Why Thieves in Time Was a Massive Disappointment
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- Опубліковано 7 вер 2024
- Sorry for the long wait guys. But we are finally back with Sly Cooper Thieves In Time! The most recent entry in the Sly Cooper series and trust me I know the video is long, but this is a video I have wanted to make for YEARS, and hey good news is that people I know in real life don't have to hear me rant on it!
Twitter: / jsreviews2
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This being compared to a fan fiction piece makes sense. There was no sense of weight placed upon the difficulty of time travel. That was a big thing for me.
because it is a game for children
> has a moment of gameplay of Carmelita bellydancing in a harem dress
> a game for children
I fail to see the logic here...
The time travel doesn't fall flat from how it's not "realistic." If anything, they didn't go wild enough with it.
The time-travel was just an excuse to have Sly run around in the Old West or Medieval Europe and stick in the ancestors (who besides Salim are all either obvious stereotypes or overly goofy or just a gimmicky Sly ala Tennessee). Too much of it didn't really matter much to Le Paradox's goal of becoming a king since he just needed evidence to support his claim to kingship or crushing the Coopers since he should've only needed to go far enough back to prevent like Slytutankamun from having children.
They could've just had the time travel focus on Sly and his father with it warping the past and the gang with Carm's memories (like Carmelita losing her memory of her life with Sly if they need to have her be hostile to the Cooper Gang again).
@@galten7361 that would be too complex
but this is bad... with sprinkles of good...
27:00 I love how little sense this scene makes.
Sly 1: Sly attempts to send Clockwork into a bubbling lava pool, killing him.
Sly 2: Sly delivers the final blow killing Neyla and Clockwork together. Sly can throw flightless birds off of an airship plummeting to their deaths. Sly complies with a plan involving Murray throwing a bunch of night club security into a water tank until their drowned/suffocated corpses cause the machine to rupture. Sly desecrates gravestone. Starting from this game, Sly can purchase and find items to let him quickly electrocute guards to death for quick kills.
Sly 3: Sly raises no objection to Bentley kidnapping an opera worker for use in training or blatantly murdering him afterwards. Sly raises no objections to watching Bentley send a pirate into shark-infested waters to be killed. Sly personally kills two pirates to steal parts of a disguise. Sly raises no objection to Murray throwing a bunch of profiteering miners into the maw of a hungry alligator. Sly asks the Panda King to help destroy an army of Jiang Shi (hopping zombies). The Cooper Gang kill numerous profiteering miners in a bar fight. Sly can still purchase items from the black market to easily kill people. Sly murders a Chinese guard who just wants his photo taken.
Sly 4: Sly spares the villain because killing is wrong, and the villain doesn't _need_ to die.
*I see no problem here.*
Story and gameplay segregation
But this doesn’t fall under that defense. In the Sly 1 and 2 points, this actually happened in the story. Sly 4’s ending is just so rushed and out of place.
@@xionvixon3387
Go back to TVTropes where that kind of stupid answer is actually tolerated.
Goes to show how much you know about Sly. Lmao. Clockwerk was a machine. He had no regrets in destroying something that wasn't alive to begin with. He spared all the villains in the first and second game, aside from him, obviously. Since Neyla became Clockwerk, he had to destroy him again (specifically by destroying the hate chip inside).
Dr. M died because he literally wanted to STAY WITH THE TREASURE, as all of the cave fell apart. Sly (though he risked himself to save Carmelita) never once declared he was going to kill Dr.M. He never killed any of the others, either (unless we're counting the Mask of Dark Earth as a villain, but it's a non organic object, despite the ability to move around and maybe display some form of sentience).
Being true to who he was, he didn't kill Le Paradox either. Now, how much of an ignoramus do you have to be, to believe Sly is a damn serial killer? You only proved you have no idea of Sly's character, and shouldn't be allowed to criticize it, fool.
@@Dcfan200 Clockwork wasn't "never alive." He was an owl who slowly replaced his body with machinery and was a sentient being when he died. They went over this in the beginning of Sly 2 ('shows how much you know').
No clue what you're babbling about with Dr M since I never listed him. The deaths I listed from Sly 3 were all ones which the Cooper Gang were directly responsible for. And, yes, they blatantly killed people. There is literally a job in the Australia level where you feed miners to an alligator.
Did you even play the games, or did you just piece together the story from Fur Affinity?
"This game is a bad fanfiction" Oh my god, this makes so much sense.
+Celest1n Like I said in the video, I think I always felt that way but never had a word/phrase to describe it, fan fiction is most certainly that phrase lol
This game was what the new PS4 Ratchet was to the PS2 iconic titles; a good looking well polished turd, a ghost of what made the series strong and impactful...
I thought more or less the same, without the "bad". It tries to bring back a lot of the things people loved in Sly 1 and 2 that 3 lacked and it tries to bring ideas popular ideas of fanfiction (Sly's ancestors, even the title "Thieves in Time" being a fanfic title). However, the writing is also amateurish like a fanfic, especially when it came to how it handled Penelope.
Celest1n Also applies to Halo 4 and 5.
@@paulgabel8261 hell no. the game featured some thing the other sly sequels didnt....let you play as sly or a sly type character. I was so sick of Bentley and Murphy missions in the sequels, especially the 3rd where you mostly play as other characters. this one was unique, had great level design and interesting missions. fans like you and the dude in the vid are blinded by nostalgia. sure it has long loading times but I'll take for gameplay over forcing me to play with Murphy too much like in sly 3
The absolut deal breaker for me in this game was really the thing with Penelope. I dont mind people turning bad, just make that it makes sense. D;
Of course twisting a character around with such disregard would leave a bad taste in any fan's eyes. It's a bloody insult.
They just forced Penelope to be a villain since they insisted on replacing the scrapped mole character with her.
Spoiler wtfv
Speaking of villains why wasn't clockwerk considered like out of all the villains he'd probably be the first to be in a wipe out the cooper's legacy granted it would erase him from history but that would've already happened if he won in sly 1
@@DragonspineInfiniteZero EXACTLY
My biggest problem with Sly 4 was that slight change in Sly's personality. I know it is not a big thing, but in my opinion he was much more professional and mature in previous games.
You can see this in his behavior towards Carmelita. It is understantable that he had this playful attitude towards her in previous games, when their relationship was short and garbled. It was like a game that they both liked to play. But when their relationship became official, I just rolled my eyes when I saw the way Sly acted when he got busted in the start of the Thieves in Time.
Maybe they wanted to make his character little more relatable for children, but then again the whole game is exploring adult themes in that borderline manner no less than the other three games, so why tune his character to be more childlike in this game?
Dude, you're not going to explain something as your ancestors are being wiped out by homicidal time traveling maniacs. Sly either went then, or he probably wouldn't even have born.
@Excelsior Exactly, dude.
Excelsior I mean, they are a couple. And with all the crazy stuff they’ve both gone through, you’d think Sly would at least try to talk to her.
Sly was an absolute douchebag, even if things got real he didn't speak or do shit like this
@Excelsior Dude if you think sly is the same you have 0 observational skills. It's painfully obvious how tongue in cheek and annoying he got compared to 1-3.
Those load times...
Terra Fuu so long...
The worst load times this side of Sonic 06.
The load times didn't bother me as much as other parts. Even though i like this game
5% of my in-game time
If something is worse than sonic 06 in any regard, you know they messed up.
Due to limited memory capacity on the VITA the Final chapter which was the episode in Ancient Egypte. got CUT OUT because of it.
Yeesh
I don't know why they couldn't replace either the Prehistoric or Ancient Arabia episodes with this time period! I would have loved to have played as Slytunkhamen or even as Henriette Cooper! It would have been awesome to have played as a female Cooper or an ancient Egyptian Cooper!
They had so much missed opportunities with this game and it really makes me sad that the series will probably be left to die whilst still stuck on the most disappointing cliffhanger ending in gaming history!
Good grief.
WAIT WHAT
That’s disappointing
I'm an aspiring game developer and I look really deep into the games I play and often write down small elements that I find captivating.
Sly holds first place for the number of interesting elements I have written down in my notepad.
The atmosphere in the first games are so memorable: the textures are close to water paintings, the artstyle is straight out of a comic book and the music often has a "night-in-paris" like feel to it. I mean these games are art!
The hub world in 2 and 3 have those interesting "you're not welcome here" atmosphere to them and the only people you see on the streets are guards that have taken over a seemingly pieceful town... that's so unique!
Now look at the 4th game... there is nothing interesting to be said. They got rid of every aspect that made me LOVE the sly games so it definitely doesn't come as a surprise why the 4th one doesn't exist to me.
@Excelsior From a gameplay standpoint, I wouldn't say it's better than the previous titles and if it was standalone I'd call it mediocre. They got rid of almost all of the gadgets. The tools you have available to you is... miniscule. You get the costumes, but several are nigh useless outside of its select areas (Samurai, Archer, Jailbird kinda) and the other two are meh. The saber tooth costume makes you slow, the pounce isn't amazing, but it still has value. The final costume though gives you time slow, and a stupidly strong attack. Along with this, you have the charge attack, double tap R1 attack, square triangle attack, and smoke bomb. All of the tools from before are gone. Alarm clocks to distract guards (as niche as it was)? Gone. Feral pounce? Gone. Invisibility? Gone. Combat dodge is gone too. That's just Sly too for... costumes and attacks that barely matter. Sly 3 had those as well, but also had the gadgets.
