great. I'm glad you gave Sly 4 a fair critique, many dismiss it for the bad writing, not acknowledging how good its other elements are. That ending definitely sucks though. I was sure the wait for Sly 5 wouldn't be as long as the wait for Sly 4, but apparently, it's even longer, and might not even happen at this point. Out of all potential sequels, Sly 5 is what I crave the most.

The intro of the video was me 100% as well 😂❤. Also playing as a kid all the original voices was still there in my native language (Swedish) and that can be rare.

Ah yes, never finished this game, had it on the psp, but it was fun no doubt as you said, and had one of the most unfortunate endings, ever. (Oh wait, think this is on PS now, sweet)

After literally just finishing thieves in time again I have to say that I agree with most of what was said in this video. The game itself might come close to being my favourite Sly experience, but there's too many grievances for me to ignore. The story completely falls off after the ice age chapter: Penelope got her character assassinated, Ms. Decibel doesn't leave much of an impression at all and le paradox is just a moron. I think that there's also not enough time for the other members of the gang to shine aside from Sly and Bentley because of the mission structure. Murray only gets two full missions to himself and you barely play as him outside of one minute segments besides that, and you play as Carmelita a grand total of three times, two of those being in the same episode. Oh and as a final note I have to say that Sly's "you won't get away with this, I'll find you" line is the funniest piece of dialogue in the entire game, which is incredible because it wasn't supposed to even be funny

Dude you've made a long ass video and I'm glad that it's good too. I think your humor keep improving as time passes and although I'm not that familiar with the sly series like I am with ratchet and clank, these videos were the reason I wanted to pick up the series again after all these years. And also I saw that TGX review screenshot, I used to like his shit too

Ill be honest, I think the convenience of many plots points is suppose to be meta humor. Its definitely not something new to the series, in Sly 1 every boss literally tells you where the next member of the fiendish 5 is located. "Blast it all! You've beaten me! Well, gloat all you want, Sly Cooper. You're no match for Muggshot, my villainous cohort in Utah. You will see, Mesa City is so well-guarded, a snake couldn't slither in without setting off alarms! Vahahaha." ect