Man, writing and expressing my feelings on Sly 4 is always rough. I do like to think I've mellowed as I've gotten older, but I feel like with some cases it's hard to really articulate my disappointment in something without like, coming across as "too mean" or "too close-minded on it", especially if it's in something I love a lot like with the titular racoon's PS2 trilogy, and especially since it's being done by a different developer this time, Sanzaru Games. I'll at least say, emulating this thanks to RPCS3 has been pretty cool, kind of wild how far this emulator has developed over the years, to the point I think it's - and I think I mentioned this once before - a bit better than PCSX2 in some regards, and though there were some snags in getting it to run in 4K60fps (alongside the recommended settings in the emulator's wiki page, if you have an NVIDIA GPU, go to the custom config's advanced tab and check "force disable exclusive fullscreen mode" to avoid any funky shading shenanigans, or at least heavily downplay it), I can at least say it earned the "playable" status on the compatibility page that it got last year.
As for something actually about the game, I will give some praises starting out. I know it's easy to rag on Sanzaru lately for reasons considering their works on the Sonic Boom games (I never played them myself but they look fine enough), but I do think the people there did a good job with creating an art style that gives off the trilogy's vibe and aesthetics of moodiness and warm colors pretty well, even with the shift from the original's comic-noir to full-on cartoony "squashness" being pretty obvious. Though I have a couple of issues like how Carmelita looks or how the fur and other 'little details' are done, for the most part it isn't anything major enough, and I can overall look at it and go "yea, that looks like a Sly game". Animations and actual graphics are, also obviously, very good looking as well, definitely the best the series has looked in a while, and even the controls are pretty good too. Though my distinct muscle memory knows that this time around there's more weight and... stiffness, I wanna say? for each of the characters, I can more or less do what I've always done in the trilogy with minimal issue, and that's all that really matters to me.
And uh... I'm glad they brought back Clue Bottles? Those are still pretty fun to get. I think the new Mask collectibles are pretty neat too, giving you new unlocks such as costume changes and even a weapon swap once you have enough, such as Ratchet's Wrench of Cole McGrath's Amp from inFamous 2. Platforming's also still good this time around, for some reason I thought it was downplayed here but while some of the obstacles are too basic for my liking, for the most part they're pretty fun and eventful. Er.... yea I ain't gonna hold it off longer, I can't really think of any other big positives to say. Rest of the game is either pretty mediocre or straight up bad to me.
And it's a shame cause like, there's very much a foundation for a decent game, but there's just so many issues - both in relation to the trilogy and just in general - that really hold it back for me. To go back on the art direction for a bit, the animated cutscenes this time around look really off. There's no sense of flow or weight on display, and none of the character designs really made a good transition into that form. It's pretty apparent this was done by a different studio, and sure enough it was done by Ghostbot and not Sanzaru themselves. Could've been worse, but could've been a lot better is how I feel about it.
A lot of people, even detractors, say the gameplay's good but... I don't really agree. It isn't awful, like I said the platforming IS fun, but there's so much fluff and tedium in a stark contrast to the tight focus the trilogy, yes even 3, had. As I said in my Sly 3 review, I don't mind if a game has a focus on minigames or unique setpieces if those're fun and fit with what's happening, but in 4 I didn't feel like that was the case so often. This is really evident with Bentley's hacking sidestuff, cause now alongside the usual one, you have a horizontal shmup, and a SIXAXIS motion one, and I really struggle to figure out how they meaningfully expand the game. The Shmup one's just really boring for how easy and slow the autoscrolling is, and while thankfully the latter are usually short, I still think they're largely there to pad the game out, and considering this came out in 2013 back when Sony actually bothered to give some amount of attention for the Vita, was also done so that it'd utilize the handheld's gimmicks and functions, which in turn meant the PS3 version had to have those as well. Not helping is the fact that it's way more common to sometimes do multiple minigames instead of just the same one at different intervals in a job, like going from a turret section to a previously mentioned hacking one. While I felt like each game prior did a good job to try and keep the core playing aspect balanced, this time I feel like I spent more time doing busywork instead of combat or the platforming. Not helping is the fact that missions really seem to either continue going right when it seems to be ending, or just abruptly end before anything's really "happened".