Murray got shafted incredibly, where now he has a handful of new attack moves and multiple flavours of his Fists of Flame from before while losing all his other techniques. Bentley loses all his various tools for various types of ammo for his bombs and darts. Benetley ends up getting out with the most intact moveset thanks to the variety of ammo types. Carmelita gets a full upgrade due to actually being playable and having multiple types of... ammo types. So she shoots her gun differently than normal. She also has to buy her mega jump in the final world.
There's still the platforming, and other than rail walk taking an unnecessary hit to speed that's still as solid as it was in the past. I think just about every aspect of the game took a hit. Just story did especially.
To you it's like as if it never existed. Probably you would think why Robert Zemekis never made Back To The Future Part IV, was because it would end up like this game.
"The 4th one doesn't exist to me" FINALLY!!!! SOMEONE GETS IT 😂😂😂 I don't know what 4th game you guys are talking about!!
Also, good luck with your game development aspirations, the Sly Cooper series is DEFINITELY an amazing source to draw inspiration and research from
Sly Cooper without a doubt is one of the biggest series to that just pours out with inspiration at every angle, I hope it continues to be a gold mine of inspiration and great resource of your success brother.
One thing about the Sly/Carmelita subplot that's always bugged me to no end is that, while Carmelita has every right to be mad at Sly for faking amnesia, nobody even mentions that she barely hesitated to take advantage of it by lying to him about who he was.
Yeah, if she had any guts she would've arrested him, regardless if he had amnesia. Instead, she took pity on him and took advantage of it and then she tried to change him into something he wasn't.
@@kidprime6863 THANK YOU OMG, I thought I was the only one that thought the same thing like for real.
I whole heartily agree with this in so many way. I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought of it.
In my opinion, Sly 4 is non canonical.
That's what I'll choose to believe.
I'd accept it as an excuse to have Carmelita turn up pregnant, then have the kid be the star of the next game, with Bentley and Murray doing some work in the background as they build their team up and work to build their reputation.
Wonder when Sly 4 is coming out...? 😂
i do agree, it should be stricken from canon
If they make another game, we might get lucky and have that be the case.
It's like those Disney sequels like Pochaontas 2. Just bad dreams
A good plot twist isn't good because you didn't see it coming. It's good because you SHOULD have seen it coming. Thieves in Time completely misses this.
ehhh, kinda in the middle.
A good plot twist will have crumbs throughout that aren't concrete until you see the twist then see how the rest all come together.
Neyla is a great example of that.
@@thesun5275 you guys are saying the same thing, just differently.
a good plot twist has you going "Ah! why didn't I see it sooner? it's so clear now!"
Like in DMC 5 where Nero demands why he can't help Dante defeat the main villain to which Dante shouts "HE'S YOUR FATHER!"
Why couldn't they make the villains in the past time periods be Le Paradox's ancestors. That would've been an interesting parallel between Sly and Le Paradox with how their ancestors acted, one honorable family of thieves and the other not honorable. They could've even had the two generations fight each other at the end of the game.
That's the easy not stupid option but still not compelling and too coincidental.
Yeah, that would've worked better instead of the rivalry being one-sided
Not a good idea for this game...but if another game comes out, that would be brilliant!!!!
@@IamAlexJusticeactually it wouldve been a much better idea than the trash we got you have no writing vision whatsoever
@@zillobeast5257 rough day?
A plot twist that I was expecting to come from this game (before it's release) is the main villain being one of Sly's ancestors or descendants.
Still got hopes for it in Sly 5
Dangan Ronper
Yeah, an ancestor or two who backstabbed the Cooper clan and joined Clockwerk.
How would that even work? Maybe if one of the ancestors had a sibling instead?
Sly 2 WOULD have been the best game, if you could replay any of the levels without starting a new game :/
theres a cheat for that!
@@theacidicslushie8182 doesn't work for PS3 sadly
It's still the best without the ability to replay jobs.
And being able to input the mega jump cheat without 100% the game, imagine how different you'd be able to play the jobs/heists
@@mitchellrogers4798 I get why they made the Mega Jump cheat only available after 100% completion to avoid cheese, but yeah... imagine Mega Jumping around the different missions. A letdown, but not enough to drop it from its title of the best Sly.
To sum up this game: "I'm not angry, I'm just disappointed."
I have no idea, but something about this game just didn't FEEL like a sly game. It was missing something, and I think it's the characters and how dead they felt was the problem. I didn't care for the Ancestors at all they felt bland. The gang felt boring , and I love Carmelita but I hate what they did with her design ( trying to make her more " sexy") and she didn't even do much . Also I would have loved to see the female Ancestors ( I remember a pirate one) instead of Bob... I hated him the most.The story was totally a bad fanfic. The Villains....omfg the villains we're soooo forgettable.Penelope being evil was meh. I didn't know what to think about it.Gameplay was good , felt good, but wasn't anything different from the last game.This whole game just felt empty and dragged on. I would love to see more games this is my fav series. Though I hope they bring more to the game.
This ! This is why It would have been best if sucker punch made it because I feel they are the only ones who understand the characters and give them life. The charm of the original trilogy can’t be duplicated. Thieves in time lacked soul.
Dunno if you'll even read this but the female pirate ancestor was Henriette "One Eyed" Cooper the Caribbean Pirate
One thing that really bugged me was that they removed the "mission tags" and replaced them with a generic minimap.
I always loved how the second and third games put those icons way up in the sky with arrows pointing all the way down to their exact location INSTEAD of using a minimap. This encourages the player to focus on the entire hub world itself and take more of the level in. Forcing the player to rely on a minimap instead makes you stuck staring at a corner of the screen.
Plus, I also really didn't like how linear it was. In the previous games, you'd usually have around 3-5 objectives available at the same time that you could tackle in whatever order you chose, and when you finished those, then there'd be around another 3-5 objectives to go through. However, in this game, virtually every time, it's just one objective that you have to follow in order. A couple times, you have two objectives given to you at once, but about 99%, it's just one at a time. Never liked that.
They pretty much looked at Sly 1 and used that one to make Sly 4.
I think you get the chance to choose 2 in sly 4 twice. Once in Japan and again in egypt
@@SuperFlashDriver Nah, even Sly 1 had this non-linear format. The hubs were just a lot smaller, so they didn't need those navigational elements that the second and third games used. You were still given multiple levels at once to get keys to progress in any order you wanted.
"This will be the first and last time I make a video on this game"
If only you knew
If only, haha, I thought I was out of the rabbit whole, but it sucked me back into the abyss right away. lmao
Sometimes I feel like i'm the only person who actually likes this game ._.
Oh I disagree. This game has seen quite it's large sum of praise for years.
Good gameplay bad story
I thought it was good in my opinion
@@thezerotopnotch8563 I always kinda liked it but it's definitely worse than sly 2
@@sikisikiamimis A man of actual thought and logic.
I'd love a Sly 3 sequel that is basically about Interpol's corruption. Sly and Carmelita set out to catch criminals together... by stealing from them. The Cooper Clan's legacy continues roughly adjacent to the law rather than against it.
some dude is making a game called Deceit Of Thieves and the villain is a NEW interpol agent hunting our Cooper friend
Or ya know have a game that explores how torn sly is from his old life and his new one with carmelita. How he misses thieving with the gang but can't due to his ties with her. Do you know how much of a BOMB ASS story that would have been to see how Sly would deal with his inner conflict? But no...apparently that was not thought of once in the design room
That’s the kind of sequel I would have loved to see.
I am always astonished how dumb the people are that think sly being a cop could work, do any of you realize sly is a international criminal that is wanted and famous around the world, theres this thing called facial recognition have any of you heard of it? And if you say “oh he could put a disguise on” no no he could not bcuz he is feigning amnesia so carmelita isnt allowed to inform him that he is a infamous criminal that must keep his identity a secret lmao yall are such morons
Here’s what I think. After Sony saw how good Nintendo did with the Wii, they wanted to have their own kid friendly characters. Hence why Ratchet had a whopping 6 games on the PS3, they shoved Sackboy down our throats and said “here’s something we can market to kids.” They did the same with Knack. Less of making a fun game and just throwing possible mascots at the wall to see who sticks.
Well now in 2022 it seems RaC, Sackboy and now Astro Bot are what Sony considers their notable family friendly characters for the PlayStation.
I would've loved to play this game if...
A. There were better villains.
B. The plot had a better execution.
C. Sanzaru didn't do what they did with Penelope.
The problem with the Sonic 06 comparison is that unlike in Sly 4, you'll have 3-4 loading screens per mission, even the mission description has a loading screen
Fun fact: Penelope was never supposed to be the main villain of mice and mechs. It was meant to be an entirely new villain entirely but I guess at the last minute they scrapped it and changed it her I guess for some strange reason? I honestly don’t know why.
Source?
@@paistinlasta1805 vtnvivi did a video covering this awhile ago I’m pretty sure.
I remember playing through the series again and seeing on wikipedia that there was a fourth game. I looked at the plot section and after the first section, I decided that there are three Sly Cooper games, there is no fourth game.
So to sum it all up, Sony did to the Sly series what Disney did to the Star Wars series; ruin a perfectly good finale to an amazing series in a poorly written fan-fiction style just to milk it some more.
1st- It was Sanzarue, not Sony.
2nd- Wait, how the fuck? This was written 3 years before The Rise of Skywalker and you still knew how it turned out? What the fuck?
They should have focused on Clockwerk's origin in Sly 4, I mean, where did he come from? He is over a thousand years old and already had his android body in a time, where it would be absolutely impossible to create. It was never explained how he managed to survive all this time apart from his comment "Hatred is the main ingredient in the fountain of youth".
