What does it mean to do the things you love in life? What does it mean to have a legacy, friends and family, what does it mean to love them? Are you willing to do anything to protect them? Even if it means to stop the things you love in life? Can you leave the past and legacy behind, to grow as a person and lead a new, possibly better life? All of these answers are answered in a game where a Giant Pink Hippo drinks a bunch of lemonade, a half naked Koala takes control of sharks, a Turtle in a Wheelchair having a opera contest with an Old Lion and a line about women so ballsy that it’s probably not okay in 2023.

The big 62nd Review, Sly Cooper 3: Honour Among Thieves. I’d say this game is just as good as Sly Cooper 2, though could have easily been better than Sly 2 if there were a few design choices changed or altered and maybe due to how this game is slightly overstuffed, but this game manages to be just as good as Sly 2 due to the amount of charm that’s present, plus due to the more heavy reliance on platforming that I’ll get into later. Plus, just like Sly 2, it contains a rich, deep and insanely enjoyable story that while isn’t as subversive as Sly 2, is one of the most satisfying conclusions to a trilogy/series ever crafted. Once again, Spoilers ahead!

Part 1: Now What?


So, Now what? Sly 2 was established as a critical and commercial success, making Sly a worthy but still somewhat slightly niche competitor to Ratchet and Jak, with both completing their trilogies in 2004. There’s no worry of the “mature wars” as I like to call it now that Sly was established as a more mature but still somewhat childlike franchise that most people could play and enjoy. Sly 2 was Sucker Punch’s ”All or nothing” game where they needed to go all out and hoped it would succeed.


It did

So, we circle ourselves to this question once again, Now What? With the impending doom of the next gen consoles propping up, they needed to make a sequel to Sly 2 as quickly as possibly. While I’m still on the review Backlog on Ratchet 3 and far, far of with Jak 3, plenty of these series had the exact same tropes of a first game that’s solid and sets the foundation though is slightly dated at the time it was released, the sequel which both improves on the previous game while being unique in its own right and the 3rd game which tries to further distance itself from its roots and fully continue with it’s second game formula, but the issue is that these developers don’t want to work on these funny furry jump games for the rest of their days and there’s the impending doom of Next Generation Consoles, so they need to get these games as quickly as possibly, these games include, Ratchet & Clank 3, Jak 3, Tak: The Great Juju Challenge, Pac Man World 3 and Ty 3: Night of the Quaken, all of which I have ranked to best from worse (Telling you Ty 3 is one of the worst experiences i’ve had in gaming)

So, What makes Sly 3 different? There’s only 10 Months of development with no time to lose, well in all honesty, I don’t know. Somehow, apart from a few gameplay emissions, plot holes/issues and some jankiness, Sly 3 is the best of these rushed 3rd games in a series.

The sentiment of “Now What” is echoed in the Prologue Sequence, When you start the game, Sly infiltrates an Mysterious place called Kaine Island with a few of his new friends which are blacked out, once we reach the vault, a mysterious Mandrill confronts Sly with a Giant Mutant, Sly flashbacks to the point of what has brought him here. This whole sequence is pretty good, not as good as Sly 1 or even Sly 2’s but it gets the job down. But I feel like they could have kept the surprise of everything here a lot better, but I’ll get into that when it’s time for the story. For now, it’s solid.

Part 2 (Not) Advancing and Reinventing Platforming Gameplay

Sly 3 is mostly the same gameplay set in Sly 2, It’s an Open World Stealth Platformer set in 6 distinct locations around the world with a bunch of missions you need to complete. If It ain’t broke don’t fix it. In all honesty, I feel Sly 3 is the game that I was tuned out the most in terms of the core gameplay, which isn’t a bad thing. It’s just a really solid gameplay formula, Sly is just as agile as the previous game, he can still pick-pocket, sprint which allows him to go faster but at costs causes noise and buy a wide array of gadgets using your coins, The Guards & The health system is virtually the same from Sly 2 though there’s a few aspects they have changed or altered for the worse.

