On paper, I feel Sly 3 should probably be the best of the series. It keeps the fun heist format from Sly 2 while trying to throw in more variety in the mechanics and reducing the repetitive "steal 6 keys" style objectives that bogged the second game down. I just found myself getting bored playing with this game though. Perhaps I was just getting tired of the formula. The increased variety comes with more people joing the gang who have their own special mechanics as well a pirate segment with ship combat. A lot of these new mechanics do wear out their welcome and I wanted a return to the stealth platforming. It's a decent wrap up to the series that perhaps needed a rest.

so much of this is great but so much of it isn’t. it feels like they took the perfect formula from Sly 2 and worked backwards, overcomplicating it and overworking it.

adding in a bunch of gimmicky characters but taking out clue bottles and treasure leaves it feeling both empty and bloated at the same time. it just doesn’t come together.

but then the standout moments really do stand out. the ship stuff, Holland and fighting the wuxia chicken on the bamboo are all series highlights. and it all ends so well, managing to conclude the trilogy with an actual emotional pay off.

shame they made Thieves in Time.

I finished this game a few days ago now but life has been hectic and I don't have my laptop with me so this is a bit late, apologies.

In fact, I wasn't even prepared to platinum this yet, but upon learning that it would be taken off the PS Now service only a few hours before the merger I rushed through and finally completed the last game of the trilogy.

My experience with platformers, especially older ones or older games in general has been tumultuous to say the least. I often don't have the patience for these types of games, but the Sly series has always had enough charm to get me through it, even if it took me over two years to beat the collection (Platinums 49, 138, 199 respectively)

Thankfully I can say without any doubt that Sly 3 is my favorite of the series by far. The first game felt really unique but some of the missions were just downright infuriating. Sly 2 transitioned into a pretty remarkably different style that I didnt really start to appreciate until the end. It had a great story but the number of frustrating missions only seemed to increase. In the end both games were really solid experiences but, forgive me for the overused comparison, it was akin to me playing a souls-like but without the payoff or sense of accomplishment. Just lots of anger and then an "okay I guess I did it, that wasnt bad" at the end.

So, Sly 3 I was fully expecting the worse. But god damnit this game was actually fun. Don't get me wrong there are a few diabolical levels, and I especially disliked some of the boss fights but just about every level I thought was gonna end up being a pain I actually enjoyed quite a bit. Even the painful master thief challenges, outside of a handful, were genuinely enjoyable. It had been nearly a year since beating Sly 2 before i started this so I cant say if I just simply "got good" and sometimes the controls were still terrible but this is exactly what I wanted from this game. The story is also really interesting as unimportant as it is for a platformer to have. It ties up the trilogy nicely and I liked the ending a lot. The new characters they add to the squad, although sometimes they feel like after-thoughts and arent utilized too much, were a good change of pace and all had good character growth and development, they certainly put in a lot more effort than I would of thought on the story side. There were some really memorable missions in this one too. The bar brawl, the fight on bamboo sticks, dueling ships like its Assassin's Creed. Such a remarkable improvement compared to my time with the first two.

That being said, I didnt really love it. Its not my type of game but I think this is a really strong game of the genre. Its not perfect though. A few minor complaints. I touched on this one before but some of the controls are just terrible. The vehicles suck to move and it makes some missions way harder than they would of been otherwise. Some of the chapters story wise kind of feel like side missions or detours, especially the China level, and the starting area outside of the Murray plot and boat chases was a bit weak to begin with. Also, I really just dont care for the kind of hub world situation they got going on. Its really just kind of there and a means to do the story missions in. In Sly 1 and 2 at least there were clue bottles you could look all around for, but in Sly 3 there is exactly 0 incentive to explore or do anything of the such and to me thats a missed opportunity

Overall, this was a lot better than I thought it'd be, and worth suffering through the more aggravating moments of the first two games. Great way to end a trilogy.

Also obligatory im not a furry but fuck Carmelita is hot. Theres a boss fight where she becomes a giant and you have to climb up her and that did some things ngl. Had to confess Im sorry

Trophy Completion - 100% (36/36) Platinum #199
Time Played - n/a
Nancymeter - 81/100
Game Completion #67 of 2022
June Completion #2

Sly Coops and the gang are back for more, with even more thieves! But there's something missing, because more isn't always better.

I've discussed this briefly when talking about Rayman 2 and so has Fudj in a video where he discusses trends of 3D vs 2D platformers. Many of the 3D platformers of the time insert in tons of minigames, gimmick levels, and in general, unrelated gameplay sections because they're not entirely confident they can keep the player hooked with just core 3D platforming and thus try and break up the 3D platforming with other sections to keep the players on their toes. The notable exceptions to this I feel are Super Mario 64 (which is almost exclusively level based 3D platforming outside of boss fights) and to an extent, Rayman 2. Now don't get me wrong, Sly 2 is not an exception to this rule, but in Sly 2, the platforming remains king; everything that's not the 3D platforming does its best to ensure that it plays second fiddle to avoid taking away the focus from the core stealth 3D platforming missions. And fortunately, I pretty much enjoyed all the side content in Sly 2.