IMO: Sanzaru did try to make a good Sly game, Sly 4 isn't completely horrible. The problem is the bad fanfiction level story and the short and un-original gameplay. I have to give them credit though for recreating the movement-physics from the PS2 titles (they actually used most of the original PS2 code to do so!), it really felt like playing a PS2 game. Also, the animation quality was top notch, everything looks so smooth and realistic (the PS2 titles were pretty wonky in that regard); compare that to the recent R&C title: the animation quality during gameplay is okay, but absolutely terrific during cutscenes, they didn't even bother to TRY to make good facial animations.
Why wasn't Clockwerk in the game? He was there watching all the ancestors.
You can actually spot Clockwerk at 44:47
To me, the worst thing is how we're left with Sly stuck in time with no closure. They didn't kill him but it sure feels like it since they haven't made a new game and he's still there. If I can't get a new game I could at least like to hear what becomes of him. I can't have my favorite video game character of all time stuck in time for eternity.
He might as well be stuck for eternity if the franchise stays dead like this.
Or you could just write the 4th game off as Horrible fanfiction. Sly had his ending in 3, this garbage game didn't need to exist.
Lol, "movie", it was fun when we thought that was gonna happen...
Thank goodness that drivel never ended up happening. Those character designs, and Sly's voice recasting, sweet Jesus what a disaster of an idea.
@@fraundakelmbrilpondaprost90 The TV designs were fixed. Murray is now pink, not purple, and Bentley doesn't look weird anymore
@@nu-agegamer3548 Is this some new update I'm unaware of?
@@fraundakelmbrilpondaprost90 A TV show was in development, but just like the film, it is unknown if it will see the light of day
@@nu-agegamer3548 Ahhh, I got the impression it was revived given the present tense speech. But I gotcha. Yeah... I'd say Sly is probably one best left for the original trilogy and the comics.
"How can I freeze when my heart warms at the very sight of you?" had me dead
Oh my god, Sly's "Itch" to do a heist was literally unnescessary for the plot. The book pages disappearing was larger than just him, so I would see him risk his relationship with Carmelita to SAVE HIS FAMILY LEGACY. Nice way to belittle all the character development in Sly 3, Sanzaru.
A simple and good change to the plot would have been to edit the villain a bit. Dump everyone but El Jefe and Penelope, then add in a third villain. How I see it.
First two levels, El Jefe is in charge, with him commanding the forces in Japan and The Old West, with a shadowy figure giving him orders in both locations. In Japan, it plays out the same as it does in game, in the Old West, he gets a drug to make himself stronger, harkening back to Raj in Band of Thieves, which gives him size increase ability, basically he can grow limbs rather than becoming giant, flailing at Sly during the boss fight, creating a game of keep away.
At the end, however, the shadowy figure is revealed when they come to personally take out El Jefe for his failures. In this case, it's Penelope, but instead of acting like a villain, she seems apologetic, nervous, and most of all reluctant to act against the gang, specifically asking them to just go home, or she'll have to hurt them, before storming off into the time blimp, dropping an old carving that is the time item needed to get to prehistory.
Now, you have a whole level to build up the mystery of what's going on and why, with the gang tracking Pen throughout the level, and Carmilita wondering if this is the sort of thing that might happen to her relationship with Sly, separating due to personality differences. At the end, Pen and the gang fight, this time with her using a freeze ray to try and incapacitate everyone, leaving only Murray to fight her, driving her to England.
This is also where we find out there's another shadowy villain, one with a small bird like body in a mobile bird cage giving her orders, and her acting like she's the shadowy master minds servant, saying things like, 'Yes, Elder' and the like. The gang refuses to give up, however, and eventually, with a lot of effort, they corner her, only for them to be confronted by what looks like Arpeggio, the bird guy from the end of Sly 2, with a partially mechanized form, which then speaks with a very familiar voice, before discarding Pen, saying his plan is almost complete.
At this point, Pen gives the info dump. Her line, the line of the Black Baron, goes back thousands of years, and was founded by a great raptor, with Murray doing a bit about dinosaurs, until she mentions it means Bird of Prey, in this case, an Owl. Yes, Pen is a direct descendant of Clockwerk, who came to her, and demanded she obey him, something she couldn't refuse due to the blood connection. Literally, he did something to his children that passed all the way down to her, which made her obediant to his whims.
We then learn the plan. Gather the Cooper Canes from various time periods together, and then with the time machine, erase them from history, with the hope that doing so will restore Clockwerk's old body. Oh, and he's in Arpeggio's due to a mind transfer that happened when Neyla tried to kill him, sending Clock's mind into the other body, which was hurt, but not dead. Anyway, with that established, the gang then heads to the middle east, to stop the plan, and save the final cane.
Everything builds up to a confrontation on the blimp, which fails to be stopped, but Sly and the gang are still on board as it jumps to the present, to begin the erasure process. There, with Pen's help, they summon the various Cooper's from across time, get the Cane's back, but not before Clockwerk does indeed get his old body back, which leads into him and Sly having one final fight, eventually dumping Sly into ancient egypt, where he's immediately assaulted by the Pharaoh's guards, the Pharaoh Slytenkamin, and is saved by a young Owl body thief, with the next game being Sly at the start of his own Line/the Thievus Racoonous, and using the young Owlboy to fight his own ancestor, who's been possessed by a big red gem, just like the one from the Hate Chip in Sly 2.
Your idea was good, but you tripped at the end. I'd have said you get to control Sly's father and beat Clockwerk, meaning that in the modern timeline, Sly's father didn't die since you changed history by killing Clockwerk, thus not existing the fiendish five. And they could have also make Sly a cop or something else, he decided not to follow his father's footsteps. To be honest, whatever, even Sly taking a dump at the very end would have been a better ending than actually 4's
How come fans come up with better ideas than the actual writers?
Also how could Penelope be Clockwerk's descendant considering they're two different animal species?
If it was the case, it would be Ironic because Penelope is a mouse and Clockwerk's an owl. Owls prey on mice.
I'm surprised how close your review of this game is to my opinion. I've been searching the internet trying to see if anyone had my opinion for the longest time. It felt like I was the only person that didn't like this game at one point.
I felt the same way, hence why I made the video lol
I had fun, but Thieves in Time just didn’t have the same feeling that I got when I played the original trilogy.
Plus, the story just got me really sore in some spots (the character arcs, plot twists, ancestors abilities and choices for the ancestors, and the clockwerk Easter eggs).
Same
Sly 2 > Sly 3 = Sly 1 > Sly 4.
Sly 4 was so bad, it upsets me so damn much. They took away the art style that gave the series it's charm.
I think Sly 3 is better than Sly 1.
Honestly, I kind of like playing this game...even if the only thing I would do is pretend that the Tennessee kid cooper was a member of faze clan and used all of the enemies in his area for target practice.
One thing that i didn't understand was why did the gang had to defeat the bad guys . In all of the previous games you defeated the bad guys in exchange for something; Sly 1:Fight these guys in order to collect the pages from the Thievvius Racconus , Sly 2:Fight the bad guys to get the clockwork parts , Sly 3:Defeat the bad guys to acquire more parties in your gang to get into the Cooper vault. It made sense but here we fight the bad guys in order to just fight them so everything will return back to normal and everybody will live happily ever after.
Yeah. Have the bad guys be someone from the actual time period instead of guys from the future
"It sounds like bad Italian takeout." XD
I still don't think that line is funny. Mr side quest
It was funny in 3 because they were in Italy and he was trying to sound like a guard, In 4 they were beating a dead horse.
-All of the humor was derivative and in the wrong context
Yeah.. Clockwerk and Neyla were good villains, well I more liked the concept of Clockwerk being a cyborg Owl who replaced most of his body just so he could literally kill every living member of the Cooper family line, that and his voice was pretty cool.
If Sly 5 doesn't happen then I'm just gonna pretend the 4th game doesn't exist bc I really liked the ending for Sly 3. For one, they don't have to worry about clockwork anymore and Sly and Carmelita got together and basically went on with their lives, but then they made this crappy game and kinda ruined the series. The Trilogy will always be the best
Hope most of the staff condemn this shit as a non-canon
Honestly, Sly 5 ain’t happening. It’s been too long since the last game. It think Sony has pretty much moved on.
@SpiteHook Sony has the Sly Cooper rights.
If they don't want to do anything with Sly, then nothing will be made
While I agree with almost everything in the review, I personally don't hold a grudge against the game for its many flaws. In fact, I'm glad that I could play a game like this at the time. Let me explain...
Ever since the Sly Collection came out in 2010, I went through the "nostalgia" phase, where I was completely jaded to modern games (many of which were CoD-pandering military shooters like Homefront) and had enveloped myself in this bubble of only playing games from the previous 2 console generations and nothing else. I missed out on a lot of admitedly good games that I've since been able to play, thankfully, but in those 2 and a half years between the Collection and Thieves in Time, I was OD'ing on Member Berries. Playing Thieves in Time kind of helped me phase out of that episode. Being the 4th Sly game I had always wanted as a kid, I felt like my nostalgic depression was finally "cured" in a sense.
I know this sounds absolutely rediculous to some people, but I had to get that off my chest regardless. Nostalgia really is one hell of a drug...
If they're games you haven't played before, it's nostalgia. It's just playing old games you missed. There's nothing wrong with that.
I remember that when this game was first announced, I used my copies of the original trilogy to make up my own missions and imagine the gameplay. I was hoping for this game to have the Guru, Penelope, Panda King, and Dimitri playable in the overworld, instead of only being playable within missions, as well as having one level for each of Sly's ancestors and clue bottles as well as Master Thief Challenges in every world. Each character would have specialized clue bottles that would only be gathered through the character's abilities. Dimitri would be the only character that could go underwater and swim in the world outside of missions. I guess none of my hopes were realized.
