Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time

Sly Cooper 4: Thieves in Time is probably one of the games that i anticipated the most in my adolesence. The impeccable ending of Sly 3, while definetly more than enough to satisfy me at the time, also left me with this longing feeling for more of this series which just kept hitting it out of the park every entry. So when this game was announced, not coming from the same development studio as the originals and instead a studio that ported those games to PS3 and Vita as The Sly Collection (a VERY solid collection by the way!), a lot of people were skeptical of wether or not it'd be another incredible entry or a bad attempt at reviving a series that could have just ended at 3 and nobody really would've complained.

Honestly, i feel like this was one of the best case scenarios for this series getting another entry; very modernized and streamlined feeling gameplay, while feeling plastic at times, is snappy and nice feeling still and the costume gimmicks in all the different worlds present some good gameplay mix-ups in similar vein to the previous games, but trying some new stuff while calling back to a lot of the older stuff too. I apprichiate how diverse they try to be with the story and while none of the worlds left a major impression on me, they're very pretty and definetly have unique atmospheres not explored previously in this series before this. The story... ehhh?? its okay? like, i dont have a TON to say... its pretty predictable at some points for sure but i dont really care. Doesn't really hold a candle to the previous games at all but it doesn't really need to either. The gameplay as usual is the main attraction and the cutscenes and story parts are definetly the weaker element of the package, but it comes together pretty well in the end! They do their best at keeping this a faithful entry in the Sly series while branching out and trying to expand on it at the same time. A lot of people seem to despise this game, but i personally enjoyed it quite a lot. not the best game of all time, but like Sly, i can say it at least sticks the landing.

To be honest, Sly 3 didn't even need a sequel, even if the game practically had such a bizarre twist ending that it almost set itself up for one. Sly Thieves in Time is a cool concept that we saw teased in the last Sly game when we visited the vault of Sly's old ancestors and this game we go through different periods in history and visit Sly Cooper's relatives to help him stop another evil villain. The idea is cool enough but the execution is bad. The game is more or less Sly 3.5, the controls are good but the design is bad. The overworld to each area is just designed so bland, the enemy design is bland, the boss fights are pretty bland, the music bland, the dialog bland, basically everything about this game is bland and hardly stands out. Its a competent enough game, but nothing at all stands out about this, plus I feel the locations in this weren't original enough I mean we get a snow area which we had in Sly 2, a Japanese area that we had in Sly 3, A middle-eastern area that looks kind of similar to the Indian area in Sly 2. I mean the game is just not designed that well, I mean its cool they brought the bottles back, but the mini games and everything else in this is mostly forgettable. I didn't enjoy Sly 3 that much but this is way worse and a step in the wrong direction, this game just feels rushed and like the areas and missions were designed by amateurs. Hell even the story isn't that great and the villain in this is kind of lame.