I also just, find it odd on how the sandbox works this time around. As far as walking around goes, there's not that many distinct paths or setpieces to help distinguish and chart out a mental map on where you need to go and how, which in turn led to frequent map checking to make sure I was heading in the right direction of either a mission, HQ, or just finding the collectibles. It also doesn't help that a chunk of the worlds are simply too big, Ancient Japan and Old West are the first two world yet their size and layout are reminiscent of a late-game Sly 2 world like Canada or Arpeggio's Blimp. I know this point sounds rather bogus since I'm more biased to games I grew up playing and replaying compared to one I only ever played one time, but here's the thing, I haven't touch those games until last month, and I still found new detail or path-charting each time. I'm willing to give Sanzaru some flack though, apparently this was their first time working within a sandbox mold which certainly shows, and to their credit, Medieval England and Ancient Arabia are legitimately good worlds to zone out and try and explore in as anyone since those - and even parts of the Ice Age era - do manage to do the things I talked about needing.
That said though, I can't exactly excuse them in how the economy is borked again, this time in the opposite of Sly 3's "grinding time" extreme cause now you're just handed coins even when just simply doing stuff normally. Simply grinding things out a handful of times in the prologue is more than enough to be set for the entirety of the game, and it really just hurts the drive to try and make sure you're going around to garner these up. There's also a side effect to this in the returning alongside the bottles are treasures, there's now a fixed set of 11 in each world, and like, OK that's more than necessary but whatever, until you realize that most are like, 100-190, with a few actually going over that amount, while two of the three available pickpocket loots are now fixed to 200 and 500. This, coupled with the fact that each powerup pretty uncommonly reach 500+ costs, really lessens the scarcity and cool factor of the treasure, as well as how you have to go out of your way to find them. I dunno, maybe I'm making this a bigger deal than it actually is, but again it bothers me cause this was something 2 managed to do super well in, and I can't really think of anything that needed to offset the balance to your favor, all for the sake of turning it into Just Another Collectible.
And on that note we get to the actual elephant in the room, the writing. I'm gonna be completely honest and say I'm one of those fans that think the writing is such a stark contrast to the trilogy that it's ultimately the game's biggest problem, and is also the main contributor as to why I gave the score that I did. With each game in the trilogy being its own story, anyone could pick those up and be totally fine, but with this one, I feel like people would probably miss a number of things that happened prior, especially considering each new game gives you the option to start a prologue cutscene. Now, I ain't gonna go over every other issue I have - flanderization of the main cast, the baffling and inconsistent nature of the time travel aspect, that awkward and rather uncomfortable dancing minigame in Arabia that didn't need to be there, how the ancestors are written, That Twist - since I feel like anyone even remotely attached to the series in some fashion have heard it all at this point and have said, or have read others say it, in a much better manner, so I'm gonna focus my issue on the main characters and how their humor is done (which admittedly will also touch a fair bit on the flanderized characters), and the villains.
I dunno what exactly was the priority, but it feels like someone was just really focused on emulating Saturday Morning Cartoons, cause the banter, playoffs, and overall nature feels really reminiscent of that. Murray had a few line of dialog about food in the past, but now his whole thing is that he simply talks about food in some fashion in most of his dialog, and if it isn't about that than it's him being brawny as usual. Bentley's always been the techno geek, but now it's in full force since he makes so, so many awful quips and puns - usually tech related - and gets annoyed when characters like Sly - who instead of being equally laidback and serious protag, is now just Generic Wisecracking Animal Protagonist #1213 - don't take their advices seriously. Carmelita goes way back to her days in the first game where she's kind of just there and gets annoyed with The Gang's antics, as well as her and Sly now being a focal point of a pretty miserable romance subplot that doesn't really like, lead to anything meaningful. Everyone must say the obvious objective and what to do to progress, even if the solution is plain as day (seriously at least like, have the player be stumped on a part for a few minutes if you're gonna have the characters say what to do, especially if you're reusing old ones that've rarely, if ever, did this). Oh, and to top it all off, the first two have to go through the arcs they had in 2 and 3 again, this time in a way that feels rather forced and horrifically rushed (Murray's whole thing is so minimal it's shocking, Bentley gets like, one and three quarters worth of sitting out until he's suddenly all better). It all feels really hokey, generic, and doesn't at all fit the comedic wit of the series, not even the first game was like this for the most part. It's not bad all the times, yea, but for the most part it was pretty groan-inducing and kind of hard to see characters I know so much about act very differently than before. Most I can say is that I'm at least glad the newfound focus on stereotypes here are at least like, tolerable, and never did I find it crosses over into "actually just insensitive" territory, though maybe some will (understandably) feel differently.