I don’t know if it was the devs looking at God of War and thought for their funny cartoon Racoon platformer “Yeah we need to do that” but there’s an bigger reliance on Combat but there’s much more Combat sequences in the game which is weird trope in these 3rd game entries , I don’t mind this in this game since it’s so simple, it’s not trying to be a complex hack n slash using kiddy characters like Pac Man World 3 or Ty 3 but it’s goofy combat with a Racoon using a cane for a weapons, despite this, Sucker Punch added a bunch of new combat moves to the Thief Net which are upgradable, I don’t know these are pretty useless, I went through the entire game without buying a single combat upgrade, and apart from some combat sections in Dead Men Tell no Tales, i felt like base Sly was good enough to experience in this game.

Conversely, Sly 3 has much more Platforming than Sly 2, which is always a treat. The Platforming of this game feels good, it's fun, challenging and provides a wealth of variety in terms of missions. The missions for one are much longer and more varied due to using more characters/minigames so having more platforming helps both make Sly 3 stand on its own two legs from Sly 2 while harkening back to Sly 1’s more simple roots, especially in the final mission of the game.

I feel the game is mostly the same structurally, there’s just a few issues with this game that hold it back from being even better than Sly 2’s Core Gameplay, leaving it to be just as good. For one, the Ecnomy in this game is more fucked than the UK’s at the moment, I don’t know if it’s a me thing but pickpocketing coins feels like it yields less coins at a time, and in terms of gadgets themselves, they’re more expensive and more of them at a time, i feels a bit overwhelming at points. What also doesn’t help is the odd removal of Clue Bottles and Treasures, Treasures in Sly 2 where collectibles that were sorta speedrun through a stage to try and get back to the safehouse as fast as possible, they were plentiful in Sly 2 and gave you a ton of money, Clue Bottles were just nice secondary collectibles that go you a nice optional power up, Both of these were integral to help make the Open world feel more complete while rewarding those who wanted to explore the stages. Sly 3 doesn’t have that for some reason, either because cuts needed to happen due to the development time/having other priorities in the game. Either way it hinders this game, It sorta does make these incredibly well designed stages a bit pointless to explore now, the only thing you can do now is fiddling with Bobby Traps and fucking around with Guards i guess, which again, makes these stages kinda pointless to explore now.

But like in terms of core gameplay, this is again probably the most tuned out i’ve been with the series, is this a bad game? No! Far from it, I can’t stress enough how solid this game is, the core gameplay of this series is incredibly strong, but in games like this is where they’ve already peaked with their main gameplay style in the previous entry, so Now What? After just running with its Main Gameplay style into the ground, what do you do now? Well you do what all 3rd Game entries do and that is…

Part 3: Mum! The 3rd Game Entry is having a bunch of minigames to make up for its mediocre gameplay!

So 3rd Game entries with the exception of Ratchet 3 try to add a bunch of new spices to the core gameplay to make it even better, or worse. Normally these games can either be the best or worse entry in the series, and in terms of this generation. No. But Sly 3, as I mentioned before, is the best of these games and in all honesty, it’s where the best and worst of Sly 3 in terms of gameplay is brought up.

Let’s start with the biggest and most ambitious addition to the game, Sly and his Honour Among Thieves, there are now 7 additional playable characters with a truck load of minigames. Bentely and Murray return but are now much more on par with Sly in terms of agility while still making them distinct/unique. Murray is mostly unchanged but has atlas strength already acquired, has a new bounce ability, can grab enemies to shake them giving them coins/treasures and feels much more faster as a whole with beating enemies and movement, and Bentley has just had a complete makeover, him being in a Wheelchair makes him faster, allows for multiple jumps later on and genuinely feels he’s gained more confidence from Sly 2 and is now a badass Turtle that you shouldn’t mess with due to his wide arsenal of gadgets that all explode (and he can also pickpocket). So, that’s 3 out of the 7 playable characters, what other characters could possibly use? Well due to the setup of the story, The Multiple Playable character ratio is always increasing with 3 characters from previous games but I feel this leads to some inequality happening.

