Sly Cooper COMPLETE SERIES Retrospective - The Golden Bolt 

Finally, a video on a day I'm not working. Hero.

Wish I could play it, I own the trilogy, but I get motion sickness from it. AC Black Flag does the same thing to me. 😣

appreciate the work u did for this u need more subs

Having the storyline and character plots be completely OOC is like trying to make the Looney Tunes Show or Jellystone be written as the new "Ren & Stimpy Show". It sounded good in everyone's minds, but some of the writing's sound too...Meh and such...!

I haven't even played the game but the pure context and connection you have with you content is compelling, I formally believe your emotional attachment to your content . You cover points throughout the game giving very reasonable explanations and explain it well and over all make people who haven't played the game want to play. So Thank You for making good content.

Agreed.

Pretty cold take tbh, you're just speaking facts

Batman is tho

any stealth game is a better assassins creed game.

The worst actually lol, The ezio trilogy all have better leagues better climbing, and stealth systems, and the worlds aren’t empty like they are in Sly 2 and especially Sly 3

I'm hopeful that Ghost of Tsushima is the game that really starts to buck that trend. It seems like that game went through such a long production cycle, and despite whatever struggles the team had, they absolutely killed it from top to bottom!

@@TheGoldenBolt Here’s hoping!

@@TheGoldenBolt still not over the fact it lost Game of the Year to Last Of Us 2, SUCKER PUNCH DESERVES MORE RESPECT THAN EVER

@@erichfiedler1481 last of us 2 was veery good tho imo

@@peternagy9310 Ghost of Tsushima is better

Absolutely, it's a massive part of why Sly's European sales broke usual trends and actually _increased_ game after game! Sony's localization support at the time wasn't anything particularly top-notch either, so it's even _more_ impressive.

Thank youbfor this comment sir! I will hopefully be studying abroad in Sweden next year, guess how ill be increasing my Swedish vocabulary!

you can add dutch kids to the list :)

Yeah I fell in love to this franchise bc it was one of the only games in Finnish back when I was younger and didnt understand Ednglish so well. And nowdays in the Ghost Of Tsushima its nice to have Finnish text atleast.

the finnish dub is quite literally the only reason i have the biggest nostalgia to this game... god i love their finnish voices.

I could swear I had that exact issue playing the original Mz. Ruby stage on my PS2 once upon a time. It could be one of those ancient PAL/NTSC artifacts.

Agreed, I literally played the PS2 version on an emulator and I had no problem with the fight, but the port version is.. pure garbage.

Dude, have you ever played the Mz. Ruby boss fight? You can literally just spam the buttons when they come to you, there is no punishment for spamming.

I never had this issue on ps3

I don't remember ever having a problem with the Mz. Ruby fight on both the PS3 and Vita versions.

Wait, he’s dead! Sorry to hear that! I loved him as Both Muggshot AND The Panda King!

Yes Thank You The Full Series Of Sly Cooper This is a Perfect One AndnI Want This To Be The Best Cartoon Tv Series Of Sly Cooper For The First Time I Can't Wait J

And Also This New Year I Want a New Cartoon Tv Series Of Ronald McDonald And The McKids Cause I Think Ronald McDonald Deserves a New Series Of Ronald McDonald For First Time Ever And I Want Ronald McDonald Show Series To Happen Right NOW So Yeah I Can't Wait For The Cartoon Series Of Sly Cooper (And Ronald McDonald) For The First Time So Let's Get a Cartoon Series Of Sly Cooper Ok Guys

@@shannonbateswillis5022 He also voiced Clockwerk.

Damn I didn’t know this. That’s awful. RIP Kevin Blackton

Something about Sly 4 was totally off. I liked it, but anytime I went back to the first three it instantly felt way better. The controls and the graphics

how was that impressive to desaturize textures in ps2? do you know what shaders are? they’re not required for this method of ‘darkening’… that’s why nothings actually too dark to see

@@justyahz796 Well, they had to implement it entirely using the PS2's built-in multitexture functionality since the PS2 had no support for programmable shaders. But what is important is not how advanced the technology is, what is important is what it means for the aesthetics and readability of the graphics. The desaturation approach means that dark areas, which the games have a lot of since most of the levels (at least in Sly 1 and 2) take place at night, become a lot more visible and readable compared to a more traditional lighting model.

@@Dr._Orange bro if that’s impressive in 2008 then i’d be the next Einstein in that era

@@justyahz796 Again, I never said it was technologically impressive, just that it was important to the aesthetics and readability of those games. And Sly Raccoon came out in 2002, which really was a time of rapid development and experimentation of new graphics techniques.

I’m actually happy, Sly Cooper got to die unlike call of duty or metal gear solid.