As for the villains, Sanzaru was valid for going back on 1's approach of simpler writing, but man I really can't like, think of anything to say about them regardless. They're either very stereotypical (Toothpick, Grizz), just have awful writing overall (Black Knight, Le Paradox), or don't that much presence in the first place (El Jefe, Ms Decibel), not helping is that some of these villain's backstories are just mostly reused from the past games. They're the type of people you'd usually think of for "throwaway villain for that one random episode of the week". In my head when going through them, I was thinking about which one would at least past my least favorite villains in each of the three games prior (Raleigh, Rajan, and Mask Of Dark Earth respectively), and afterwards, I can only really say mayyyyyyyyyyybe Grizz? The extremely simplified rap and "street thug" stereotype is very cringe, but like I said I don't think it ever becomes insensitive and he does have actual jokes, he has a rather active role in the story instead of just kind of being there, and he does have a plan I can say has actually like, some level of thought put into it... in fact his and Toothpick are the ONLY ones like that. I would talk about Paradox, but like I said, others have already dissected him and his main villain role not working at all already and probably in a better fashion, so I won't waste my time just repeating them.
Just, I dunno man, like I said talking about this game frustrates me. I can SEE the ideas, some even work, but most of it just doesn't, and considering how this game ends with that infamous cliffhanger... I'd rather not get a continuation, all things considered. Nerdietalk cheekily expressed it in her spoiler review, but I feel like one route this continuation would take is a bunch of walking back as to what 4 has done, and not only is that lame as fuck even with all my problems in mind, it also just robs this hypothetical game of its own identity, and could probably have issues of its own. I guess a soft reboot would be alright, maybe just focus on the Cooper lineage as a whole instead of just The Main Peeps again, but that'd just create a disconnect between a bunch of people and again, could lead to more potential issues. For the time being, I'm pretty much fine with just having the trilogy being the things keeping me company, with 4 only being in the back of my mind unless something new happens. I can kinda recommend trying it at least once, but other than that, I don't think I'm gonna give this another revisit for a long while.
As for something actually about the game, I will give some praises starting out. I know it's easy to rag on Sanzaru lately for reasons considering their works on the Sonic Boom games (I never played them myself but they look fine enough), but I do think the people there did a good job with creating an art style that gives off the trilogy's vibe and aesthetics of moodiness and warm colors pretty well, even with the shift from the original's comic-noir to full-on cartoony "squashness" being pretty obvious. Though I have a couple of issues like how Carmelita looks or how the fur and other 'little details' are done, for the most part it isn't anything major enough, and I can overall look at it and go "yea, that looks like a Sly game". Animations and actual graphics are, also obviously, very good looking as well, definitely the best the series has looked in a while, and even the controls are pretty good too. Though my distinct muscle memory knows that this time around there's more weight and... stiffness, I wanna say? for each of the characters, I can more or less do what I've always done in the trilogy with minimal issue, and that's all that really matters to me.
And uh... I'm glad they brought back Clue Bottles? Those are still pretty fun to get. I think the new Mask collectibles are pretty neat too, giving you new unlocks such as costume changes and even a weapon swap once you have enough, such as Ratchet's Wrench of Cole McGrath's Amp from inFamous 2. Platforming's also still good this time around, for some reason I thought it was downplayed here but while some of the obstacles are too basic for my liking, for the most part they're pretty fun and eventful. Er.... yea I ain't gonna hold it off longer, I can't really think of any other big positives to say. Rest of the game is either pretty mediocre or straight up bad to me.
And it's a shame cause like, there's very much a foundation for a decent game, but there's just so many issues - both in relation to the trilogy and just in general - that really hold it back for me. To go back on the art direction for a bit, the animated cutscenes this time around look really off. There's no sense of flow or weight on display, and none of the character designs really made a good transition into that form. It's pretty apparent this was done by a different studio, and sure enough it was done by Ghostbot and not Sanzaru themselves. Could've been worse, but could've been a lot better is how I feel about it.
