Considering Sony’s continuing struggles to build up a stable of first-party system-selling software it is kind of amazing just how many perfectly viable properties they have let grow fallow over the years. Jak and Daxter, Ape Escape, Dark Cloud, Legend of Dragoon, Colony Wars, MediEvil, Wild Arms, and Drakan are just some examples from the surprisingly lengthy list of game properties that Sony has ended up with ownership of over the year. Of course, in many cases these are series whose original developer no longer exists or have moved on to other things and I can understand the reluctance to replace a previously well-established development studio/creator on a series they made great. Yet, that alone should not be reason enough to kill an otherwise good series. After all, where would gamers be if Nintendo had simply decided to stop the Mario or Zelda franchises after the second or third entries of those respective series? All of which leads to the game under review today: Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time. After a seven year hiatus and the departure of Sucker Punch does this game mark the welcome return of a PS2 stalwart or would the world’s best ring-tailed thief have been better off staying retired?

It has been years since Sly and the Gang pulled off their greatest heist and everyone has long since gone their separate ways to individual success and happiness. Everything seems perfect… until one day the pages of the Thievius Raccoonus (the book passed down from Cooper to Cooper which contains all the families’ hard-won thieving secrets) start disappearing and it soon becomes clear that someone is mucking about in the time-stream. It is a good thing then that Bentley has spent his time away from the Gang developing a time machine and soon the band of thieves reunite for a rip-roaring adventure through time that will bring Sly into contact with some of his most famous relatives and a dangerous new foe bent on no less than the ultimate destruction of the Cooper Clan across all of time and space.

The Sly Cooper series has always been marked with stories that go deeper than its otherwise colorful and cartoony surface might initially suggest. Past games have never shied away from going to places, be it the first game’s opening wherein a young Sly is forced to watch his parents murdered before his eyes or the crippling of Bentley at the end of Sly 2. To be clear, this darkness has always been equally tempered by lots and lots of goofy, good-natured charm right out of a 80′s Saturday Morning cartoon, but the focus on strong storytelling and relatively believable characterization has always remained. So, it is this balancing act of serious and silly that any new Sly Cooper title must tackle if it is to be worthy of the name. I am happy to report that the new developer, Sanzaru Games, has succeeded on this front and then some in Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time.

Bentley is highly maneuverable thanks to his tech, but his fighting skills leave much to be desired.

In a genre where story is often secondary if it exists at all, this is not just some of the best writing I have seen in a platformer in years but also an example of writing in video games done right–period. The way Sanzaru manages to inject moments of heartbreak and genuine emotion amidst an otherwise ludicrous time travel-fueled affair is every bit as impressive as the writing found in a supposedly more mature and ‘adult’ game like The Walking Dead and for much the same reason. The story and characters in Thieves never take a back seat to the gameplay and the game as a whole is all the better for it. The fact that Sanzaru also managed to produce a game filled with one laugh-out-loud moment after another does not hurt either.

Be it wordplay, pop culture references, physical comedy, or just outright moments of pure absurdity, Thieves in Time is a game that knows how and when to deploy humor effectively. Indeed, Sanzaru has enough chops to match the best of what can currently be found in film and television alike and should the time for Sly to move into other mediums ever arise they would have my vote for handling the transition. Throw in some genuinely unexpected plot twists and a deep respect for what has come before in previous Sly games and all the ingredients are present for a story that every bit matches the quality of best of the series past.

The design aesthetic of the game is truly remarkable at times.

But how does Thieves in Time fare in terms of gameplay? For the most part, very well, albeit in a familiar fashion. Sanzaru has not tried to reinvent the wheel in Thieves and stealth-driven platforming (including the series signature pickpocketing element) remains the heart of the Sly experience. Sly himself controls as adroitly as he ever has and rarely, if ever, will players find themselves dying due to poor controls or cheap game design. Bentley and Murray also return as playable characters in Thieves and feature (with perhaps one key exception I will touch upon later) equally well implemented controls. Players will also eventually unlock a fourth playable protagonist in the form of longtime series antagonist/love interest Carmelita Fox and she brings her own unique gameplay elements to the table and that work to equally to good effect. Still, there is no question that Sly is the star of the show and in general the best moments in the game occur with him (or one of his ancestors, but more on them shortly) front and center.

Thieves in Time fits so smoothly into the overall oeuvre of the Sly Cooper series that unaware players could be forgiven for thinking that Sucker Punch had returned to handle development duties once again. This is not to say Sanzaru failed to bring anything new to the table though. For one thing, this time around Sly gains access to a series of costumes that grant unique and valuable abilities when donned. One example would be a prison outfit whose massive ball and chain can be equally used as a way to destroy obstacles and as a means of avoiding deadly traps by riding on top of it. Other outfits include samurai armor that lets Sly move past enemies without arousing detection and reflect attacks and some familiar looking green duds that will let Sly play Robin Hood via a handy bow and arrow combination. The best part about these costumes is how well Sanzaru implements them into the level design of a given section right down to them being key components (à la the Zelda series) in each of the game’s superb boss encounters.

Bentley has three distinct mini-games that serve as stand-ins for his hacking, including this self-scrolling shooter.

Additionally, each time period Sly visits is home to one of his ancestors and once players assist them they become playable in their respective eras. These colorful characters have similar controls and abilities to Sly, but also introduce their own unique gameplay elements, such as the ability to transverse long distances in a single bound or a variation of the famous Cooper crooked cane that can double as a deadly six-shooter. After a trilogy of games that more than once teased the illustrious history of the Cooper family it is great to finally see some of these famous figures in action and they all help to further inject color and humor into the game’s story as well. Also mixed into the game is a wide variety of mini-games, combat-driven action sequences, and other diversions that show up at regular intervals to help keep gameplay feeling fresh across the game’s linear eight to ten hour long story.