Penelope would also be playable on foot and could plant her RC Chopper to fly across the level and take out guards from far away, or grapple onto ledges that are far away. In the original Sly trilogy, when Bentley would get hurt he would scream "SLY!" but in this hope that I had for Sly 4, he would scream "PENELOPE!" instead.
My hope for the plot would be that Bentley and Penelope were at a Scientist Convention, where the time machine is being shown off. In the 8 years between Sly 3 and Sly 4, a new band of thieves have finally gained notoriety after being overshadowed by the Cooper Gang in the news for so many years. This new gang only cares about profit instead of human life. After the time machine is stolen, Bentley and Penelope create a new one and a perfect clone of Sly. The tutorial level, instead of controlling Sly, the player controls Bentley. The setup isn't explained until the tutorial level ends. Bentley goes to Murray, who has become the World Champion in the racing circuit, and he joins Bentley. Murray brings Bentley to New York to get The Guru. After The Guru joins, the Cooper Gang goes to China in the tutorial and gets Panda King, who had just finished a long day of screening suitors for Jing King. They go to a scuba convention and find the famous celebrity diver, Dimitri. He dresses back to normal, and packing his scuba gear, he leaves with everybody else.
Live is uneventful for Sly. Carmelita has been gone for years chasing after the new band of thieves that showed up since The Cooper Gang went out of commission. Sly is left taking care of their adopted raccoon son using money obtained from Carmelita's work at Interpol. Sly is informed of what is going on, and he is replaced with the perfect clone. Nobody knows the difference. The Cooper Gang follows the thieves to when Sly was young. This new band of thieves turns out to be as skilled as the Cooper Gang. Sly sees his father telling a young Sly about the Thievius Raccoonus, and Sly realizes that he needs to continue the Cooper legacy with Carmelita still thinking that he has amnesia. Using reconnaissance, these thieves travel back to the time of every Cooper ancestor mentioned in the previous few games.
After a boss fight that involves every member of the Cooper Gang, the band of thieves decide that the reward isn't worth the risk and decide to go back to the present. Clockwerk ends up following the Cooper Gang to the present. Sly has to kill his perfect clone. At the same time, the Guru is in a boss fight where he has to control Clockwerk and get him back to the time of Slytankhamen Cooper I (the earliest known member of the Cooper Clan at the time). Sly fights his clone, and his clone's dying breath, he says that he wishes that he continued the Cooper Clan, and declares his death the death of the Cooper legacy. The real Sly feels moved by this, and gives Bentley the body and tells him to have a memorial room in the gang's residence, since he had a good heart. Sly's son sees what happened and asks what's going on. Sly then tells him about the Cooper legacy and warns him not to spoil the secret, rather to become a thief when he grows up and leaves the house. Everybody goes back to the positions they were in at the beginning of the game and Bentley and Penelope win first prize at the convention.
Nostalgia Works sanzaru needed to have seen this
This right here is like, the best story that could have been more interesting! Hell, it makes more sense then the actual Sly 4 plot! I applaud you my good comrade!
Best comment of an idea for a vid game sequel I've ever seen.
You've created a better game
Sly 4 is a sad tale. What may not be very well known if you weren't following its development closely since its announcement is that Sly 4 only happened because Sanzaru wanted it to happen. They wanted to see a Sly 4 so badly that they saved up, bought a PS3 Development kit, and put together a demo to pitch to Sony. The level of passion in the game itself is palpable, from how they expanded staple mechanics like hacking and the safehouse, brought back lost mechanics like clue bottles and treasures, and just small details like Murray's binocucom having a little keychain of the guru. It was a game that should have, by all accounts, been an incredibly memorable and fun experience for every Sly fan. The gameplay itself shows that, and is actually pretty great.
They just couldn't write the damn thing.
The Penelope plot twist still haunts me to this day. Everything about what she did and said in 4 could be easily deconstructed as an ass-pull plot twist for multiple reasons.
1) Penelope was done living the high life after being revealed as the baron, and was happy to throw away the mantle.
2) If Penelope wanted money, she literally had the Key to the Cooper Vault, and also BUILT THE NEW VAULT DOOR.
3) Penelope said that Sly stole Bentley's potential and that Bentley was too focused on Sly, yet not only is Sly Retired, but Bentley has been doing his own completely separate thing with Penelope and hasn't even spoken to Sly until Penelope helped Le Paradox.
4) "The Most Valuable thing Sly ever stole was your potential!" Penelope says, despite the fact that THEY ARE BUILDING A FUNCTIONAL TIME MACHINE. THE VERY PINNACLE OF SCIENTIFIC AMBITION AND ACHIEVEMENT SECOND ONLY TO MAYBE INTERSTELLAR TRAVEL.
It just makes me so upset that they ruined a good character permanently because they wanted to ham-fist a shitty twist. Now she's stuck as the villain and doesn't get the happy ending that she deserved. And the absolute worst part of it all is that there was an absolutely perfect opportunity to have this shitty twist, and not ruin her character. They could have just had it so that Decibel hypnotized her. The quandry of realizing that Penelope hadn't betrayed the gang and that they had her carted off to jail despite that would have been an actually interesting twist, and would have made Decibel herself much more memorable all while not ruining Penelope's character.
I don't know why I've gone ahead and written all that out on a years old video. I guess because I've just been thinking about Sly 4 a lot after finishing a playthrough of Sly 3 last weekend.
actually penelope was a cheating scumbag in sly 3 that literally tried to kill sly in the final boss fight so you are entirely wrong about her being a good moral character, if your problem with this game was penelope you need to educate yourself and get better critical thinking skills, anyone with any critical thinking skills should immediately realize that the ending of sly 3 and beginning of sly 4 makes absolutely zero sense whatsoever and that should be your main concern, has it occurred to any of you people that sly and carmelita would not be able to have a public relationship with each other because ya know sly is a international wanted criminal and would be recognized and arrested immediately if out in public and carmelita would lose her job and be booked herself for housing a wanted criminal? The reality is sly 4 shouldve never been made and time travel is the dumbest plot point thats ever existed in storytelling, if they wanted to make a game with other ancestors they shouldve made a game where you play as ONE ancestor in the sly universe for the entirety of the game and told their story
I like your idea of making it that Decibel was controlling Penelope, as opposed to ruining her character like they did🤔
Yeah Sly 2 was pretty good, it's my favorite!
We know
I think I see why Sly would call his ancestor, Sir Galleth, a goof is because he's never met his ancestors in person and who they are really behind what he has read about them.
Sly an asshole, easily resolved if had been reluctant to rejoin gang: Yes.
Murray's crossdressing: I actually like this bit. It's dumb, but isn't completely out of left field with Murray, and it fits with the whole cartoon aesthetic the games have (how often did Bugs Bunny put on a dress?).
Historical item as time travel plot coupon: Not necessarily a bad pot device (even if its nonsensical: what defines what "time" an item comes from?), but handled horribly.
Sucker Punch's writing was actually good: Yes.
Goddawful script: Yes.
This game is (bad) fanfic: YES!
Sly 5: I honestly hope the next game announced, if ever, is either Sly *4* again or a reboot.
Gameplay: Going to disagree with you here. The controls ruined the game for me. They gave Sly so much weight, from bouncing on ropes, to the changes in the double jump (it no longer can be used to change momentum quickly), to the momentum he has in turning... Sly didn't feel graceful. He no longer felt like a master thief.
Costumes: Didn't think about it like that, but agreed.
Ancestors: Agree. Tennessee is good, the rest are redundant. The gameplay-story segregation problem is one of my pet peeves with the game.
Collectibles and hub design: Agreed. I liked the hub level designs. Mission and side-area design on the other hand...
Music: Not my favorite, but it grew on me. The remixed themes from past games sort of rob the game of its own identity, but they are fun to hear.
Loading times: YES.
Final verdict: You are far kinder than I. While the guys at Sanzaru clearly were passionate, and Sucker Punch really left things in the awkward position of dropping a silly sequel hook into a situation which really didn't leave room for a sequel, it still doesn't excuse them for creating a game vastly inferior to the originals in every way. Between Sly's groan-inducing one-liners, the gamey level design, and the new weighty controls, its clear that the guys at Sanzaru never listened to the developer commentaries in Sly 1, or if they did, they went in one ear and out the other (they specifically warn against making Sly too silly! They state repeatedly that their criteria, evaluating every decision, was "does it make the player feel like a thief?"!). It's clear they love the games, but it was a fanboy type of love, not tempered with enough insight or self-control to work out was special about the original games, and replicate it, and not backed by the skill or vision enough to make their own version stand its ground against what had come before.
Ok, rant done. Hopefully I won't do that again. Oh, who am I kidding...
+PsychadelicoDuck I kind of had changed my mind since this video. The story only gets worse the more I think about, but the gameplay really isn't that great, as I found out while streaming the vita version.
Actually "Time defining an item" as I ineloquently put actually isn't BS if you explain it via carbon dating which is what I'm guessing Bentley's device functioned on.