Unfortunately, I respectfully cannot say that is the case for its sequel; it looks like an example where the devs went "hmm, these minigames were really well received! Let's do more with them!" and lost focus of the central mechanics that made Sly 2 so great. To try and explain this further, I'll note that this game has a much smaller emphasis on level exploration via platforming in the hubs. Gone are the clue bottles that were carefully spread around in Sly 2 that made you want to scour the thoughtfully planned and cohesive levels just to get all the collectibles and score a new ability at the safe. Sly 3 also removes the big treasures (that is, both the untimed and timed treasures hidden in nooks & crannies of Sly 2 that you could sell for big cash on Thief Net) from the previous game; it was definitely quite satisfying mapping out and executing routes to snag big treasures back to the safe house, and that's just not a thing here. That also means that almost all the cash you'll need to buy abilities must be collected through object destruction or pickpocketing without the big treasures, and as a result, Sly 3 actually feels more grindy than Sly 2 despite having less overall exploration; this also resulted in me having not purchased all the powerups by the end of the game (though there are obligatory powerups that you'll need for certain levels, mind you), and definitely made the game feel more restrictive when compared to the sandbox-like nature of the previous game. So where did all the time go?

As mentioned previously, Sly 3 feels like an ambitious exercise in some ways, where they decided they had more or less mastered the core gameplay of stealth based 3D platforming missions and decided to invest all their energy into developing better side missions and gameplay... but in doing so, pretty much made that the core gameplay instead. They're all over the place in Sly 3 with the gimmick levels/content; throughout the game, you are driving RC cars, flying a plane in a dogfight, using a grappling hook on a toy helicopter to yank enemies away, rowing a boat while your buddy handles the cannon, controlling a turret and firing at enemies, and playing Dungeon Master by activating traps while enemies flood in, to just name a few. It almost feels like Mario Party at times and it can feel very overwhelming having to constantly shift between so many different modes of play all with different control schemes. There are so, so many "protect the objective" side missions in this game with alternate bars of health to watch out for, and there's usually no way to recover those bars of health, so many of the sections feel like an uphill battle. The absolute worst though, were the many forced pirate ship battles in Chapter 6, all right after one another in the same condensed section (with optional pirate fights if you can't avoid them going between objectives). During this section of the game, you have to fight off (often multiple, sometimes up to 4) pirate ships at the same time by turning the ship with your triggers while you set off cannons with standard platforming controls. Because you're often outnumbered and outgunned, you often have to approach them from very far away and hope for good pot shots from behind, which can take quite a while since the ships are not particularly fast. And if the opposing pirate ships score hits on you and take out your cannons as they often do, you'll have significantly less fire power and no recourse to recover this firepower (or health) until you exit battle by winning/losing the fight. The only reward? More cash. I felt like I was in pirate battles for half of my life (despite the whole affair only taking about 3 hours max) and probably threw a few fights here and there if I got forced into a random encounter; I was pretty done with the grind by this point.

Fortunately, Sly 3 still absolutely owns on its atmosphere. The banter remains fantastic and is in my opinion, even funnier than Sly 2; props go to the dialogue tree prompts, as you can pick the "wrong" option with no consequences and it's a ton of fun forcing characters to react to absurd propositions. The over the top cartoon violence and the master schemes of the Cooper Gang during their grand heists are still there, and the new characters play their role excellently in this chaos. Speaking of which, it's actually quite fun playing as the new characters in their respective 3D platforming sections; they feel quite natural as an extension to Sly 2, similar to how Bentley was more gadget focused like a Mission Impossible movie or Murray was more of a brawler and turned the game into Wario World for a little while. (The core platforming, by the way, is still as slick as ever when you actually get to do it; press Circle to do cool spy platforming thing will never get old.) And finally, this game's boss fights are fantastic and absolutely insane; these are absolutely some of the highlights so I won't go into too much detail and spoil the moments, but let's just say, they've come a long way from the rhythm game boss of the original Sly Cooper.

All in all, I think Sly 3 is a case of taking a few steps forward and more steps backward from trying to do everything at once; the atmosphere, humor, and presentation are all there (and in fact feel quite improved to me; I didn't think a game could look better than Sly 2's cel-shaded visuals, and I'm more than happy to be proven wrong), but ended up performing subtraction by addition by inserting so many different gameplay modes that often lacked polish or felt repetitive while taking away some of the features that made the core 3D platforming from Sly 2 feel so tightly constructed in the first place. I still had a really good time though despite coming very close to throwing my controller during Chapter 6, and I'm really pleased that I finally got to tackle a core trilogy of classic 3D platformers that I never got around to during my childhood.

Games I Dislike That Everybody Else Likes

The weakest of the four Sly games, in my opinion. Bar-none. Every new addition feels superficially cool but airless to execute - I'm sorry but I found all of the pirate stuff (ship battles, treasure maps, the missions in the level itself) to be grueling. The removal of the clue bottle collectibles - one of my favorite elements from the others - also hasn't gone unnoticed here, nor has the regressed mission structure. Plus the levels, apart from Venice and the airstrip place, just aren't as good. Feels like a rushed, less charming reskin of 2 at best and a serious bore at worst. Plus there's those truly abysmal boss fights. Tiring to even write about, what is there left to say?