Sly Cooper 4 Analysis - Thieves in time - *** - Beyond pictures

Warning- massive spoilers for all 4 sly games ahead! Also, that spells ***. Sure not gonna exploit that. Sly cooper, Thieves in time is the latest addition to the sly cooper franchise. Created by Sucker Punch in 2002, the series garnered attention not only thanks to its exclusivity with Sony, but for its solid gameplay and competent writing. () They would go on to create the Infamous series, which achieved many accolades for aspects inherent within the sly franchise. Later on a HD collection was developed by flegdeling company Sanzaru. While working on the collection, they created a tech demo for a fourth game. Sucker Punch liked it so much that they handed over the franchise, and it is precisely here that we plunge into the critique. You see, my fellow Cheshire cats, when a game is renowned for the strength of its creative team rather than its technical prowess you would think that said creative team would want to ensure that quality control was consistent across the board. You would think that the creators of Wii Ninja star thrower and Wii mystery *** train would not be handed the reigns of such a prestigious title- but they were, and I guess on that basis you may have perhaps already given up interest. Actually the game received a lot of praise and being a fan I was rather excited- but you know, I feel there's an awful lot of oversights being made that simply must be addressed. This video will try and address the flaws within the game and look at exactly where it falls short, meriting any positive aspects where they're found. You will hear the words like 'in the original games', 'inconsistent' and '***' an awful lot. Sly 4 picks up where Sly 3 left off- the gang having hung up their collective masks and attempting to live normal lives. Never the less, the gangs old genius Bentley discovers that Sly's ancestral heritage, the thevius racconus's, is mysteriously being erased page by page. You travel back to various time periods to set things right, help your ancestors and discover the mastermind behind it all. Lets start with the gameplay and work our way down from there.The inclusion of the ancestors as playable characters means that the gameplay is incredibly varied, from the large assortment of different character abilities to the different modes of play- the Bentley segments, which actually have their own downloadable content, could easily engage you for the long haul alone. The foundation of the game is solid in terms of moveset- However, this becomes less impressive when you realise that an awful lot draws upon the code from the first three titles, clearly learnt from Sanzarus time spent on the HD collection. As a result when something glitchy happens such as a button press not responding as smoothly as you'd hoped, its rather jarring. The environments are sprawling and the sheer amount of collectibles means you'll be playing for quite some time after you've finished the story. The worlds themselves vary in competence concerning practical game design. Some are simply meatier than others, which feels imbalanced. With so many modes and abilities there's just not enough room to enjoy them all and some feel rather tacked on. Though to be honest as pointless as this ability is I really can't get enough of the effect it gives off. Some structural elements seem to be poorly thought out. In the original games when a mission ended you were left where you were, and if you wanted to change character you had to go all the way back to the safe house manually. In *** they tried to solve this seemingly futile exercise in effort by instantly teleporting you back to the safehouse. In actuality this was a complete non-issue- it discourages you from exploring more during the story mode and, given the atrocious loading times in and out of the safehouse, it becomes something of a nuisance. The lack of branching choices for missions is also a glaring problem, highlighting a linear design and makes this switch back to safe houses feel, in the cases where you need the same character consecutively, rather pointless. The boss battles are probably the most satisfying part of the package. The developers deliberately decided to merge the strategical nature of bosses from the first game with the stylings of the latter two. Certain bosses aren't particularly fun or well designed but the challenge feels more prevalent than previous titles. For the most part the game isn't a chore to play and Sanzaru truly are solid developers. That alone makes the game worthwhile. Graphically and in-game animation wise the game is exceedingly well presented, and like many others I absolutely agree that it's a welcome visual change of pace. It's a massive improvement on the original games graphics which while wonderfully stylish did have a few stilted teething problems. However I feel that this overshadows a lot of shortcomings concerning the finer details of ***. In the first three titles the cutscenes were evocative of a comic book, using angular, bold drawings to convey a style that differed from the in game graphics. Sanzaru appears to have missed the point, swapping this out for full motion animation which appears to consist of an unpleasant flat quality of line, compared to the bold, appealing outlines of the originals. The cutscenes were deliberately limited and to ignore that is a sign that Sanzaru doesn't understand the artistic sensibilities needed for professional design. They also tend to have the dialogue match exactly what's happening on screen, paling in comaprison to the subversive conflict between narration and visuals in the originals. It's a shame