First, there’s the Guru, a half naked Koala with a magic staff that he can use to control enemies, which Super Mario Odyssey would shamelessly steal years later. Due to story and character reasons, The Guru does not have any combat abilities, he can only disguise himself and capture enemies, which he then proceed to run with and ram into a wall (Yeah a bit hypocritical), He’s probably the best and most fully fledged character in the game aside from the 3 main characters, though as you'll see, that’s not much of an accomplishment. Then, there’s Penelope, who technically isn’t a playable character, her job is taking Bentely’s RC Gameplay from Sly 2 and expanding it in many ways with Her RC chopper having a grappling hook that can latch onto enemies, obstacles, and other objects, There’s also her RC car that also has a turret attached to it, while i was mixed on these in Sly 2, I feel Sly 3 makes the RC gameplay just a lot faster and more efficient, there’s just a lot more going on when in the RC.

Then there’s the Panda King, a returning antagonist from Sly 1, using Flame-Fu and Fireworks, he sucks, which is a shame because he was probably the most full fledged villain from Sly 1 with the obvious exception of Clockwerk, while his character is very on point in terms of characterisation,his gameplay mostly revolves around holding one button and waiting for things to go boom. Unlike his villain brethren, Dmitri is pretty fun to play as in spite of his sparse appearances and some whiplash in terms of how to play as him, his gameplay is essentially an underwater FPS using his spear gun, he can move in 4 directions and can boost by a power stroke which uses a stamina bar. Finally Carmelita, who’s a budget Ratchet & Clank character, her sections are cool but they run into the issue of being spectacle over substance, she has a strafe, a mega jump performed by a stand still and a few melee actions but it feels more like a benign repetition throughout, fun but disappointing given how Caremelita is such a important character in this game and the series at large.

Oh but we are not done yet, Sly 3’s Variety doesn’t stop there, there’s now master thief challenges for example which are needed for 100% and feature missions like time trials, starting the player with less health, harder enemy ai, collecting items and stuff like that. There’s now Telltale esque Dialogue moments where you need to choose the right choices to advance in the game, these leads to the funniest parts of the entire game, Sly can use disguises, to evade the attention of the Guards in Chapter’s 1, 4 and 5 but moves slower, doesn’t have any abilities and every time he gets on the spotlight of a guard he is questioned and needs to do a short button press minigame, he can safe crack which acts as a timing minigame where you need to move the stick as fast as possible when it vibrates and finally. Bentely can decipher Paintings which are ways to find codes to safes and crack them. There’s also then now a ton of vehicle sections in the game, Murray Rowing Boats very slowly with cannons, Pirate ships with cannons that move very slowly that also somehow a full fledged side game in the latter half of the chapter it’s introduced in, Biplane sections, crane sections controlled by Murray, Tower defence esque moments where you have to employ traps to stop enemies from killing like a bootleg FNAF games and of course, Turret sections!!!! It’s a lot in one game and somehow, it remains enjoyable, but when you have one that really, really stinks like the Pirate or Tower defence stuff, it hampers the game’s quality because they’re banking on all of these being enjoyable. However, Third Entries that do this don’t have a good balance in terms both improving the core gameplay while providing a fuck ton of variety, and I feel Sly 3 doesn’t really do it all to well especially since apiary from the 3 main Trio, the characters can’t be used outside of missions. But when the variety is actually kinda fun unlike most of these games, then I feel it can be somewhat excused. So I circle back to this question: Now what? As established, the gameplay of this game is good as always but it feels like it’s going through the motions, not a bad thing but this sentiment is echoed throughout the game’s plot, one thing that’s echoed it’s the Presentation!

Part 4: LOOK HERE!, LOOK, LISTEN!

Sly 3 looks beautiful and breathtaking for a 2005 Game, yes i am playing the PS3 Version which has its issues but one thing for sure is that it makes this game look even better than it did. The Toonshading style from Sly 2 is back in full force but is made more prevalent possibly due to the more varied locations in Sly 3 compared to Sly 2. This at a cost, comes at the frames per second being wildly inconsistent at points, specifically in Chapter 2’s Cave sections and Chapter 5’s ship sections which, while ambitious, have some severe frame drops which may be in part of the Playstation 3 Port. Speaking of the trilogy this game got the worst out of all of them in my opinion.

