Highlights
- The Sly Cooper series is known for its stealth and puzzle-solving gameplay, unlike other platformers that focus on combat and action.
- The first game in the series, Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus, laid a foundation for the series with its charming art style and characterizations, but it's vastly different and clunky compared to its successors.
- Sly 2: Band of Thieves is considered the crown jewel of the series, with major additions such as stealth attacks and pickpocketing, playable companions, and extensive open world environments.
The Sly Cooper series, a beloved mainstay of the PS2 era, follows a thieving raccoon and his band of technicolour animal mates as they pull off a host of daring heists. The brainchild of Sucker Punch Entertainment (and later, co-developed by Sanzaru Games), Sly occupies a place in the holy trinity of Sony platformers; shared by Jak, Daxter, Ratchet, and Clank. Unlike those series, which prioritise frenetic combat and explosive action, Sly's adventures favour stealth and puzzle-solving.
The games' whip-smart writing and tense burgling have won them a place in the industry as critical darlings, and to this day Sly enjoys a vibrant, dedicated fanbase. Yet, with four mainline adventures under his cane-toting belt, which one is the best? And how do they fare against one another? Slap on your thief masks – it's time to find out.
Updated on November 8, 2023, by Bobby Mills: With Sly Cooper's 20th anniversary having passed, and rumours of a fifth instalment continuing to swirl, we thought the time was right to rejig this list (removing its dependence on Metacritic, to boot).
This is now our personal ranking; and with its platforming bedfellows Ratchet and Crash getting so much attention of late, we would love to see the Sly series receive similar love. Pop your Binocucom on, and read on!
4 Sly Cooper And The Thievius Raccoonus
- Release date: September 23, 2002
- Platform: PS2
Sly Cooper shuffled his ring-tailed way onto the world stage in 2002 with the series first title, Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus. That's a mouthful and a half, to start. While it's by no means a bad game, and laid a rock-solid foundation in terms of characterisation and artstyle (it positively drips with a cel-shaded, Saturday morning cartoon vibe), it's so vastly and clunkily different to its fantastic successors that it can't really be judged in the same league.
The Thievius Raccoonus is an ancient familial Cooper text, used to guide up n' coming thieves in the ways of all things pilfering. Before young Sly can receive the book, however, his father is murdered by 'The Fiendish Five,' villains led by the mechanical bird Clockwerk, who rip the tome into multiple parts. Not the best childhood for our protagonist, all things considered.
Your journey, then, begins ten years later. Sly assembles his friends - Bentley, the hyper-intelligent turtle, and Murray, the brawny (but not so bright) hippo - and heads off on a globetrotting quest to recover the pages. All the way, he's pursued by the hotheaded Inspector Carmelita Fox, who he has a bit of a crush on – not that he'd ever admit it.
You'll match wits with the likes of Sir Raleigh Frog and The Panda King, which is all well and good; the trouble is, it's in service of a mediocre Crash Bandicoot clone. In contrast to the open worlds the series would become known for, these stages are linear corridors with floaty physics and a one-hit-kill health system. Difficulty spikes, and thus frustration, abound.
3 Sly Cooper: Thieves In Time
- Release date: February 5, 2013
- Platforms: PS3, PSVita
For Sly's first foray into the HD era, Sucker Punch handed the reins to Sanzaru Games, as it was too caught up in developing the latest Infamous instalment. Sanzaru had previously worked on the series in an assistive capacity, and had headed the remasters of the first three PS2 titles for The Sly Collection on PS3 and Vita. Hence, they were no strangers to the universe, and picked up the slack most admirably.
Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time hit shelves a whopping eight years after the previous mainline entry, Sly 3; but the wait was, more or less, worth it. As the title perhaps would indicate, Sly and the gang are facing a threat from across the temporal plane. Bentley has been spending the time since Sly 3 constructing a time machine, only for its plans to be stolen by one Cyrille Le Paradox, curator of a famous Parisian museum.