While the story may be linear, the series of distinct hubs (each representing a different era in time) that are included in the game are not and they are packed to the gills with collectibles and more that are just waiting to be found. Simply exploring and sniffing out all the secrets present in a hub area is a joy and overall doing so can potentially add hours upon hours to the overall game’s length in a highly enjoyable fashion. Strong design during the distinct story levels that stand separate from an era’s hub helps ensure that players will generally have a good time whatever character they are currently in control of. However, outside of these story missions it just is not as much fun when playing as anyone but Sly or one of his ancestors. None of the non-Cooper characters fare that great in areas which were clearly designed with the abilities of Sly and his ancestors first and foremost in mind. It is Murray in particular who suffers the worse thanks to one simple fact: actual combat is rarely enjoyable in Thieves. The major exception to this are the game’s aforementioned boss battles (all of which make use of the standard pattern recognition approach, but do so in a way that let each encounter come across as suitably unique and highly enjoyable in its own right) but certainly the same cannot be said about clashes with standard enemies.

Boss fights are exciting affairs that demand precision movement and timing from players.

In gameplay terms, Murray’s raison d’être revolves almost entirely around beating down the regular enemies present in Thieves in Time, leading to his sections easily being the game’s weakest moments. This is not so bad in story levels where Murray tends to star in bland, yet ultimately inoffensive brawls (along with the occasional memorable mini-game) set in closed-off, arena-like locales. On rare occasions when you are forced to take Murray out into one of the hubs the real pain begins. His lack of maneuverability combined with his limited close combat skills make these sequences often little more than an exercise in frustration and while the other non-Cooper characters fare better it still can be a struggle for them at times as well. Much (but not all) of this problem could have been avoided had the game simply allowed players to choose any character they wanted when traveling to locations needed to trigger a mission, but such is not the case.

Other problems include some obnoxiously lengthy load times anytime the game transitions between areas, a somewhat repetitive nature that, to be fair, has always been presence in the Sly Cooper series, and the lack of truly hardcore challenge (in the story levels at least; getting all the optional collectibles on the other hand takes real skill at times) that some tend to crave in their platformers. Personally, I found the game’s level of difficulty to be just right, but I also acknowledge other people’s mileage may vary in this regards. In the end, what I will say about Thieves in Time’s gameplay is this: I enjoyed playing the game as much as I have any of the past Sly Cooper games and in the end that is what counts the most.

Oh Murray. I am sorry, but you are just no fun to play as.

When it comes to production values, Thieves of Times take full advantage of the possibilities that the PS3 bring to the table. This is Sly’s first real adventure on more advanced hardware and the series has never looked or sound better as a result. From a moonlit feudal Japan to the sunset soaked old west and beyond, Sanzaru have clearly gone to great pains to take every advantage of the potential visual diversity the game’s story allows for. Each era remains highly distinct from one another visually with about the only thing in common across them being the fact of just how good they really look. It is particularly impressive how well Sanzaru handled the transition between the PS3 and PS Vita versions of the game. While there is no question which version of the game has the superior visuals, Thieves on the Vita is no slouch in the graphics department and easily exceeds even the best visual moments to be found in the original PS2 games. The animations present throughout the game are also particularly noteworthy and they go a long way to imbuing even the most generic of enemies in the game with some degree of personality to call their own.

The game’s soundtrack is beyond superb. Amazing track after amazing track await and previous Sly composer Peter McConnell (Grim Fandango, Costume Quest) makes a triumphant return to the series with what might just be the best work of his career to date. Fans of Henry Mancini (the original Pink Panther film series, the Peter Gunn theme, and Breakfast at Tiffany’s to name a few examples of Manchini’s output) will especially love the jazz infused music often present in Thieves and the whole score has a very classic film feel to it throughout. Between this and Ni No Kuni, 2013 is off to an amazing start in terms of video game music, but Sly also fares equally when it comes to voice acting. Across the board the cast of Thieves do top class work and it is not overstating to say that much of the game’s writing simply would not have worked aw well without these strong performances backing it up.

Rule #1: Never piss off a ninja. Especially a ninja raccoon.

While Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time is not without its flaws, it ultimately remains a title that gets far more right than it does wrong. Even the game’s most egregious errors end up little more than minor stumbling blocks when looked upon in the context of the game as a whole. Sanzaru has definitively shown that Sucker Punch was right to trust them with the reigns of the series and by the time the final credits rolled I found myself hoping that this was only the start of a long and healthy stewardship. What mistakes are present in the game can (for now at least) be mostly written off as first-time errors and I would love to see what the developers could do in terms of ironing out these kinks with a second go at the series. Whether a long-time Sly fan or a complete newcomer to the series, players will find in Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time a rich platforming experience with plenty of replay value. This is a game that has not only proven there is still plenty of life left in the Sly Cooper formula but, in this age of FPS domination, the platforming genre as whole as well.

A copy of the game was purchased for review purposes and completed in about 13 hours. The title is available on PS3 and PS Vita and the reviewer played both versions in the process of the review.

Also, feel free to follow the reviewer on Twitter @bigred_13 please if you feel so inclined.

Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time Review

By Shaun K.

After a seven year hiatus does this mark a welcome return or should the world’s best ring-tailed thief have stayed retired?