I do agree that the story is really bad mostly because it just trolls me on any relationship being resolved and since I’m still wondering about how will the Sly being lost in time plot be solved since even years later, we still aren’t really hinted of a fifth game. But I disagree with your criticism towards the gameplay, I think it’s still very solid since I did have fun playing the game. But I do agree with the whole “not playing as the other cooper gang members” since I wish there was more to do with them. Overall I rank the game over sly 1 since it has more to offer, but not really above sly 2 or sly 3
Actually I see "Sly lost in time" as being fairly easy to solve. Simple use of Heiroglyphics. Leave something on or in one of the pyramids that only he would say or leave and Bentley would recognize right off the bat
"Only time will tell, literally, because I'm building a time machine to find out"
This line from 3 makes the entire premise of 4 make no sense. Bentley's goal for making the time machine was to see the future. But based on how the time machine in 4 works you can only ever go to the past or back to the present
I think maybe the time machine not completely finished. He hadn't figured out how to make it take you to the future yet. He was probably going to until Penelope disappeared and until the pages in the Thievious Racoonus started to vanish.
I literally came back to this right after just watching your “Leaning to love Sly 4 video.” You've really come a long way.
4:41-4:42 "Yeah, it looks like ass." To be fair, it kind of always has been that way for the Sly series. It's just because the characters were originally drawn as 2D characters, and they look a little weird when converted to 3D. Just my opinion, though
Can we talk about how in the chapter immediately after Galleth’s, they introduce a goddamn hypnotist? So they had a perfectly reasonable explanation for Penelope’s actions right there, and they still decided to just make her evil and ruin her character?
Like it’d have been interesting if she gave the same explanation of her motives, but then Bentley and Sly called her out on how stupid and illogical they are. That clashes with her orders given via hypnosis, and the inability to reconcile the two forces an emotional reaction and causes her to freak out. That’d be cool! That’d be neato! It wouldn’t fix the rest of this shitty plot, but at least it’d show that they tried or cared at all!
That last title crawl of J's Reviews would be so impactful... but you spelt it "Reivews"
Oh give him a break Exo. He made a 55 minute review of this game so I don't care honestly. Plus, from what he told me it was like 150 pages for the script dissecting the game so one little flaw is just that for me. A flaw, but not a detriment to the video's quality. Though that's just me personally.(Though here's a question I have Exo. What do you think of Sly 4?)
I think he made a joke.
Arcaedon Luminos IDK if it was a joke per say but even if it was then it was hard to tell for me. Sorry, I can't exactly tell easily with text if somebody's joking or not.
They don't have to put "LOL" but some kinda cue would make it easier for me to tell.
IDK, I guess that's just how my brain works. It's why I can't get into dry humor because it would just be hard for me to get the joke without a little context.
God damn it, Maybe I should take the video down and re upload
J's Reviews No, you don't have to. It was perfect the way it was.(BTW I re-shared the video on Twitter.)
I love this review, but I gotta point out one mistake you made. You asked why Le Paradox’s time machine didn’t need to use artifacts from other time periods like the Cooper Gang’s. It does. The game establishes that Le Paradox collects/steals such things, and runs that shady museum to flaunt it. He already had all the artifacts he needed before he even started time traveling. That’s why the one guard had the old sheriff badge on him; it was from Le Paradox’s collection. My guess is that he probably forgot to put it away when putting the artifacts away, and he unfortunately (for him) dropped it. During Bentley’s segment of the museum heist in the opening, you can see plans for Le Paradox’s blimp on a chalkboard. The place where his artifacts were being stored is pointed out. Other than that, love this review, and totally agree with you on this game
Good point. I guess that would be the reason he’d open the museum in the first place.
I feel like I'm the only person who really likes this game who DOESN'T feel like this video is a personal attack on me
I also liked it
I feel like they could have written Penelope as villain better. Instead of just making her evil for the sake of a twist, maybe she doesn’t disappear and stays to support and Bentley and Sly from the present. Later, she could end up as villain due to the whole fight against Dr. M. Correct me if I’m wrong, but Dr.M felt the Cooper clan was “self-centered” and he felt he didn’t get the rewards or recognition he deserved for helping Sky’s father. What if Penelope instead felt cautious about Sly? What if she was worried that Sly would possibly throw Bentley to the side like Dr M. (Supposedly) was. She didn’t spend that much time with the gang in three, so she may not recognize how much Sly actually valued his team. Maybe Paradox could have manipulated her into trying to stop Sly (not kill him), but would later recognize her mistake. Again, I’m just spit balling here, but I think it makes more sense than a sudden urge for world domination.
You're thinking exactly what I was thinking, even down to Dr. M's taunts about Sly taking advantage of Bentley. It could have even fitted with Penelope's arc from the 3rd game, where she was at first enameled by Sly, but then came to appreciate Bentley for his intelligence.
That, and I think Penelope should have deserved a redemption, for the sake of Bentley and the gang. The gang trusting her, and Bentley loving her amounts to nothing when they decided that she actuly never was into any of it. She is totally incompatable with them in the fourth game, so the evens of the third game make no sense.
As much as I loved playing Sly 4, I would still consider it my least favorite of the series.
I enjoyed the cutscenes, some of the gameplay, the world designs, and the return of fan favorite items such as Clue Bottles and treasures, but the loading screens, the SixAxis Controls, plus the ending that they left us off with were what really killed my interest in the game.
Also the plot was too cartoony for my liking and not dark like past iterations of the game. I feel like this plot has a Sly 3 problem. It was a good idea, but it was setup the wrong way. Instead of Sly willingly coming back to the gang because of his old itch, have him be reluctant to come back because of Carmelita, and only through Bentley telling him what happens that he rejoins the gang.
Plus, Sly seems too chill about everything happening around him. Make him more serious and maybe even angry towards everything happening would develop his character some. His family's history being erased, Carmelita toying with his emotions flirting with the other Cooper ancestors to get back at him for lying to her, Le Paradox constantly escaping his grasp would continue to build up anger in him. It's only when Le Paradox threatens Carmelita's life that pushes Sly towards being willing to kill Le Paradox in cold blood rather than in justice would be a cool way of showing how much this journey changed him, with the gang and even Carmelita worried about his change in personality. And maybe that hate Sly was feeling towards Le Paradox is the setup for a certain Robotic Owl returning, still filled with vengeance over the Cooper lineage.
I hate that like Bentley doesn’t explain to carmelita what was going on and how they are involved with the thievius racoonus and stuff just to make her less intolerable in this game...but I think that just all revolves back to Sly’s “motives” in this story anyway
I'm shocked you didn't make a furry joke when you were talking about Carmelita doing that belly dance. I mean, can we all agree furries influenced the developers to make that exist?
I feel like 90% of Carmelita R34 is her belly dancing outfit, and the developers probably knew which explains some adult humor added to her this game.
I think 4's premise had potential, focusing on Sly's ancestors made sense- especially after we got little synopses about their lives as we walked through their respective sections of the Family Vault in 3 (which itself was an extension of what we learned from 1 every time we got a piece of the Thievius Raccoonus when we completed a chapter or opened a safe that unlocked a new move). Like you said, that's been an underlying theme throughout the franchise. 1 was about properly connecting to his family legacy he was robbed of, 2 was about making sure his family nemesis stayed gone never to rise again, and 3 was about reclaiming the last bit of his heritage and to be humbled by the unsung part of his family past and moving forward with his life to be more than one heist after another. It was a great idea to make the 4th game about how his family got to where it is now- the issue was just in its execution. It could have elaborated on the family we already know about, what their contributions to the Thievius Raccoonus were and how they further perfected the art of master thievery and their ongoing battle with Clockwerk and how he progressively stripped himself of his humanity both in body and mind (it was kind of a shame he was never once mentioned in the game despite how integral he is to their family history). However, that would have easily come off as an Assassin's Creed rip-off, and they couldn't just make the game about Sly's ancestors, fans come to the game for Sly, and that would still leave Bently and Penelope as a loose end. It couldn't have just been Bently going back in time to document Sly's Ancestors in more detail either because then we wouldn't have a conflict, it would just be Sly's Ancestors doing what they already did with Bently along for the ride- they kind of had to work in the time travel abuse plot or else let that be a loose end or a conflictless presence that adds nothing. It seemed to be a no-win situation. How would you have done the story instead?
I do not think Sly Cooper was a jerk in this game. It is understandable that he would have an itch to go back to being a thief (it is literally in his blood). Plus, you can not have a Sly game without him being a thief. He wanted to give it a shot to be with Carmelita, and played cop for (I'm assuming) a couple years. Why is he the jerk when he gave up everything to try to be with Carmelita? She had not done the same for him until this installment when she was forced to be on this journey. Through this game she gained (she even says it herself in a cutscene) new respect for Cooper and realized her and him have been doing the same things just on opposite sides of the law. And the belly dancing mini-game is fanservice - not fan fiction. I took it as a joke and it was a rather comedic moment. Albeit, I was surprised when I had to shake the controller to move her hips.
It is quite simple. Sly gave up everything because Sly 3 was a game about legacy and the destructive power it can have. Sly cut off the Cooper Legacy once and for all. So to have his character do what he did and then throw that away because the old itch came back is a slap in the face to the story of Sly 3. Sly becomes a jerk because of the fact that he tells Carmelita that he had to be a thief again because the future depended on it, when that is a complete lie. He was already going to rob that museum because the old itch came back, and then Bentley happened to tell him about the timeline, which added a moral angle to his actions. But Sly needs to be a thief for there to be a game? Agreed. And the old itch came back is the laziest way they could have possibly done it. Imagine a story that plays out like this...Sly wants nothing to do with his old life, until he hears about the time stream being in trouble and NEEDS to be a thief again...not actually wanting to do it. So now, when Carmelita says Sly is a liar, she is wrong because when he says he did it for the future, he actually is telling the truth, she just doesn't believe him. I just heightened the emotional drama by cutting one line from the script. Carmelita realizing that they were always on the same side is fine, but the drama is dead in the water because he is still lying to her when they meet in the Old West. We don't know how much time passes between 3 and 4, the game never says, we cannot assume it either way. Never says what Sly did in that time, so we can't assume. And...why would Carmelita need to give up her lifestyle? She was the one in the right for the entire series.