@@gnomebody2371 while I do agree with you, I still feel the need of a new Sly Cooper game. But at the same time, I feel like it might turn out to be a disappointment. I literally can't stand the sight of my childhood getting butchered like the FlatOut series.

@@gnomebody2371 cod isn’t anything against sly, both story and gameplay wise imo

The PS5 feels like a perfect console for a new remaster of the trilogy. (Sly 4 can come along too, not fussed on that regard). But not like, the HD remaster, like a Crash Bandicoot N-Sane Trilogy remake from the ground-up.

@@gnomebody2371 But nowadays not all the call of duty games get the same rep that used to when they first came out some of those games are not even that good anymore somewhere but some aren’t

@@3DHDcat Absolutely! That's my favorite sequence in the whole franchise

I also love 3 the best 👍🏽

Sly 3 is a masterpiece

Facts

Yeah Sly 3 is an excellent ending to the trilogy, gimmicks and all (aside from difficulty BS)

With the greatest of respects I have to disagree. Sly works because of its self contained narrative and more importantly its character driven narrative rather than plot driven narrative (although Sly 1 contained the latter). By Sly 3, everyone's character arcs were wrapped up pretty well, and that open ending at the end of Sly 3 was meant to be a hope for things never to come and to reminisce on how everyone involved got a happy ending and yet in the background are all actively doing things with their lives, not just "retiring" on their laurels (like Bentley actively building a time machine with his new girlfriend or Murray pursuing a career as a race car driver, or even Sly pursuing a romantic relationship with his long time rival).

@@TheMeditorEditor if they did the time shenanigans right they could have used the entire cooper clan giving the franchise the spice they would need for the next console but game 4 was trash making it impossible to progress the story.

@@vladthecon it's not that bad. Though frankly, it would have or could have been better if they waited a bit longer and removed some things. Like the motion control aspects. I can get behind some story pieces like say Penelope backstabbing everyone, given she's done similar before. But they needed better motivation for her. Le Paradox makes sense as a villain, but he needed a bit more time to flesh out.

"Sometimes it's better something ends before you WANT it to end." I wasn't a huge fan of 4 and if that or modern Ratchets were any indicator, I'm glad it ended with, relative, grace.

I take no prisoners.

Indeed I hope one day they all come back together in one game just say PlayStation heroes

the irony of you even misspelling Sly’s name is actually pretty hilarious

@@jadesgay444 I know how I spelt it

Oh..

Spyro is the forgotten one

I loved that as well. Great example of art.

I thought i was the only one lol

Lol and Bentley just spills it and still barely can drink it

“This just happens to be, a lemonade bar” “He spilt more than he drank!”

Same here man

Same criminally underrated series imo

😯

Your observation is pretty on point. One minor nit pick however: Rajan is Anglo-Indian, not solely British. Meaning he's a native Indian (being an Indian Bengal Tiger) but was raised in an English-occupied Calcutta therefore he has an English accent (some modern Gen X Indians also have British accents because of England's occupation of india). Same is true of Neila, although the game cut the connection between the two (Neila was meant to be Rajan's daughter. Again, evidenced by her head scarf, English accent, and the fact she's a white tigress with stripes similar to Rajan's).

@@TheMeditorEditor The British guy I was referring to was actually Arpeggio, not Rajan. I guess I should have clarified that, he dies so quickly in the game that it can be easy to forget he was technically behind everything haha. Still, Rajan having a British accent is yet another nod to British occupation of India that I hadn't drawn a connection to before, so thank you for adding that.

Sanzaru treat her like one in the game too!

@@KaimArgonarEyyyy Especially in the dreaded belly dancing minigame.

They put her waist in Dimitri's money printer

Whats the problem with that

@@guywithtrash231 "I have several questions."

I played jack 2 recently and damn do we all look back on that game with rose glasses

@@mattmas6628 Really? I still think the jak trilogy holds up really well.

@@Tyranniod I think the series is great still, including Jak X which is IMO the greatest racing game ever made. Sly just has more character and heart when compared to Jak and Ratchet. The rough parts about Jak 2 are the huge difficulty spikes on some missions (like destroy the hellcats).

Jak I is a platformer with vehicle sections. Jak II is GTA clone with platforming. While the shooting does combine well with the platforming, that is the most innovative part.

Agreed. The quality of the original Sly trilogy just stayed much more constant than the Jak trilogy. Jak floundered in a lot more areas as the series went on than the Sly series did.

2s dub is bit flawed here and there but for 3 they really went above and beyond on making it 1 if the best Finnish dubbed games of all time, what is why Sly became so popular in Finland as they also came at a time where almost no game had a Finnish dub, let alone localization outside of some Disney games made for younger children in mind.

Well, aside from a giant owl somehow becoming an immortal robot in ancient times that is literally fueled by spite. That part's a _little_ out there.

