There is no safe that you cannot open, no security system that you cannot circumvent, and no pocket that is safe from your skilled hands . When you put yourself in the shoes of Sly Cooper and his gang , the only possible way to get out of a place is with a valuable loot on your shoulder and the mermaids of the background. Adventures, enigmas, far away places, love, heroes, villains … this story of cops and robbers had it all.
In 2002, when the Playstation 2 was hitting it all over the world and marking the path that the world of video games would later follow, the Sucker Punch Productions studio introduced us to the elusive Sly, a robber raccoon who along with his band ( the strong hippopotamus Murray and the intellectual turtle Bentley ) had to recover the theft manual that his family had kept for generations and avenge the deaths of his parents at the hands of a rival gang. With this approach, ‘ Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus ‘ came into our life giving blows left and right.
Honor among thieves is a myth
The story of Sly was presented to us like a comic, a frenetic and entertaining comic in which success depended on our ability . The cartoon style used in the character and set designs, the onomatopoeias that jumped on the screen when an enemy was knocked down, and the sound effects created a curious combination that was undoubtedly attractive . The title used a carefree, almost childlike aspect to tell a more complex and mature story than it might seem at first .
Since the protagonists are a gang of thieves, the objective of the game will always be to carry out different successful hits with the entire process that it implies: from obtaining the information to plan the robbery to its execution and escape (with a guaranteed final surprise). The game mechanics took advantage of a limited open world that changed in each chapter to take full advantage of aspects such as combat, stealth, search for collectibles, puzzles and platforms . In addition, it allowed us to combine the skill as a thief of Sly with the enormous strength of Murray and Bentley gadgets so that the player had to adapt to each situation and learn to handle each of the playable characters.
Imagen: Sucker Punch Productions.
The success of the first installment gave fans the opportunity to follow the story of the Cooper band in three more games (the last one in 2013) and a remastering of the original trilogy. Each of them took us to new settings (Paris, India, China, Australia …) and used to add skills or more characters that made this world grow and brought just the right innovation to notice the difference but without losing the original essence.
Sly games were one of those titles that made you enjoy and made you smile as soon as you took the controller . They weren’t meant to be epic or cute, they just were. Sly and his gang were able to go anywhere, take what they wanted, and leave without a trace. But, like any good thief worth their salt, they always left their signature .