because occasionally they do take advantage of new styles in order to justify these cutscenes, and when they do so it tends to be decent. This is also the only time you will see Dimitri in the game and it's not only a pointless inclusion but incredibly underwhelming. I think they should have realised that they'd simply never top this. Character design on the whole appears to be rather weak in general. Carmelita is a very strong example of this, having gone from practical clothing to a skirt and bikini top. Certain details drag us closer towards the uncanny valley in a way the original series avoided so deftly. Major enemies used to sport strong designs and colours to stand out from their minions. By comparison Le Paradox's gang aren't so striking and asides Sherriff Toothpick aren't particularly well themed, even taking intents to contrast into account. They often resemble their existing counterparts a little too closely and when they don't they're an incoherent visual mess. Le Paradox himself is actually a welcome change from the threatening villains of previous titles and is a wonderfully *** analogue of Sly Cooper himself. There were a lot of specifics that were adhered to in order to make the games feel grounded in some kind of classy flavour, right up to the named locations. In the new game the levels are mostly generic time travel setpieces. By far the worst offender is the Medieval England hub which isn't all that memorable. The real issue is the script. It pulls not only a lot of contrivances but also a lot of unfunny dialogue and forced writing. Often you'll hear a line that feels like too tenuous a justification for what's going on. Some characters behave rather two dimensionally compared to their previous portrayals. Penelope has been mentioned a few times by fans and while I feel it's a really compelling twist, I don't think the character is given any realistic interpretation to this effect. The series was always very good at performing the domestication of disbelief which is why it just comes off as rather superficial in the hands of a lesser writer. Truthfully she isn't alone as this story, packed to the gills with characters finds little time to truly develop them all- if at all. The humour, if you don't find the repeated use of 'Nailed it' funny will definitely grate on you, particularly the huge number of referential jokes that cheapen the high class nature of the franchise. Entire levels feel like they were purely based around one gag and everything must adhere to it. Some parts are rather endearing but mostly it's just pretty monotonous. In fact some segments which initially start out as a laugh actually end up feeling rather embarrassing, and not in a good way. (shake shake) You laugh now but your kids'll love it. It's a shame this kind of stuff is lacking because the music is doing more work by comparison. The composer, Peter Mcconnell, not only created the score for Psychonauts but also the latter two Sly games and you can really feel his efforts here. But you know what the biggest problem with *** is? That it's a game about time travel that doesn't ever utilise time travel beyond window dressing. I mean I'm not expecting Wells or Steins Gate levels of depth to your time travel here, but if you're going to make a game that features a back to the future reference right off the bat, then you should at least include the basics. If it's a stealth game why not make part of that be about affecting events from afar? I would have preferred that to the way Sly's ancestory has been spelt out for me so far, ruining much of the mystery of their antics. I'm sure glad you made Sly's ancestor the *** inventor of Sushi, much letter than simply letting the character be a ninja from feudal japan, the world must know! What about the rules of running into your past? Surely Sly and his gang would change along with their altered past rather than remain the same? The whole thing is just so flimsy that it beggars belief. If I had to sum it up in a word...that word would be fanfiction. Seriously, when I was younger (and very stupid) the premise of this game was already grabbed by the fanficcers. Says a lot about its predictability. In short I don't think we really needed a Sly 4. Part of Sucker Punche's brilliance was their sense of closure. Each game in the original series ended perfectly and as a result the sequels felt almost unexpected. Sly 2's ending is a great example of this, which at the time I thought was one of the best endings I'd encountered in a video game- that is until I finished Sly 3. The fact that Sanzaru decided to hinge the entire game upon a silly gag that was never meant to be taken that seriously in the third instalment says a lot about their lack of imagination. This could have been the game where we saw more aspects of the Sly universe rather than try to re-tread old ground. Even though the game is dickishly open ended there is now a lot of potential to create something different to anything that has come before, perhaps leaving the large groups behind and focusing on Sly's personal journey back home. Okay, so maybe none of that made sense to you or you simply didn't agree, and that's fine by me- I did enjoy the game for what it was and I merely hope Sanzaru pick themselves out of the mediocrity by engaging with these criticisms. They clearly care for the franchise, and I can't begrudge them that. However I know that the more verbose of you will want to begin fisticuffs with me over the art design and hey, that's fine, tell me how Carmelitas new look is a positive aspect. It's not like I can screencap your deviantart page- either way, I doubt it'll end well for anyone.