@@C_Arson And a time travel machine made from a van.

@@calamityknyte Like Antman

@@calamityknyte Further proof 4 didn't understand the originals' appeal at all

Honestly, I just don't really consider Sly 4 canon. 'Helps me feel less bitter, y'know?

The only thing we don’t share in common is the fact that I’ve always been a fan of the series all the way back when the first one came out that was one of the very first games I grabbed when it was announced love the series ever since I will always be a part of this fan base sly Cooper forever 😎💪🏽

@@DemonAngels7 funny thing is my brother got Sly and I got Kingdom Hearts. He ended up the KH fanatic and I the Sly one. So it's a weird sort of reversal that happened in a way

Ditto. I was drawn to Sly Cooper ever since I played the Sly 2 demo hidden in Ratchet & Clank 3. Hunting down all of the games wasn't easy (back then, stores sold much more PS3 software than PS2) but definitely worth it.

Yo he really said that?! 😭🤦🏻

@@jdulast i think he only says the second line, but since Tom is voiced by Steve Blum, i wouldn’t be surprised if that other line was in it.

Because there was no motive for her doing it. Her motive is she’s evil now and her bf isn’t, and her good friend sly prevents bf from being evil. It makes no sense

10 months late, but I think one big thing in her betrayal is the way it is done makes little sense. Mainly because if she's so smart did she not realize that without Sly literally existing she literally wouldn't have met Bentley in the first place? Literally the only reason they met was because the gang went to where she was at was for a mission involving Slys family vault. No Sly means they wouldn't met so how would her plan work if the actually succeeded ending the Cooper line. It's one of those things that's small, but also kinda story breaking if you think about it too hard because that takes a lot of momentum out of what's supposed to be a twist. It's something that probably could have worked, but not presented as it is because it feels out of character.

Plus there's the whole thing of, while her mentality and reasoning was weird in 3 with the "no cheating" thing, she still went through a positive character arc to become a good guy. Bentley being the good guy is WHY she fell in love with him and getting over Sly's cool factor. Her becoming the villain for no reason other than having a "mole" character (saw a thumbnail saying there was going to be a mole character but it was then turned into Penelope, didn't watch so I'm not sure behind the thought) is honestly pointless character regression because it didn't have any setup. There IS a possibility that she's putting up an act the whole time to lead Bentley to the truth based on how the game ends, but it was all payoff with no setup. Also it seems like Sanzaru DOES have a repeating aspect of them having a good first few steps but then fumbling things along the way afterwards, seeing as how things went with their development on Spyro 3 in the Reignited Trilogy. Mostly in where someone in another video I watched mentions the first couple of ancestors are fantastic in feeling both familiar but also unique from Sly, but then the last 3 basically have a handful (at best) reused abilities from past Sly games (2's ice wall climb for Bob, the wall hook for Sir Galleth, the parachute for Salim) with few new gimmicks. Honestly, I personally feel like Sly's disguises (at least their extra mechanic functions) should have been used for the ancestors instead, then allowing Sly to unlock the abilities afterwards in the next era. Also side note while I'm thinking about it, Bob really feels like a case of "we had an idea first and retrofitted him into the lore despite him not really needing to have been a factor in the first place" along with the whole pre-historic setting really. Like, we already had Sly with said ice wall climb but only Bob can do it? It's weird they don't let Sly have his ice wall climb, yet they reference Dev Cooperinda & Matthew de la Coopeur's ability to slow time to possibly be inspired by the random costume Sly gets while in India? Yes, a Bootstrap paradox is a thing, but it feels weird that an ability that's basically tied to people that were named after team members of the first game to say "yeah it's based on our version of the power."

Exactly. She's the second least shady person in the Cooper Gang (the Guru being the least shady), even when taking the Black Baron persona into account (his actions are more associated with him than Penelope herself). That's like Neyla's twist without any of the buildup that made it work.

Sly 4 is alright but respectfully it doesn't have the full sly Cooper feeling. It has the shell of it put onto something else in my opinion.

No it doesn't deserve "much more love than it gets". It DOES NOT. NOT as SLY 4! I might agree that - on it's own - it's an OK game. But as part of hte Sly Series IT SUUUUCKS. Gameplay is OK but hte writing is "eh". at best with a fucking Cliffhanger ending that Sanzaru had no interest in resolving and a fucking stupid Heel Turn just for the shock. I put it in a similar category as MI 4. OK on their own. Crap as part of their respective Series. More Minor stuff - Carmelita's outfit was crap. Sly's redesign imho didn't really work. And worst of all - for me - is that Sly at the beginning was just back to being a thief. Could've at least used him working for INterpol with Carmelita in the opening. Could've been a NICE twist on the established formula - having the tutorial be Sly and Carmelita doing a sting for example.