The Menus are completely fucked without the use of the overscan mode, worse fps and some music glitches here and there that can’t be fixed but this is in unknown favor of the removed excess motion blur, inconsistent 30fps for now a inconsistent 60fps, a higher resolution and Sly’s more cutscene accurate colours in gameplay.

Easily one of the greater aspects in this game’s presentation is the music and sound design are top tier and fairly the best and most unique in the series. The sound effects are as cartoony, crunchy and satisfying as ever especially in combat and the Voice Acting, The Voice Acting is incredible in spite of some obvious 2000’s issues of vocal direction not being the greatest. You can feel the emotion in each dramatic scene or the fun that the actors had, even Carmelita isn’t so bad here as she is in Sly 2.

A lot of the new characters i found had the best Voice-Acting, while the old characters do a greater job then they did in previous games especially Kevin Miller as Sly, but the new guys really make the characters they play sound, especially the late and great Rick May as Dr M, the guys who voice Don Ocotovio and General Tsao also do a great job selling these characters both comedically and dramatically in their more sinister moments. Unlike everything in the game compared to it's brethren Sly 3's presentation is monumental step up, which is also reflected in it's story (somewhat)

Part 5: Ending a Franchise

Ending a franchise in my opinion is a hard task to think about. How do you think a series like Mario or Sonic will end? When will it end? Maybe in another lifetime or ours. Gaming and Media hasn't existed long enough to answer that question legitimately. But those are the big dogs, and with their mediocre movie instalments they'll probably continue to run for as long as they please. But what about the small dogs? Well Sly 3 answers this question. Seeing a franchise end is hard, seeing a cast of characters you once knew and love leave, never to get another game again, It’s hard. This is likely not by their own will but Sly 3, is a very different case. The Sly series comparing it to its contemporaries, Ratchet & Jak, managed to get consistently good sales despite being substantially lower than both of them. So, why give it up? Through the course of the game’s story, the reason seems a lot more clear.

Before we get into the story, like Sly 2 there’s a prequel comic, The Adventure of Sly Cooper. Here things are a lot more crucial to the plot of the actual game, such as how Sly meets Mcsweeny, the drama with Murray leaving the team and Carmelita knowing how to hunt Sly at the start of the game. This, in my opinion, especially the Mcsweeny stuff kinda makes a lot of Sly 3’s intro feel a bit abrupt? Like to me, I would preferred that the prologue focused on Sly infiltrating the prison to meet with Mcsweeny, especially since in the game, seeing one of Sly’s dad/Conner’s Partners should be more important that it is, and it’s brushed over so quickly in the intro and is barely brought up again. I don’t think the game benefits from having a flashback especially the way the final Chapter goes down, so having the game start here would have been much better in my opinion, especially since it could tie into the ideas and themes of this game.

But anyway, In Sly 3, Instead of collecting treasures as a main motif/goal. Sly is assembling his own band of thieves. Each chapter apart from the final chapter is essentially the same formula. We meet a character, we want them in their crew but there’s a twist! We need to help them, but Oh No! There’s a big bad! We gotta stop them! Of course, It’s not exactly the same in each chapter, but the game uses this structure to a fault. The Game also doesn’t have a gang of villains you need to defeat like previous games, but have their own unique villains throughout the game. This leads to mixed results in my opinion, This leads to some of the best villains in the series both in terms of comedy and threat such as Octovio, General Tsao and Lefwee, the latter two balancing great vocal performances that sell the comedic moments, and genuine parts where they actually step up as villains such as Tsao storming the Cooper safehouse and fucking up their plans or Lefwee trying to fuck up their plans, again. On the other side, A Sentient mask that probably awakened fetishes in 2005 when it goes onto someone and the Black Baron who feels like the twist of being the person we were getting along with was the villain was the only thing going for them.