Le Paradox's grandfather, it transpires, was once humiliated by one of Sly's ancestors during a big heist – and so Cyrille intends to travel back to steal all the Cooper family's canes. In doing so, he'll render them a laughingstock and ensure the Thievius Raccoonus is never written. Obviously, Sly and company can't have that, so it's off to the races to travel to various time periods and thwart Le Paradox's goons.
Gameplay-wise, this is every bit as competent a follow-up as you could ask for. Sly and his compatriots handle like a dream, and for the first time, Carmelita (up until now an occasional novelty in scripted segments) is a fully-fledged selectable character. Likewise, the Cooper ancestors you meet are a blast to play as – special mention goes to the Western Tennessee Cooper, who rocks a shotgun in his cane.
Sly 4 is sadly let down by some narrative and character failings, however. Murray seems to have forgotten all of his maturation since the trilogy, regressing to the brainless overeater he was in Sly 1. Bentley's squeeze Penelope is revealed to be working for Le Paradox, which not only undoes Bentley's (well-earned) happy ending but is justified only very flimsily. And, worst of all, the game ends on a tragic cliffhanger that has yet to be resolved, as Sly is lost in a time vortex and wakes up in Ancient Egypt. Sly 5 beckons, hopefully.
2 Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves
- Release date: September 26, 2005
- Platform: PS2
It's a very close race between Sly 2 and 3. So perfect was the formula that the second game established that the threequel does very little to iterate on it. It's the very definition of 'more of the same'; the uninitiated would have a difficult time telling 2 and 3 apart from screenshots. But hey, like they say, if it ain't broke...
Sly 3 deals with Sly finally discovering his family's wealth, locked away in a vault on an isolated island. Only trouble is, he's been beaten to it by the dastardly Dr. M, who believes he has a right to the treasure (by technicality) and spends the majority of the game attempting to blast his way in. To no avail; Sly's cane is the only key that can unlock the vault. It's up to the raccoon and his mates to assemble a larger team good enough to infiltrate the island.
As in Sly 2, you'll once again be navigating sumptuously-designed open worlds and completing jobs that are dizzying in their variety. Will you be impersonating guards with a hilariously awful Italian accent? Knocking over a ferris wheel? Steering an RC car through a labyrinth of lasers? Or - in a standout stage - inciting violence amongst a rival team of pilots to ensure a win in a dogfighting tournament?
The expanded cast is also welcome. Murray's Aboriginal guide, The Guru, lends spiritual assistance; while tech whizz Penelope, still eight years away from her character assassination, brings a range of gadgetry to the table. You never know what wacky mission is around the corner, and Sly 3 excels at keeping your eyes riveted to it for its 20-hour duration. About the only criticism one could muster is that, well, it isn't Sly 2.
1 Sly 2: Band Of Thieves
Release date: September 14, 2004
Platform: PS2
No doubt about it: Sly 2: Band of Thieves is the crown jewel of the series, and cemented its place in the hallowed halls of platforming greatness. Sly 1 was a passable attempt, but this sequel fully realises the concept of being a thief, hopping across rooftops and vanishing without a trace.
Major additions to the formula include stealth attacks, vent crawls, and pickpocketing. After all, how are you to afford the (absurdly expensive) upgrades in the new in-game shop without lightening a few guards' loads?
This time around, Sly's friends are more than just set dressing. Both Bentley and Murray are playable, and deliver wholly unique gameplay experiences. Bentley utilises a ranged dart rifle to put his foes to sleep (and can hack computers), while Murray is best for those times you just don't feel like being stealthy. Guns - and fists - blazing, every time.
The environments, too, are drastically more extensive than they were in the previous title. Gone are the restrictive, A-to-B maps of yesteryear – replaced by open worlds teeming with nooks and crannies to explore, cliffs to swing from, and treasures to squirrel away. Uh, raccoon away...?
It cannot be overstated how much Sly 2's dramatic leap in quality really set it apart from not only the first game, but a lot of its platforming peers. With critical adulation heaped upon it, and highly respectable sales, it was clear that the sticky-fingered procyonid wouldn't be going anywhere. Just don't mention that one mission with the sleeping bears.