@@JsReviews Sly did say in a cutscene that he was acting on the other side of the law when he was with Carmelita. Which I guess is him being a cop. And assuming the time gap is not that bad of a thing. It’s just a guess since nothing is definitive. It just seemed that a decent amount of time had passed since Bentley did a lot with Penelope. But I agree with you that taking away that itch line could have added more weight to Sly having to go back to thieving to save the future. However, I don’t think its inclusion destroys the whole plot nor would its exclusion drastically change anything. It would just help a bit.
Thanks for the reply though. Did not think you would. I appreciate your enthusiasm for the series and can tell it means a lot to you. I’m new to the franchise. As a kid I grew up primarily with Jak & Daxter/Ratchet & Clank on PS2. It was not until now that I’m 21 that I went through the Sly series. Through my time with the games I saw the storyline as a cartoon series that never took itself super serious (except when needed). Which is to why I thought the writing quality was mostly consistent between all games. I even platinumed Sly 4. I enjoyed my time with the games, from beginning to end, and hope a fifth one will eventually release :)
One thing kinda sad about this game story wise is if you think about it, all of his ancestors that you play as and maybe begin to like (although maybe not they weren't written very well) are going to be killed by clockwerk probably soon. Since you can see easter eggs of clockwerk in the hubs as easter eggs, it means that they're already being hunted, so it is only a matter of time for them.
I'm a bit late to this video, but we'll done friend; this review is sickeningly accurate, and I love it.
Rest In Peace Sly.
On an unrelated note,
I'm also impressed by how proficient you are at making videos dispite your age. as far as I can tell we both graduated maybe a year apart, yet you're already making a career out of this.
I respect your ambition, and I hope you achieve your dreams friend!
Have a wonderful day everyone, best wishes ;)
This is the first Sly game I played on my Vita, will never regret it.❤
I always kind of secretly thought that Carmelita knew Sly was faking it, and they were both kind of lying to each other to keep the other one happy. I remember coming up with stories for the kids of Sly and Carmelita and Bentley and Penelope, and THEY'D be the ones to continue the legacy, maybe even going back in time Cursed Child style. (Though not the best comparison...but I was 13.) I had also never heard of Thieves in Time until 2015 or so. I think my brother fell out of the series, and I followed after. Kinda glad Sly 3 was "the end" of the series for me.
I just hate the art style of this game it’s so fucking ugly they made sly look so bad and carmelita literally everyone looks flat just like the story, thats the worst thing they could ever do was change the comic art style from Sly 2 and 3
Yeah I'm looking back on the game's art style and once you get passed the bright lights and all that, the characters... They didn't translate well to the 3D style. They look very awkward and they were better off continuing with the cartoony comic style that was present in Sly 2 and Sly 3.
Like, this game could have been the perfect opportunity to bring back Clockwerk and have Sly actually assist his family through the ages, possibly culminating in Sly helping himself from the first game, with the final boss once again being Clockwerk.
They could have really played on the same things that made the Panda King section of Sly 3 feel memorable, but instead they just wrote fanfiction.
Sad.
Or have him go to when his parents or about to die and decide not to change the past because he would have never met his brothers Murray and Bently after the event. Theres alot of wasted potential
@@Pooky1991 if they ever make Sly 5 I hope this happens. Or at least Sly meeting his father in some way.
The line where sly gets the itch to pull a heist doesn't need to be there theres already a tool to pull the plot foward and give sly a reason to get back with the gang and that's the book knowledge starting to the disappear
And this is why we need Sly 5.
And tis is why we don' need fukin cliffhanga's
You mean ... we need *SLY 4* ... this game should not pass as sly 4 lol.
@@Therworldtube imo the cliffhanger would've only been alright if they had announced that they'll make Sly 5 beforehand. Now it just looks like they'll leave him in ancient Egypt forever
Really? The Cutscenes are by far the best in this game. Its so fluid and bright and fun to watch.
Not gonna lie, I actually really liked thieves in time because of how we got to play as the cooper ancestors and we got to see what kind of lives they lives. Honestly if they just implemented it better the game would have been worthy of the sequel everyone wants
Not even close. Not only did they choose the most boring of his ancestors, they hardly managed to make them feel different from Sly, when you think about the technology and knowledge of the fandoms wishes that they have, this was a freaking dumpster fire both storywise and gameplay.
The ONE positive thing I will give it, is that they brought back the clue bottles from the first two games.
I managed to get through it one time, and one thing is for sure, it'll never happen ever again.
@@casperryborg4869 I'm not saying it's the greatest game in the series. heck, it's not even close. I'm just saying that it had potential and if they implemented the ideas better and made the ancestors feel more unique, then we might have had something.
I hate to see videos about the sly cooper franchise, not because they are bad, but because they remind me that it`s probably over and never had an ending to it that satisfied me
Mediocre game that had no business existing. I'll give Sanzaru credit for wanting to continue Sly but after 8 years, we get a bland and unispired plot that's a huge step down in writing quality compared to the trilogy which appealed to all ages and had a slight edge to it and to make it worse, Sly 5 isn't happening and the story that was nicely tied fine in Sly 3 is stupidly set in limbo because Sanzaru were fools thinking they had Sly PS3 trilogy on their hands.
Amen
At this point, Sly is better off getting rebooted similar in vein to the 2016 Ratchet and Clank reboot or at least getting a cartoon show.
Rotcodfo% It a good game don't get me wrong but story is not good.
J Man I got people telling me that sly 5 is coming, they been working on since 3 years. My guess we might seen it at PSX.
To be honest, Sly 3 had its stupid moments as well;
Doctor M spending billions on Kaine Island to legally own it when he's a THIEF
Doctor M spending more millions on equipment and fake canes to get into the Cooper Vault when it takes Carmelita a couple of seconds to find a back door to the vault and get in using her ($800?) shock pistol.
Murray and his "training" phase
Carmelita always being able to find out where Sly and his gang are
The guru being a wise voodoo master but doesn't actually use his powers to escape until Bentley comes along and tells him to do so
The whole "mask" thing...
Penelope needing the Cooper gang to defeat her in a dogfight in order to join the team because..."honour"?
The Cooper Van conveniently ending up in China when it was in Canada
Dmitry getting cruise tickets to a "forbidden" and "secret"... Pirate island?
Needing to get Dmitry's old diving gear when they can easily get newer and far better diving gear
Yet despite all this, I still think that Sly 3 was a proper ending to the Sly series; Cooper finally leaves behind his life of crime to pursue Carmelita, Bentley and Penelope have a wonderful relationship, Murray finally finds his true peace and finds success in racing, and the rest of the Cooper gang also find success and happiness in their own lives. What I think makes many fans mad about Sly 4, therefore, is that it ruins this perfect ending just to milk in more money (like Disney is doing with Star Wars).
if you think about it, le Paradox had a museum full of artifacts from diferent time periods, so his time machine could have the same limitation as bentley's but he would be prepared
I just discovered your channel and I’ve watched all four Sly reviews, and I gotta say you’re an incredible reviewer. Regarding Sly 4, I agree with basically everything you said, but for some reason I still love playing it. I find the gameplay really satisfying, and Japan, England and the Wild West are my favourite hub worlds in the whole series. While I hate the story and some of the writing, I get so much enjoyment out of just messing around in the hub worlds (except for the Ice Age. I hate that world lol). Also wanna say that I love the idea of Penelope as a villain, but the execution was horrible. I’d rank the games like this: 2, 3, 4 and 1. I love Sly 2 just as much as you😉 I’m really impressed by these videos. Definitely gonna check out more of your game reviews.
I disagree. I got it: 2, 4, 1, 3
That's the only one I played,i really like it when I was a child in my ps vita, maybe I play the other ones one day,i just dunno where to get those, they are on ps4 or something?
@@junpei6180 If you still have your vita the collection is available there
@@TerrorOfTalos oh cool,i may check it out then
sameeee
This is video summarises all of the faults I can think of for Sly Cooper: TIT, I grew up with the original Sly trilogy, I remember it being one of the first games I ever played at the age of 5 back in 2003.
I was so excited when I heard about Sly 4, my nan and I were big fans of the series (she was more of a Naughty Dog fan but she also loved Sucker Punch's games) and we often discussed how cool it would've been for Sly to time travel and see his ancestors after Bentley's monologue at the end of Honour Amongst Thieves, or for some sort of 'next generation of the Cooper line' game where old enemies of Sly and Carmelita force Sly to reveal his family legacy to his children who end up having to become master thieves to save their family etc.
We were always on our toes, looking for the next snippet of news from Sanzaru, every E3 show, every Pax show, I remember being so sad when the game's release date kept being pushed back, but we both felt so excited about this being sort of good news, maybe it would mean the game would be even better when it was released.
When the game finally came out, I finished it in two sittings whilst I was in the middle of doing my mock exams for high school, I felt so let down by Sanzaru, the game felt like awful fanfiction, heck, I even thought that I, at the age of 15 could have written a better plotline which didn't demean the characters and hang off of coincidence. That and the ending, all of the previous games ended in a way that was satisfying, a way in which a sequel wouldn't have been needed to tie off open ends, this felt like a money-grabbing slap in the face for a DLC that never came.
Also, the lack of decent marketing for this game from Sony was also a big factor in why it had poor sales, it's no wonder why a sequel never occurred.
Hopefully, a remake of the original trilogy and maybe perhaps a game that ignores the 4th game could fix Sanzaru's mistakes.
