Sly Cooper Is Back On PS5, And I Couldn’t Be Happier

Earlier this month, Sony added its first set of PlayStation 2-emulated titles to its PlayStation Plus service. For the longest time, the only PlayStation 2 titles available through the service were games released in remastered forms, or through PlayStation 3 collections that can only be played through cloud streaming. It’s great to see that proper PlayStation 2 games will be making their way to the service now, allowing gamers to experience titles from Sony’s biggest platform.

One such game that made its way to the service is Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus, and I couldn’t be happier to see it return. Sly Cooper is a franchise that’s incredibly special to me, as this game was one of the first games I ever had for the PlayStation 2. It’s an incredibly underrated platformer franchise that I’ve been screaming out for a revitalization of for years now, and while this is only one small step, it makes me happy to see Sony acknowledge the franchise at all.

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Sly Cooper Is A Special Game

Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus, for those that don’t know, is a PlayStation 2 platformer that was released back in 2002. The original Sly Cooper trilogy was developed by Sucker Punch Productions, the team we now know as the creators of titles such as inFAMOUS and Ghost of Tsushima. While the franchise fell by the wayside a bit in comparison to other PlayStation platformers like Ratchet & Clank and Jak and Daxter, each title in the original trilogy sold well enough to be part of PlayStation’s “Greatest Hits” lineup.

The fourth Sly Cooper game, Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time, was handled by Sanzaru Games, who released it for the PlayStation 3 in 2013. Unfortunately, it didn’t sell very well for Sony, leaving the franchise on a cliffhanger ending that went unresolved when plans for a DLC chapter were canceled. Sony further attempted at separate times to adapt Sly Cooper into a film and a television series, but neither attempt panned out. Thus, the first game’s re-release is the first time Sony has truly acknowledged the franchise in over a decade.

Narratively, Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus centers around Sly Cooper, a thieving raccoon who comes from a long heritage of master thieves. One fateful night, his father, Conner Cooper, is taken down by a murderous group known as the Fiendish Five, who also steal the Cooper family’s most prized possession, the Thievius Raccoonus. An ancient book loaded with thieving secrets that could turn anyone into a master thief; Sly was set to inherit the book on the night his father was killed. After meeting two friends – a turtle named Bentley and a hippo named Murray – at the orphanage he’s dumped at, he sets out to steal back the book, avenge his family’s name, and become a master thief himself.

Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus is a unique entry compared to other platformer titles. Taking control of the titular character, Sly Cooper, the platforming elements are blended with stealth elements, rewarding players for taking a careful approach to defeating enemies. There are still pure action elements, of course, but much of the focus is on taking a stealthy approach to completing levels. The visual style is also unique, taking on a cel-shaded graphical design to give the game a film noir style that still looks great to this day. It’s the complete package of a game, and it still stands tall as one of the best titles on the PlayStation 2.

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The New Definitive Version?

Already, Sly Cooper getting a re-release of any kind on the PlayStation 5 is great to me. It’s nice to be able to fire up a current-gen console and get to play this classic game, especially given that it spent years locked on previous-generation hardware. Yes, there was the PlayStation 3 remaster in The Sly Collection that gamers could cloud stream on the PlayStation 5, but the streaming experience simply doesn’t beat getting to play the game natively. And while the updated visual scheme on the PlayStation 3 does a great job and brings plenty of vibrancy and color, I honestly really enjoyed playing the game in its original PlayStation 2 form; it feels like the remastered version took away a bit of the “cel-shaded” feel of the original release, so it was great to see the game in its originally intended visual style.

Being that this re-release is a straight port of the original PlayStation 2 version, it also manages to avoid one of the pitfalls that the PlayStation 3 collection had: glitches. While Sanzaru Games did a remarkable job bringing the initial Sly Cooper trilogy to the PlayStation 3, the remastered release had its share of odd bugs and glitches. Chief among them in the first game was the Mz. Ruby boss fight, a rhythm-based section that, in the remastered version, was harder to play because the music wasn’t synced correctly. Getting to play this re-released version was the first time in years I was able to play that boss fight the way it was intended, and it was a massive sigh of relief.

This re-released version also has some new features that make the game even better to play. Naturally, there are plenty of unlockable PlayStation trophies here, and to my own joy, Sony didn’t take the easy way out and simply recycle the trophies from the PlayStation 3 remaster. The fact that there are several new trophies to unlock is a great incentive to replay the game, even if you’re like me and you’ve beaten it countless times.

Furthermore, much like Sony’s re-released titles from the original PlayStation, the rewind feature and save states are available here, which are great for some of the more challenging sections of the game. Even though the game isn’t overwhelmingly difficult, there are more than a few tricky moments, especially in the back end. Having a rewind feature definitely helps with getting past some of those moments.

Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus is by far one of my favorite games. It’s a title that’s incredibly special to me in a franchise that means the world to me. With how underrated the franchise has gone, it always makes me happy when it gets officially acknowledged in some capacity, and seeing it get a proper re-release on the PlayStation 5 is incredible.

What’s more, with the new features afforded by the re-release, along with improvements compared to the previous remaster released on the PlayStation 3, I’d go as far as to call this the best way to play the game. I truly hope its release gets more people on board with the series, and results in a proper new game sometime soon.