@@undertakernumberone1 Look, you can think whatever you want, I can't change your opinion, but unless you want to back up some of your claims, I can't see a single reason why Sly 4 isn't a good game on it's own and a good sequel to Sly 3. The Golden Bolt does a great job covering this games strengths and weaknesses and between his analysis and having played the game myself, I can't fathom why anyone would believe this isn't a good Sly game.

@@joshuahicks7798 I'd love for you to elaborate on why you feel that way. I played the game, and while I didn't love everything about it, I think it's a pretty perfect entry into the sly cooper series

@@joax5955 I think your opinion on the game is just as valid as anyone else's. I might avoid discourse about the game online for other reasons, but your perspective is always valuable. Sometimes people think that, since they aren't long time fans, they are somehow second class citizens in enjoying a property. This is total bullcrap. If you enjoy something, you're a fan. That's all it takes.

You are missing 15 minutes & 5 seconds to reach that limit

I got you covered with that when to that. I actually did grew up with these video games.

Same, i feel like I should get around to playing them at some point. I had a ps2 and really wanted them from the ads and a comic, but we went into financial troubles around then and my begging never got me Sly, being stuck with the bargain bin or ps1 hand-me-down games, like the Spyro games which I adored.

No, it's just terrible. Her motivation is making money by selling weapons, but she already has access to the Cooper vault and weapons aren't the only scientific inventions/innovations that sell. Penelope is supposed to be a genius, but she chooses to be a 2-bit warlord, when she basically could've just become Elon Musk.

That lying and cheating was more associated with the Black Baron than Penelope herself. She created that persona to get around the tight age restrictions in the dogfighting competitions, but then it became so famous it started to consume her and she kept putting on the costume and feeling the need to do anything to uphold the persona's reputation no matter the cost or ethics. She helped the Cooper Gang defend their hangar from the Black Baron's Muggshot-bribed guards on her own accord, which I see as ridding herself of the Baron's responsibilities and seeking out a new life for herself. She may have lied about being the Black Baron's mechanic, but she also told the truth about the personality being her boss (albeit metaphorically) since it wanted more and more fame and money that its real identity wanted to escape. Penelope also went out of her way to save Murray from Tsao's guards blasting him (she felt responsible for putting him in this situation because she told him about the wires and didn't take the toxic gas into account), fought LeFwee to save Bentley in return for his efforts in saving her, and also took out some of Dr. M's defenses to help Sly break into the vault (again of her own accord). Sorry if I'm sounding too preachy or if this is too long, I'm just saying my opinion, and I respect yours as well about Penelope. I do agree that _Thieves in Time_ gave our favorite RC specialist mouse a goal that's pretty out of character for her, and that twist wasn't foreshadowed properly.

I haven't watched this video far enough yet to know if they mention this, but at one point Neyla was supposed to be Rajan's daughter, but it was changed during development. I don't know how much it would've changed the plot if they kept it that way, but it's an interesting tidbit.

i really hate love triangles so i wont lie, im glad that didnt happen. I think neyla's betrayal was actually quite strong, a very memorable moment in the game and series. It's how they backseated her for the rest of the game and relegated her to miniboss in each episode she appears. We have no idea why she's doing what she does, but it didn't have to be that way. There's a very strong motivation that doesn't require her to be the big bad in a twist. She's a cop, her goal is to repossess exhibits stolen from a natural history museum. That makes her different from Carmelita in two important ways: she's not obsessed with sly specifically, and she's willing to use underhanded means to accomplish her goals - even going so far as to undercover in the klaww and cooper gangs in order to get the clockwerk parts back. Now you can get rid of the neyla-Carmelita double cross, and those two can work together to help you take out a clockwerk or arpeggio-clockwerk boss. This would make neyla a mainstay of the series at least into 3 though, and i don't feel like sucker punch wanted to do that.

You're far too kind, my friend! To pass along some credit, sometimes these are closer to two-man projects. Usually every video (or every other), I pass along the first run of editing to MykonosFan, and then produce the final cut after. With how long these are, though, sometimes that's more like "okay you edit the first half while I record the second half, and then I'll take over the rest." Either way, credit where it's due!

Not unless Sucker Punch chooses to do so

They just framed it wrong, if they'd had Sly reluctantly come out of the perfect retirement he'd built for himself to stop his family from getting deleted from history that would be one thing, but they just had him get bored.

@@AlRoderick sly 4 walked so uncharted 4 could run.

Same with a Hat in Time.

I'd would like a prequel about Sly's dad.

I agree. It just feels good to manually sell your items online and gaining coins for what you want instead of the game just automatically doing that for you.

@@GamerSlyRatchet1 It’s not even convenience since you can’t use coins outside of the safehouse

In fairness, this time around 70% of the work was already done by 2018 me!