I feel the nature of the game being an elaborate flashback sorta hinders the villain of the game Dr M, I feel they really should have had at least some recurring antagonist throughout the game to build the threat of Dr M, but unlike previous games which did sorta drop the ball on the antagonists, especially Sly 2, Dr M is a great villain and showcases the games main themes and ideas while perfectly contrasting to Sly as a character.

Before going on that though, I need to get something off my chest. This game is really fucking funny, and not like unintentionally either but like it’s actually written to be funny. There were funny moments in previous games especially 2 but 3 had it in spades. Which I think is funny because a lot of these later entries were edgy as fuck meanwhile this game has a lemonade contest, an opera singing contest, Dmitris entire character, the costume interactions and so much more. Sly 3 isn’t afraid to just have fun with its characters knowing it’s their last hurrah while still balancing satisfyingly sending off these characters.

A heads up is that Sly 3 isn’t nearly as dark or as intricately made as Sly 2, you can tell from some events in the story like the opening that some aspects feel rushed or just kinda lacklustre, but this is still such a great plot for a rushed platform et made in less than a year, and the fact that there’s nothing like Ty 3’s or Jak 3’s way to tie up endings and feels satisfying is a huge testament to how strong suckerpunch is as team. I’d say because of those character moments it’s as strong as Sly 2 in terms of narrative.

Whereas Sly 1 was a story about finding the place in your life and the strengths of family both blood and found, and Sly 2 was a story about building confidence and overcoming failure, Sly 3 is all about the legacy it you’ll leave behind and the future ahead and even the idea of leaving behind everything to live a better life. A lot of the characters in this game are obsessed with their legacy and past, wanting to fill out a goal that they could have, always wondering about how things could have, should have gone differently. Characters such as Murray and the Panda King are always thinking about their actions and legacy, how they could have done something different and feel like a Dishonour to their legacy. Dr M is obsessed with opening the Cooper Vault, being his entire goal he has devoted himself to for god knows how long, obsessing over the riches that he feels so entitled too, but at a point, you’ve gotta let it go for both you and for other people's sake, and that’s what makes Sly such a great character both in this game and the wider context of the series, throughout the series, Sly and Band of thieves have gone on many adventures and are always risking death or incarceration, and we’re dangerously close to this in Sly 2’s ending all thanks to unfortunately, Sly’s actions. It isn’t malicious or anything but is the exact thing he comes to realise in both games, while yes grand theft robbery is fun and all, It comes at a hefty cost both to him and his friends or even family at this point, which is why he makes the hefty and abrupt decision, To leave it all behind and forge a new path. Need I remind you this is the same game with a raccoon flying a biplane and mercenary apes that are voiced by Mr Crabs.

If it wasn’t clear, Sly 3 is a somewhat subtle yet unsubtle message of the entire series and Suckerpunch’s reason to leave it all behind. While yes it’s probably fun and rewarding to make these games, the idea of making new experiences is more tantalising and sustainable that the funny raccoon thief game, these more heavy and deep story elements can be taken far more seriously in games like inFamous or Ghost of Tsushima, while obviously I feel games like this should feel emotionally potent stories if they have the guts to but I feel also more mature stories can lead to more mature ideas, themes messages, aesthetics etc which is why I’m completely for the idea of this being the last Sly game.

Not every series is made equally, I’m semi okay with Ratchet having more games than Sly even though the 4 endings this series has are all great on it’s own, I don’t care about Jak enough and plus that already had two satisfying conclusions and I will commit mass genocide to get another de Blob or Kyle Hyde or to stop Call of Duty from having another game again. Point is, they ended Sly on their own terms leading to a great story about this subject, some series are just more sustainable than others and that’s okay, the point is to look at these past experiences with fond memories while looking ahead to big and maybe possibly even better things.