A lot of people, even detractors, say the gameplay's good but... I don't really agree. It isn't awful, like I said the platforming IS fun, but there's so much fluff and tedium in a stark contrast to the tight focus the trilogy, yes even 3, had. As I said in my Sly 3 review, I don't mind if a game has a focus on minigames or unique setpieces if those're fun and fit with what's happening, but in 4 I didn't feel like that was the case so often. This is really evident with Bentley's hacking sidestuff, cause now alongside the usual one, you have a horizontal shmup, and a SIXAXIS motion one, and I really struggle to figure out how they meaningfully expand the game. The Shmup one's just really boring for how easy and slow the autoscrolling is, and while thankfully the latter are usually short, I still think they're largely there to pad the game out, and considering this came out in 2013 back when Sony actually bothered to give some amount of attention for the Vita, was also done so that it'd utilize the handheld's gimmicks and functions, which in turn meant the PS3 version had to have those as well. Not helping is the fact that it's way more common to sometimes do multiple minigames instead of just the same one at different intervals in a job, like going from a turret section to a previously mentioned hacking one. While I felt like each game prior did a good job to try and keep the core playing aspect balanced, this time I feel like I spent more time doing busywork instead of combat or the platforming. Not helping is the fact that missions really seem to either continue going right when it seems to be ending, or just abruptly end before anything's really "happened".
I also just, find it odd on how the sandbox works this time around. As far as walking around goes, there's not that many distinct paths or setpieces to help distinguish and chart out a mental map on where you need to go and how, which in turn led to frequent map checking to make sure I was heading in the right direction of either a mission, HQ, or just finding the collectibles. It also doesn't help that a chunk of the worlds are simply too big, Ancient Japan and Old West are the first two world yet their size and layout are reminiscent of a late-game Sly 2 world like Canada or Arpeggio's Blimp. I know this point sounds rather bogus since I'm more biased to games I grew up playing and replaying compared to one I only ever played one time, but here's the thing, I haven't touch those games until last month, and I still found new detail or path-charting each time. I'm willing to give Sanzaru some flack though, apparently this was their first time working within a sandbox mold which certainly shows, and to their credit, Medieval England and Ancient Arabia are legitimately good worlds to zone out and try and explore in as anyone since those - and even parts of the Ice Age era - do manage to do the things I talked about needing.
That said though, I can't exactly excuse them in how the economy is borked again, this time in the opposite of Sly 3's "grinding time" extreme cause now you're just handed coins even when just simply doing stuff normally. Simply grinding things out a handful of times in the prologue is more than enough to be set for the entirety of the game, and it really just hurts the drive to try and make sure you're going around to garner these up. There's also a side effect to this in the returning alongside the bottles are treasures, there's now a fixed set of 11 in each world, and like, OK that's more than necessary but whatever, until you realize that most are like, 100-190, with a few actually going over that amount, while two of the three available pickpocket loots are now fixed to 200 and 500. This, coupled with the fact that each powerup pretty uncommonly reach 500+ costs, really lessens the scarcity and cool factor of the treasure, as well as how you have to go out of your way to find them. I dunno, maybe I'm making this a bigger deal than it actually is, but again it bothers me cause this was something 2 managed to do super well in, and I can't really think of anything that needed to offset the balance to your favor, all for the sake of turning it into Just Another Collectible.
And on that note we get to the actual elephant in the room, the writing. I'm gonna be completely honest and say I'm one of those fans that think the writing is such a stark contrast to the trilogy that it's ultimately the game's biggest problem, and is also the main contributor as to why I gave the score that I did. With each game in the trilogy being its own story, anyone could pick those up and be totally fine, but with this one, I feel like people would probably miss a number of things that happened prior, especially considering each new game gives you the option to start a prologue cutscene. Now, I ain't gonna go over every other issue I have - flanderization of the main cast, the baffling and inconsistent nature of the time travel aspect, that awkward and rather uncomfortable dancing minigame in Arabia that didn't need to be there, how the ancestors are written, That Twist - since I feel like anyone even remotely attached to the series in some fashion have heard it all at this point and have said, or have read others say it, in a much better manner, so I'm gonna focus my issue on the main characters and how their humor is done (which admittedly will also touch a fair bit on the flanderized characters), and the villains.
