
No fancy header for this one, my poor tortured artist didn’t have enough time rip him.
A long time ago, a company named Sega decided to make it’s counter to Mario in the form of Sonic T. Hedgehog, a sassy blue animal friend. Thus was the start of what can be known as the “Mascot Platformer” genre, which if you’re generous can include a lot more than just straight action platformers because the feel is more about having a (typically sassy) cute animal player character, which also doubles as the developers mascot. Many people tried their hand at this, no more than Sony that basically pumped out like, at least a hundred of these. It had Crash Bandicoot, which was terrible. It had Spyro, which was really good up until it suddenly wasn’t and no one knew how to recover it. It had Rachet and Clank and the…other, main character and side kick duo which shall go unmentioned due to being t h e f o r b i d d e n in this household, and while the first of those was good the latter is um…well given my response to it you can guess how much I like it.
But on top of all of that, one of the last, was a simple game by Sucker Punch studios. You may know them from Rocket Robot On Wheels, or their later inFamous series. But here is where it all started. A game about a raccoon man, his turtle friend, his hippo buddy, and their global crime spree adventure. We’ll have fun, excitement, and more than a few close calls. This is one of my favorite games of all time, as well as one of my favorite series, so you can rest assured I’m getting 100% on this and am going to have a pretty fun time. As always, no spoilers please, try and keep the talk about the game, etc etc. I’m going to be trying to get 2 or maybe 3 levels in a video, barring for time. Without further ado, lets dive on in.
Zodi Plays: Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus [1] Tide of Terror
Video Length: 20:55
And so our adventure games, in media res as it where as Sly sneakthieves his way into the Paris police department. Mechanically this game controls incredibly well, movement being fluid and everything rolling into each other very well. The animation has always been a high point of this series, with a lot of effort put into making it all look sneaky. Everything Sly does carries with it this feeling of light footed intentionality, with a mild cartoon exaggeration that really sells home how it all looks. Joining Sly on this little heist, though in the getaway van and not out in the field, are Bentley the turtle and Murry the Hippo, the brains and driver of the gang. And after we steal the file, it’s time to meet the Zenigata to our Lupin, Carmalita Fox. This interpol agent packs a powerful proton pistol and is generally pretty acrobatic as well, and is probably one of the biggest threats in the game. Which is saying something given you die in one hit. We evade her, and make our escape.
Which of course leads into the other really iconic “bit” from Sly Cooper. The animated cutscenes. I’m a big fan of the kinda pulpy comic book style the Sly series uses, and it works really well here. We get our backstory here, and it’s a good one. Sly is the latest in a long line of master thieves, who own a book of thief knowledge passed down from one member of the family to the next; the Thievius Raccoonus. A group known as the Fiendish Five attacked Sly’s family and killed his parents, stealing the book. Poor Sly ends up in the orphanage where he meets his friends, and together they work on the big plan to steal back the pages of the book and return ourselves to infamous glory, as it where. This leads us to the first hideout of the game, Sir Raleigh’s pirate base.
SIr Raleigh was a rich frog who got bored so he decided to do a pirate. Turns out he liked it, and he used his mechanical know-how to create a weather control device to rob more ships. All in all not the most impressive villain in the series, but he’ll make a good first target. We infiltrate his hideout, in the process finding the main collectable of the game (clue bottles that let us unlock safes in each level) and then get a little message from the frogger, showing how deranged he actually is. All in all, a good first outing.
Hope you all enjoyed the start of this new LP. I’ll see you guys next time for more crime.