The story portrays this through Sly’s want of Carmalita, which is a on and off again thing once again and I think this is where some cracks start to show in the story, Carmalita is as good as always but doesn’t get enough screen time in my opinion to really make that final decision of Sly starting a life with her as satisfying as it could be and her just blasting the Cooper Vault feels like such a weird slap in the face to what the game has been building up with Dr M and his whole entire plan. But anyway

In terms of character arcs and the characters themselves, it’s surprising how all the members of the Cooper gang get a moment to shine both in gameplay and story. From the incredible Cooper Vault section both in terms of lore of the franchise and gameplay with its tight tough platforming being the best gameplay in the series, to the brawler moment where Murray helps Bentley resolve his confidence issues he’s had throughout, the Panda King putting his past experiences with Sly behind to fucking Dmitri wanting to honour his grandfather while diving in waters, Sly 3 does it for nearly every character. I’ve already mentioned how Murray and the Panda King having to put their past mistakes behind and better themselves as people through the use of mediation, Dmitri is there funny as always and has a neat little arc of wanting to move away from the criminal lifestyle. Penelope and the Guru don’t really have character moments or arcs of their own and instead help the other characters (namely Bentley and Murray) grow, Penelope is a charming albeit slightly boring character while the Guru, doesn’t have any character, It’s one of those tropes I don’t care about where the character speaks in gibberish and we don’t understand but the characters do, so the Guru doesn’t really have much of a character besides monk, which is fine I guess. Finally the most interesting character to talk about is Bentley. Since in the last game he got crippled, they decided to go with an interesting direction with his character that is… being a retread of Sly 2’s arc of building his confidence, except unlike the other game here it feels genuinely both earned, interesting and compelling. The whole game up until the penultimate chapter and even like the final 20 minutes Bentley feels inadequate to Sly, portrayed through his use of a wheelchair and especially with Penelope’s reveal as the black baron where she now gravitates towards Sly due for her to the fact that both catfished each other, don’t know I find that quite funny. Bentleys dilemma never elivates, despite getting an encouraging pep talk from Penelope and an outward confirm that feelings for both of them are reciprocated but he still has that feeling of inadequacy, and to me I wish the game went slightly further with this, I don’t need a fight since that would bloat the game but maybe more scenes throughout where he contemplates maybe turning on Sly or something like that, and I very much wish the game would give us more clarity on what happens with Sly’s father gang as it’s a bit to ambiguous as to what actually happened even with the help of the comics, like if it genuinely was a feeling of inadequacy or something else but the point is, this leads to a scene of where Murray reminds Bentley that they aren’t just friends, they’re a family, they’ll do anything for each other despite it being called the Cooper Gang, hell this is even proven in Sly 2 where he gave himself up to the police at the end of the game for both of them.

All of this comes to an end as we circle back to the question that I opened up the review with, Now What? The question of Now What pops up with all of the characters after Sly decides to make the decision to leave all of it behind and start a life with Carmelita, leaving the whole Cooper fortune to everyone else. Everyone decided to start new lives using the money, Murray decides to complete his training and decides to become a derby racer, Dimtri became a professional swimmer and a fucking playboy, The Guru teaches a group of rock stars and Bentley and Penelope plan build a time machine using the money, which the game uses a tease for something that didn’t happen, nope no game with the Sly Cooper branding ever happened and nothing with the name of Sly 4 ever did happen, this is the last Sly game that was released.

So, now what? The game has ended, it’s clear apart from 2 things the game very loosely teases that there’s nothing more to tell about Sly’s story, It’s done and so is this review.

Conclusion

Sly 3 sold a modest million copies and was reviewed well though not as well as Sly 2, The series didn’t continue after this apart from Sly having non canon roles in PlayStation Allstars and Move Heroes, and to me I don’t mind. Sly being dormant doesn’t matter to me because there’s bigger and better franchises out there that’s more worth our time, however that doesn’t mean that Sly won’t hold a special place in my and others hearts, due to always going the extra mile, the series has helped me through good times, bad times and all the in between, and all 3 games I’ve reviewed show an evolution of this very little Backloggd account, from little humble beginnings with Sly 1, to 50 followers with Sly 2, to 100 in Sly 3 and I just wanna say, why do you follow this trash I barely post. But seriously, thank you, I’d never thought I would get this far, I have a lot more planned soon and I should start reviewing soon again, so for now, I guess we’re done.

WAIT THERE’S A SLY 4?????