And I'd like to point out how the 2D animated cut scenes are comparable in feel and aesthetic changes the same way dragon ball Z and dragon ball super look.
Dragon ball super looks a little bit too cheeky in comparison, and the art style has been rounded out very slightly from its original look, which felt a lot sharper.
The same applies here.
Another thing I do like is if you look hard enough in most of the episodes you can see clockwerk in the background which I find to be a nice touch Bc tbh I was kinda worried he would show up out of nowhere for a fight but thankfully just background cameo
I'm sorry, so many of your issues seem arbitrary to me. Yes the writing
is a bit of a mess, and your points about segregation of gameplay and
story were solid, but frankly I don't think the needing an object from
the era is an inherently shitty idea. It does lead to a lot of
convenient coincidences, but I think the concept is cool, and this game
is basically a playable cartoon in a series where the original villain
literally used hatred to make himself immortal in your touted second
entry. Complaining about the villains in this entry is utterly
ridiculous to me. All Sly villains aside from Clockwerk and Neyla feel
like filler characters to me honestly, even Dmitri. Good filler
characters, but filler characters. None of them are particularly special
and all of them are memorable only for weird character quirks if that.
The villains in Sly 4 are no objectively worse than the villains in the
earlier games. I also think these are the best looking cutscene
animations in the series bar none, but those are my opinions.
Furthermore, there are PLENTY of games where the hero defeats the boss
at the end of a chapter but the villains still succeed in like taking
something they needed (i.e. the Canes) so that their plans can progress
while the heroes still think they have victories under their belt. It's
formulaic and repetitive, but Sly 4 is FAR from the only game to do it.
The real issue is that the canes were little more than trophies to
Paradox, while they probably should have served a more interesting
function to him. Also "Sly controls worse?" Wtf are you talking about -
he controls exactly the fucking same as he always did. The whole game
handles exactly like the original three. I think from a moment to moment
gameplay standpoint it's incredibly solid. Also, you're so concerned
about things "making sense" but you're upset that the heavy japanese
armor makes Sly walk slowly? The costumes are balanced fine - if all of
them handled like his standard attire but with an extra ability then
there's be no point to wearing the standard attire. I'm also a bit
baffled by your difficulties with it since I honestly found it to be by
far the easiest entry in the series. Lastly the bit about "shamelessly
borrowing imagery from previous entries" was laughable. Sly goes on
heists. That's what he does. There are only so many variants of "the
heist" archetype. Not to mention half the clips you showed were just
basic gameplay mechanics. How the fuck is that borrowing imagery? You
could do the same side-by-side with ANY game franchise lol.
+ThrillingDuck … The time travel items is only. A problem because it doesn't make sense and is barely explained, watch TGX's review for more info on how to do it right. Saying Cooper is a cartoon doesn't really
Mean much, bad writing is just that. Sly 2's climax doesn't make any sense, did not say it did. In Sly 2 every villain was important to the whole, Dimitri sold the spice, Rajan made it, the contessa added the Hypnotic stuff, Bison shipped it across the globe, and captured the northern light energy. All of them are important. I never said anything about objectivism here, I just don't think these villains are effective. The issue with the team losing isn't that they do, it's that they don't learn anything which makes it really frustrating, in the Empire Strikes Back when Leia and company fail to rescue Han, do they shrug their shoulders and say "oh well we will try again some other time." No it was a serious moment, as it also was when Sly and the gang lost the clockwerk parts in chapter 7 of Sly 2. While playing Sly 4 is the same, since button inputs is the same, but the character just has far more weight to him which creates a difference in the feel of the game. I had on screen footage showing me failing to connect with objects I would have had no trouble with before so I wasn't invalid there, also in a gameplay context, being fun matters more than logic, however when you have a story that takes itself as seriously as this game, logic matters. The samurai armor isn't fun. , what reason would you use the standard attire? Well if all the costumes were good than there wouldn't be one other than the rail sprint which is perfectly fine a reason. Also I said I enjoyed playing this game despite some of the more annoying missions. That and Sly 3 is the hardest game in the series, I didn't say 4 was. As for borrowed imagery, when did Sly travel on a pipe under a train in Sly 1 & 3? When a musician shoot musical beams at you in Sly 1 & 2? When did you use the paraglider to go up a current in 1 & 3? When did you go down on a rope into a museum in 1 & 3? Where was the low camera angle as you beat the boss in 2 & 3? It's specific elements borrowed to look like Sly when closer inspection would reveal just how inconsistent the story telling is with the other games. I don't see the laughable part, I see you failing to see the point ;)
I see your point about the Death Star bit and I'll admit that's valid (though still a thing plenty of other games have done), but you could easily have shown random images of Sly climbing generic poles or using the paraglider to simply glide, you could show him pickpocketing and taking out guards, you could show the player playing as Bentley, Murray and Carmelita in general and it would have the same effect, and those ARE things he does in almost every game. You still picked images arbitrarily to demonstrate your point while ignoring other things that happen in every game - that's not me missing the point, that's you cherry-picking ;)
Also the thing about the villains in Sly 2 is true, but the villains were all separate in Sly 1 and 3. Gosh, guess Sly 3 was copying Sly 1!
ThrillingDuck Well in Sly 1 they were part of a team albeit not necessarily friends, but in Sly 3 every chapter was self contained. I understand sly 4 has moments all it's own, but what I'm saying is that certain things were put in to give that Sly feeling, the examples you are using are more broad than the ones I used. In regards to that, one area I did drop the ball on, where some bigger ones, as opposed to the low camera angle in boss, I should have said that Clockwerk in Sly 1 and Le paradox essentially have the same plan
It's fine, I just didn't hate Sly 4 like most longtime fans I guess. Some of these things are just agree to disagree on. I didn't think the samurai armor was unfun for example, just because you never have to use it for long consecutive stretches and the goofy walking animation made up for the slow walking speed in my eyes. I definitely think there are elements of the story that could've been done much better, but I really didn't feel like its overall quality was lower than the other games. The ending was by far the shittiest part to me. I also really truly felt like Sly's handling was exactly the same as in previous entries when I played it. I never had responsiveness issues with the controls either, like not once, but people do experience different small glitches in modern games.
What I would've dug as a plot was Penelope being a part of the team at the start, then be behind it all in a similar fashion to Neyla in Sly 2, ranting about how Bentley's time machine could be making them bundles of cash from stealing 'lost' treasures before they go missing, when he's committed to purely historical research. Before the plot starts, she heads back in time searching for a crew more willing to help her pull off such heists, figuring the old Coopers were less wrapped up in being the good guys and beating up monsters like Clockwerk, and more focused on the thieving itself. Of course, Galleth the honorable dragon slayer is the wrinkle in the fold, so she uses his time period as her base of operations to solidify her control. The other Coopers wonder where he's gone, resulting in her fallback plan. Then the REAL reason she's having them swipe those pieces for the time machine is to add a bit of extra profit on top of her stack, while giving them busy work so they don't have the down time to put the pieces together.
The final boss felt good at the time because you got to have a real-deal equal terms fight with the guy, but I would've rather had some deeper combat overall that would've made for a naturally even final fight. If he's been messing with the Coopers, who's to say he didn't steal some of their moves along the way to use against you? All the powered up Cooper ancestor abilities in one character like *you* probably wanted all game, swiping Sly's legacy out from under him as a final insult to injury.
I will agree that Sly 4 is definitely the weakest in the series. In fact, I doubt I would have beaten it if it wasn't for the fact that I was playing through it with a friend so I had someone to suffer with. That being said: I agree with this guy, the gameplay was pretty good even though the story was insulting. Sly WAS just a shell of his former self, all the other characters took a back seat to Sly (which the closest that ever came in the original trilogy was in 1 and a big part of that was because you were always playing as Sly). I think the worst part about the story was the fact that the Cooper gang didn't need to do anything to find where to go next. If you remember in Sly 2 and 3 (the first one they literally spoon-fed Sly on where to go next) the Cooper gang had to do research to figure out where to go next, whether it was doing favors to figure out where to find the first Claww gang member is, or finding where a specialist that could get them into the Cooper Vault might be, but in this one they just happen to come across what they need when they need it. Also if you're writing a story and you have your main character say the words "As luck would have it" to transition from point a to point b on multiple occasions, you have failed as a writer.
Err...you might wanna take those rose tinted glasses off, atleast about the second game and the whole finding the first claw gang member. Bently were only able to find it because his contacts knew about it..."As luck would have it"
Think about Neyla that tries to apprehend Sly in the national history museum, you complain that in the 4th game they happen to find whatever they need, but that is nothing compared to the leap of logic the second game makes.
So, you have followed the Tiger to the back door of Dimitris nightclub, and she gives you the fking key to the backdoor.
Think about that, just before that, bently specifically states that it is a pain in the ass to get to the wings, however, bently is an explosives expert, sly, the first time he does a recon run, finds a safe entryway, where all they actually need to do is blow those iron bars away, have murray bend them enough for sly to squeeze through, or follow the plan that bently had made BEFORE they ever got their hands on that key.
It makes no sense whatsoever, Bently is not even suprised, he seemingly just stick to the original plan, where they are entirely reliant on a REPAIR TRUCK...WITH A HARPOON GUN MOUNTED! "As luck would have it" (How many repairtrucks/auto service vehicles have you seen with A HARPOON GUN?!)
The writers on that game were competent enough to dodge outright mentioning that the gang coincidentally got lucky, but fact of the matter is that they were VERY lucky.
If that Tiger had not managed to get assigned to that specific task, she could not have dropped a clue to the gang either.
