Review

Great stuff. I remembered it being good and my memories were confirmed. The only real "complaint" I would say I have (a very soft complaint) is that they could lower the minigame mission to stalking mission ratio. The minigames got rather weird and I remember things being a little more grounded. However, I distinctly remember we do exactly that in the future so no harm no foul. None of the minigames were actually bad or anything, the missions where you're thieving your way around the level are just the clear strength of the game (and the series) so it makes sense to focus in on that. A little bit of early installment weirdness, that's all.

The actual gameplay is quite good. Sly feels really good to control. He does exactly what you want him to do. And shimmying up pipes, jumping across spires, all that - it feels good to do. This first one was definitely simple. I think that's mainly on the whole horsehoe system. You can only take one or two hits, but also all the enemies die in a hit or two. So things kind of have to stay simple. We do add in some abilities to introduce a bit of variety. Though none of them are actually required, so they're kinda whatever.

I really like the colorful cast of characters we have. They're very charming. In particular, I really like all the animations on Sly. They're very well done and it really helps get his personality across. He's totally charismatic, even this early on. The fun cartoony noire we're going for is great and I want to see more. I distinctly remember we do go on a whole journey with these characters as the series goes on.

Something that I did find funny was the lives. There were a number of quality of life things that I ran into in this game that very much seemed like the developers and designers had the question "is this fun" in mind. Small things like having one of the safes in each world allowing you to track down the clues in the other levels. Or having the speed-up ability that let you quickly retrace your way around. Stuff like that. So I thought it was exceedingly funny when we discovered that the lives meant nothing. The game has a life system as so many old games have. But near as I could tell, it didn't do anything. When I lost all my lives, it just restarted me at the same place with more lives. It was as though there were some executive who only understood the arcades who demanded there be lives. But then the dev team asked "But is that actually any fun?". The answer of course being no. So they put it in and just made it mean nothing. I'm unsure why else it would be there.

On to Sly 2 Band of Thieves (2004)

Links

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0UgLs1BOgQM80tJjmZYVPyCC0RgB9kmm