Game:

Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus (2002)

Category:

Let's Play

Duration: 2:46:05

8 views

0

Originally recorded: February 26, 2023
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Welp, after taking Thursday off, it's finally time to wash the stink of my failure with Chakan: The Forever Man off. I think it's kind of funny that Naughty Dog, Insomniac Games and Sucker Punch Productions were all put on the map with polygonal mascot platformers exclusive to the PlayStation line of consoles... and would go on to become major studios wholly-owned by Sony in the present day. KI has long told me that well before the proper "Crash 4" was made, the original Sly Cooper was the closest thing to such a game to ever exist. Sadly, the game just couldn't get enough support from the rest of my audience and languished in my "streaming backlog" for quite some time. But this year, everything finally fell into place.

The Crash Bandicoot comparisons were definitely well-deserved... but given just how much I liked the original Crash trilogy -- to the extent where I even managed to stomach Wrath of Cortex and still want to check out Twinsanity at some point -- that's not even remotely a deal-breaker for me. I do like how the clues (effectively serving as the equivalent of Crash's crates) stay collected between lives. Likewise, lives themselves don't feel like much of a penalty in this game: running out just sends you back to the beginning of a stage, regardless of any checkpoints found. You keep any coins you have stashed and all clues remain collected. Honestly, it kind of makes sense that the main reward for collection 100 coins is an extra hitpoint, as opposed to another life. KI seemed to imply that grinding for lives was difficult, but in reality, I think "pointless" is far more apt.

That being said, I do have a few nitpicks. While Sly 1 gives players a controllable camera via the right analog stick -- a method I'm completely at home with -- the game still insists on forcing the camera to limit itself based on collision detection, not unlike most 3D games from the previous generation. Likewise, the racing level with Murray gave me flashbacks to Ratchet and Clank in the worst way possible. Apparently, I've got one more of those to "look forward to" later on.

Aside from that, I'm having a blast. Honestly, more than anything, I'm just kind of surprised at how chill I've been with this game. Usually when it comes to games that KI prides themself on, I seem to get significantly more frustrated early on, to the point where a long delusional rant is all but inevitable within my first two livestreams. This time, it's more like I just immediately skipped to the "bitter acceptance" phase -- well, sans the bitterness. It's... kinda nice, honestly.

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