And "As luck would have it" she were able to keep track of the gang all the way from Egypt to Paris.
That means that either Interpol is corrupt, incompetent, or enjoying sending random staff halfway across the planet, at great expense, despite the officer in question failing the task she were in Egypt to complete.
Another "As luck would have it" moment is that our little Tiger girl shows up for the dance in India, WITH CARMELITA, what an "As luck would have it" moment that is.
Carmelita just happened to have the same partner from assigned in the same country that she happened to be from.
Despite that Carmelita, after catching Dimitri, "As luck would have it" goes to India before the cooper gang, seeing as they decide to have a week of vacation in Monaco.
This suggests Carmelita is becoming convinced the Claw gang is behind the theft, provided this is the case, why would she even go? Dimitri is a hardened criminal and probably clever enough to keep his mouth shut about all his criminal operations and hire a few lawyers. So what made her realize the claw gang had stolen the clockwerk parts?
She is after all obsessed about a certain racoon.
And there were not much of a trace of the clockwerk parts after the Cooper gang had run off with them and making the leap of logic that the specific money print plates that were stolen from Dimitri were clockwerk parts is quite a "As luck would have it" moment.
Just because you can hide the contrived "As luck would have it" nonsense in plain sight through a character that only exist to make the story, despite her character probably being one of the weakest of the entire cast, the entire story ends up revolving around her.
And the final "As luck would have it" moment is the end cut scene, all of a sudden they realize that the "hate chip" is a thing and that if they destroy it, everything is sunshine and rainbows forever.
Why the fuck did they not do that the first time? Did Carmelita seriously have better intel then Bently? That microchip is probably the most study bit of electronics in the world, and at the end of the day, also one of the most advanced pieces of technology.
Quite a "As luck would have it" moment that clockwerk could create Microchips, a few hundred years before the "present day"(IE 2000-2005ish) AND CODE ACTUAL EMOTIONS INTO IT!
Actually...thinking about it, that might be some obtuse joke about the PS2 CPU being called the "emotion engine"
Want me to rip the third game to pieces aswell?
@@Elenrai holy shit,you have alot of good points
+Agar combo That is what happens when you see people say silly stuff on the internet about a game you are already playing on PCSX2, you have all the delicious facts on hand.
Generally when people complain about writing for the "franchise" reboots I very often get a bit annoyed because I can still boot up the classics and do comparisons like this.
Bad writing, terrible plot, time travel.Basically the basics of all fuck ups...also, no Clockwerk
Sucker Punch would have handled Sly 4 much better than whatever Sanzaru pulled, Ever since I heard about Sanzaru buying Sly I immediately knew that this wasn't going to end well.
Would you say that Ghost of Tsushima is a better successor to Sly Cooper than Sanzaru's Sly 4? (There's even some sly gear like the sword kit that's description echoes Murray's "knowing neither friend or foe, only destruction" quote).
Also another idea be a part the future might be, that Arpeggio had a secret female parrot girlfriend named Santana, the break up was unknown, but she ends up becoming obsessed with the paranormal and supernatural, and plan not just to bring back the Mask of Dark Earth, but create more, yes, masks of Dark Earth.
Hey! Great review. I enjoyed it a lot and 55minutes went by fast.
MR. Gooselake Thanks!! This video means a lot to me so I'm glad you liked it!
Actually timespace is a concept that's been around for awhile. That's one of the few things the game got right. A black hole shoots you through time and space, otherwise it wouldn't be able to get you there faster than light. Now how an object can pinpoint what part of time they're going for...well that's an issue all its own lol
I just want a modern remaster of the original trilogy, i want it to be re-experienced on the PS4/PS5, everything redone, and make improvements and enhancements to the game where necessary, especially models, textures, effects, animations and visuals in generaland. But of course keeping the original style, feel, appearence, presentation as the original. I love the Comic style of the original trilogy. I want suckerpunch to do it because they’re the creators of sly, and i only trust the OG crew/s of sly can stay faithful and take the necessary care the remastered trilogy needs.
Then if the sales are great, Sony might actually allow is to get a sly 5 or a fixed version of sly 4.
If done correctly, and with the right marketing, with the right release window at a strategic moment, the sly series could gain immense new gains in the form of fans and merchendise revenue, it would insentivise Sony to make put new life into the sly series, some might argue the original trilogy is enough, and i agree, its the 3 part act, and that is great.
However the insentivise would bring new potential to the series and the Sly Cooper Universe.
But our timeline is shit and this will probably and statistically never happen.
I would legit buy a ps5 if they announced a remaster of the trilogy that is everything we loved about the original games but done even even greater and better looking. But to be honest, i see little to no hope for the future for our beloved series.
Ok nostalgic
I like the idea of exploring Sly's ancestors
and Bob is basically just the "forgotten" member
I'm hoping to see more of the once we heard of in Sly 3 in Sly 5
Also there's a reason why Sly 4 ended with a cliffhanger,
it was suppose to get story dlc which got canceled
they also added the time machine line in Sly 3 to keep it open for a sequel
This game could have been done so much better and could have been a system seller but rushed production and shitter adverstsing killed it. There were so many plot holes and shit that just didn't make sense and at the time when I first got this game(Which I skipped school for by the way) I was hype blind cause I wanted this game so badly.
Hell I even sent Sanzaru some fan ideas for the game and they sent back a complimentary T-shirt saying thank you. So I didn't wanna hate this game either but dammit did they fuck up and the fact they left us on ANOTHER CLIFFHANGER just feels like a slap in the face
I don’t really care about things that “dont make sense”, like the time travel. Its a cartoony game, they dont have to give us an believable explanation for how stuff like that works. But the writing and story is unforgivably bad, especially the stuff involving Carmelita/Sly and Penelope. I still have fun with the game itself, but i pretty much always skip the awful cutscenes.
The game (and the cancelled film) is flanderized Saturday Morning Cartoon fodder, especially when thinking about the animated cutscene change. Strangely enough, I’d say that this is what the original trilogy avoided doing due to quality control. It also was grounded in its influences & aesthetic (since the series was the thing that was created by and helped establish Sucker Punch).
I find it sad that Sucker Punch kind of set up this game and also it’s initial failure. Time is always so convoluted as a plot device; add it to the other very poor elements and it feels like bad fanfiction as well :/
As far as the game, I’ve replayed it a few times and have enjoyed it. It’s just aged poorly overall. :/
21:38 Not only that but the boost in confidence after having beaten Lefwee comes right before the reveal that Dr. M was the tech guy for Sly's father. Thus making him even more of a dark parallel for Bentley than Clockwerk was for the Coopers. Dr. M forces them to think about their dynamic, which could be another factor is Sly breaking up the gang. And it shows why this is the Cooper Gang that managed to break the Clockwerk curse-something Sly's father never could with how poorly he treated Dr. M and McSweeney.
I completely agree. Sly 3 was the last good game and it was my favorite. As far as I'm concerned this game does not exist. I did play through it but it was an insulting slap in the face. Like most fans I did not want to hate this game and for a time I did like it but as the years went on and since there was no Sly Cooper 5 in sight that all changed. I don't think it's the worst game ever but out of all four Sly Cooper games it is the lowest on the totem pole. I can honestly say that it did seem like Sanzaru did try but you can tell that this game was made by someone other than the original series creators. I have high hopes that maybe we could get a spy Cooper remake like Crash Bandicoot got or a direct sequel that fixes all the problems with this game, still only time will tell.
I played through the full game once when it was still kinda new,
A few years later (last year) I tried to play through it again, and my disc won't load.
Its in fine condition, haven't left it out of the case, didn't touch it in 4 and a half years and suddenly the disc doesn't wanna load past the main menu.
I'll call it a blessing in disguise.
I myself found Sly 4 to be very enjoyable. The story is a little cheesy and the new animation took some getting used to but I found it to be classic. I loved the expansion of the hub worlds and playing different ancestors of Sly. The humor is fairly good and the cut scenes are dope to me. The villains are dull but I can look past that. I loved that they brought back the hidden bottles. I say that it was worth the wait. If you disagree I won't argue with you. But as someone who has played the franchise since its' inception in 2002, I feel it was a breath of fresh air after a prolonged hiatus. I just want Sly 5 to be made and then I'll be completely satisfied
I could tell Sly Cooper 4 was half assed. When I found out Sucker Punch weren’t doing it. I knew it would not be good.
thieves in time kicked ass.
questions that will kill me until the day I die:
In the black knight fight, right before Bentley comes back, doesn't sly foot get CRUSHED BY A GIANT METAL THING?! and if so, HOW IS HE STILL WALKING?! Shouldn't... um, ya'know HIS FOOT BE SHATTERED IN PIECES? HOW IS HE NOT IN PAIN?!
49:47 i think your disk is scratched my guy
Back when I played it in like 2014, I knew it felt off and unlike the original trilogy I had no real desire to replay it
I truth they changed Penelope because they couldn't stand have more than one strong female character.
Nowhere near as good as 2 and 3 but I still found it more enjoyable than 1. My biggest problem with 4 is the cliffhanger ending with no sequel
I didn't think the change from animatics to limited animation was a bad one, and I thought the 2D designs were fine. What I didn't like was the 3D character design changes or translations to this game. It also pissed me off that Carmelita's trademark outfit was switched out to a miniskirt for no reason. She's supposed to be a takes-no-shit-from-anyone, combat boot wearing, shock pistol wielding bad ass! Not a giggling anime princess in a frilly skirt. She was the 'sexy' love interest character in the other games without gratuitous furry fanservice and panty shot potential... so it seemed way too on the nose in this game. Borderline cringe zone.