Sly Cooper - What Happened to This Iconic Platformer?

DukeHawthorne@lemmy.world to RetroGaming@lemmy.world – 62 points – Sly Cooper - What Happened to This Iconic Platformer?
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Sly Cooper was once an iconic 3D platformer for PlayStation. But its last game came out 11 years ago, and is largely forgotten today. What happened to Sly Cooper?

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The problem was the last game. It kind of ruined the entire series. I didn't like the artstyle change between games. But it also just felt like it was not as good compared to the previous entries. Also they introduced time travel, time travel is like a story killer. Of course, the story was already dead with other choices they had made.

I felt like a 4th sly cooper game should have been about Sly's child since the themes were already about some multigenerational thief family. Sly's child would have wanted to be a cop just like mom, and then been confused after finding out that his family's criminal roots. It could have been a more adult story, for the now more adult players who were children with the previous games. I dunno.

It is a shame that they never made a game after thieves in time (still on my list of games to play). The first three games were an absolute blast for me when I first got to try them back around 2018. Just as fun, if not more, than the ratched and clank series for me.

I liked it more than Ratchet and Clank too, but Jack and Daxter was my jam.

I replayed the original just a few years ago and it still holds up so well..

I need to get back into Jak and Daxter. I had 100% complete the first game but due to circumstances, never got to complete the 2nd game past the first few hours. Definitely on my list of titles to play, again, if I ever find a copy.

I replayed the first one on OpenGOAL last year and it's amazing how good it still looks at higher resolutions. Jak II is fully playable now and I'm planning to start that as soon as someone releases an HD texture pack.

I'll definitely have to check out OpenGOAL on my laptop. I've wanted to try it for a while, but was always worried my desktop would be unable to handle it.

Ah my favorite game series of all time. Loved the games as a kid. Still play through them all a couple times a year when I have nothing else to play.

It was never that good?

Might as well ask what happened to Mark of Kri.

I played them for the first time a few years ago, they are legitimately quite good. above average in many ways and totally unique in other ways.

4 less so, some other people made that one.

I loved all 3 games as a kid, and I think it did a lot of things right for a game of that era. I think it's at least surprising that it never had a remake or a more modern iteration, considering other remakes like ratchet & clank, rayman, etc.

there's a ps3 and ps vita HD remaster fwiw

I think that's the key thing there... "as a kid". Kids aren't exactly discerning when it comes to games... or movies... or pretty much anything really. It takes time and experience to distinguish what makes something good or bad or just average.

I was in my 30s for the PS2 generation. Sly, Jack and Daxter, Ratchet and Clank - they were all lost on me. Great if you're a kid. Otherwise? Eh... meh.

It takes time and experience to distinguish what makes something good or bad or just average.

Well maybe some day you'll have enough experience to distinguish good games. You're clearly not there just yet.

I'll agree that if I tried playing Sly Cooper for the first time as a fully grown adult I probably wouldn't enjoy it nearly as much. But kids definitely know a good game from a bad one, that's why there's games targeted to kids/ teens that sell well and others that don't. Just because they didn't grab the attention of 30 year old you doesn't mean they weren't great games, you just weren't the target audience. That's like someone who was 30 when SpongeBob came out saying that it was never that good.

Out of curiosity, what games from that platform/ time do you consider good? Everyone's coming at you for your (objectively wrong /s) opinions on these classics, surely there were some that you enjoyed.

For the Dreamcast/PS2/Xbox/Gamecube generation the biggest hit for me was Phantasy Star Online... jesus, I dunno how many hours I plugged into that.

Halo of course. I was skeptical until I played a demo, instantly bought in. Project Gotham racing as well.

Eternal Darkness on the Gamecube pulled me in to such a degree I played it through 3 times to see all the endings.

I can't really think of a PS2 title that grabbed my attention like those did.

Halo of course. I was skeptical until I played a demo, instantly bought in.

That's funny, I had this exact experience much more recently when Breath of the Wild was relatively new. I heard so many people raving about how good it was but I was never a huge Zelda guy. Went to Best Buy to window shop, they had a switch on display with BotW queued up. I don't think I even got in to combat before I thought, "ok, this is something special, I need to give this time". Still play it here and there when I'm bored of other games.

What happened to Mark of Kri?

It got two games, and then just kind of vanished.