I dunno what exactly was the priority, but it feels like someone was just really focused on emulating Saturday Morning Cartoons, cause the banter, playoffs, and overall nature feels really reminiscent of that. Murray had a few line of dialog about food in the past, but now his whole thing is that he simply talks about food in some fashion in most of his dialog, and if it isn't about that than it's him being brawny as usual. Bentley's always been the techno geek, but now it's in full force since he makes so, so many awful quips and puns - usually tech related - and gets annoyed when characters like Sly - who instead of being equally laidback and serious protag, is now just Generic Wisecracking Animal Protagonist #1213 - don't take their advices seriously. Carmelita goes way back to her days in the first game where she's kind of just there and gets annoyed with The Gang's antics, as well as her and Sly now being a focal point of a pretty miserable romance subplot that doesn't really like, lead to anything meaningful. Everyone must say the obvious objective and what to do to progress, even if the solution is plain as day (seriously at least like, have the player be stumped on a part for a few minutes if you're gonna have the characters say what to do, especially if you're reusing old ones that've rarely, if ever, did this). Oh, and to top it all off, the first two have to go through the arcs they had in 2 and 3 again, this time in a way that feels rather forced and horrifically rushed (Murray's whole thing is so minimal it's shocking, Bentley gets like, one and three quarters worth of sitting out until he's suddenly all better). It all feels really hokey, generic, and doesn't at all fit the comedic wit of the series, not even the first game was like this for the most part. It's not bad all the times, yea, but for the most part it was pretty groan-inducing and kind of hard to see characters I know so much about act very differently than before. Most I can say is that I'm at least glad the newfound focus on stereotypes here are at least like, tolerable, and never did I find it crosses over into "actually just insensitive" territory, though maybe some will (understandably) feel differently.
As for the villains, Sanzaru was valid for going back on 1's approach of simpler writing, but man I really can't like, think of anything to say about them regardless. They're either very stereotypical (Toothpick, Grizz), just have awful writing overall (Black Knight, Le Paradox), or don't that much presence in the first place (El Jefe, Ms Decibel), not helping is that some of these villain's backstories are just mostly reused from the past games. They're the type of people you'd usually think of for "throwaway villain for that one random episode of the week". In my head when going through them, I was thinking about which one would at least past my least favorite villains in each of the three games prior (Raleigh, Rajan, and Mask Of Dark Earth respectively), and afterwards, I can only really say mayyyyyyyyyyybe Grizz? The extremely simplified rap and "street thug" stereotype is very cringe, but like I said I don't think it ever becomes insensitive and he does have actual jokes, he has a rather active role in the story instead of just kind of being there, and he does have a plan I can say has actually like, some level of thought put into it... in fact his and Toothpick are the ONLY ones like that. I would talk about Paradox, but like I said, others have already dissected him and his main villain role not working at all already and probably in a better fashion, so I won't waste my time just repeating them.
Just, I dunno man, like I said talking about this game frustrates me. I can SEE the ideas, some even work, but most of it just doesn't, and considering how this game ends with that infamous cliffhanger... I'd rather not get a continuation, all things considered. Nerdietalk cheekily expressed it in her spoiler review, but I feel like one route this continuation would take is a bunch of walking back as to what 4 has done, and not only is that lame as fuck even with all my problems in mind, it also just robs this hypothetical game of its own identity, and could probably have issues of its own. I guess a soft reboot would be alright, maybe just focus on the Cooper lineage as a whole instead of just The Main Peeps again, but that'd just create a disconnect between a bunch of people and again, could lead to more potential issues. For the time being, I'm pretty much fine with just having the trilogy being the things keeping me company, with 4 only being in the back of my mind unless something new happens. I can kinda recommend trying it at least once, but other than that, I don't think I'm gonna give this another revisit for a long while.
3 Comments
Yea 4's pacing and theming is like, really bizarre. It feels like they were trying to do S1's pacing style - wherein each villain is like, part of something but are ultimately on their own - but as I said barely any of them feel like they have their own wants and needs in the world, and there's no sense of buildup like in the trilogy regardless. You just kind of go to an era, help an ancestor out, bad guy wins despite it all, rinse and repeat until the end. I wanna say S4's theming is supposed to be more about how you need to accept your legacy as to what it is, not what you want it to be, but this only goes so far with Paradox's whole thing, Bob, and maybe Salim, and again, they just redo the same arcs for Murray and Bentley but tell it in a worse fashion. It feels that Sanzaru were more so doing lightweight writing work compared to the team over at SP, and as you put it, it comes across as a well-meaning (seriously some of the smallest of details like that one ancestor's slow motion power getting mentioned is kind of nuts) yet ultimately mismanaged team (again, as you said, S3 weirdly getting the shortest stick of the fanservice).
The PS+ ports getting announced when I was still going through this was really funny timing, but yea idk if that'll like, actually cause a momentum of a new game or anything to be created. Firstly, Sucker Punch already admitted they don't have any plans for Sly (or inFamous), and secondly I feel like Sony would need more to cash in on it than having a decent amount of people playing the games on their paid, streaming service that gets a resounding "huh?" from people who use it. Apparently that TV show is getting worked on again? I genuinely have no idea, that and the movie projects are so on-and-off I decided to only believe it's real when we have an actual release date and multiple trailers lmao
Ay man I made four multiple longform reviews about the funny raccoon, his tech turtle, and his hippo bro, passion's a good thing. And thanks! I did the mistake of completing everything in it up to like, early morning where I'm at atm so I need to get some SLEEP
The PS+ ports getting announced when I was still going through this was really funny timing, but yea idk if that'll like, actually cause a momentum of a new game or anything to be created. Firstly, Sucker Punch already admitted they don't have any plans for Sly (or inFamous), and secondly I feel like Sony would need more to cash in on it than having a decent amount of people playing the games on their paid, streaming service that gets a resounding "huh?" from people who use it. Apparently that TV show is getting worked on again? I genuinely have no idea, that and the movie projects are so on-and-off I decided to only believe it's real when we have an actual release date and multiple trailers lmao
Ay man I made four multiple longform reviews about the funny raccoon, his tech turtle, and his hippo bro, passion's a good thing. And thanks! I did the mistake of completing everything in it up to like, early morning where I'm at atm so I need to get some SLEEP
At this point i should make my own review at this point gotta 100% Sly 3 first but i feel Sly 4's themes should have been again accepting your legacy (but way more enforced) and doing one last job, and in terms of characters, make Sly more reluct to stop Paradox due to committing to Carmalita and Interpol, Bentley wanting to get back on field due to Penelope mysteriously leaving him after they finished with the Time Machine and Murray being a sort of neutral and team heart once again along with making Carmelita and Sly's relationship the fore front of the game instead of being in the Background.
Also for the villains just scrap them entirely for having ancestors of previous villains, like General Tasos Ancestor, Mugshots ancestor etc and make them standalone like Sly 3 to strengthen that Villain for that chapter, along with doing away with failing every single chapter since it isn't fun/satisfying to watch and feels like a huge misunderstanding of what made them failing in Sly 2 so great story telling wise.
I could go on and on about what the story should have done like making the ancestors more interesting, actually concluding the story, making Penelope/Paradox into a more well-defined/misunderstood villains that are an active threats throughout the game instead of being in the background. But it's definitely a game that i really need to go thoroughly in depth with one day
Also for the villains just scrap them entirely for having ancestors of previous villains, like General Tasos Ancestor, Mugshots ancestor etc and make them standalone like Sly 3 to strengthen that Villain for that chapter, along with doing away with failing every single chapter since it isn't fun/satisfying to watch and feels like a huge misunderstanding of what made them failing in Sly 2 so great story telling wise.
I could go on and on about what the story should have done like making the ancestors more interesting, actually concluding the story, making Penelope/Paradox into a more well-defined/misunderstood villains that are an active threats throughout the game instead of being in the background. But it's definitely a game that i really need to go thoroughly in depth with one day
Speedy
1 year ago
In terms of a Sly 5 even with the recent PS Plus ports they're shooting themselves in the foot if it's continuing with Theives in Time, since a new team would have to pick up the broken story of an admittedly passionate but missmanged team. I would rather have a reboot of the first game with the gameplay from later games rather than a Sly 5, because it may allow for a more multi installment series but Sucker Punch's Sly was never meant for multiple installments like Ratchet & Clank (Unless it focused on the ancestors for one game, were interquels between Sly 1 and 2 or focused on a new cast of characters like inFamous Second Son)
Wow I'm really passionate about funny Raccoon series, good review nonetheless.