Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus review: Cult favourite game still fun after 22 years

It's now playable on the PlayStation 5 and it's giving a whole new generation the chance to experience what made it so special

Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus is enjoying a revival on the PS Plus classics catalogue. Photo: Sony

It’s not easy to say when exactly the golden age of gaming was. For some, it was the Nintendo 64’s height of popularity in the late 1990s, while others might say the boom of online multiplayer gaming of the last 10 years.

Perhaps the safest answer would be the PlayStation 2 era. During this time, the quality of games released on the console kept growing every year. By 2004, four years after the console’s release, some of the most beloved and cherished were released.

The console took everything that made the first PlayStation special and amplified it. With the graphics upgrade and CDs that carried more storage, gaming studios pushed the PlayStation 2 to its absolute limit.

An example of a game that exemplifies the quality of this era is Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus, an action stealth adventure game released in 2002. Developed by Sucker Punch Productions, which has recently made the incredible Ghost of Tsushima, Sly Cooper was not an instant hit but slowly became a game that was whispered about and recommended in school playgrounds around the world.

For its arrival on the PlayStation 5 this month, here’s how Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus measures up today and if it’s still the fun adventure many remember fondly.

Timeless classic

There’s a certain feeling that comes with playing some PlayStation 2 games. Perhaps this is restricted to those, like me, who first experienced them at an age where the imagination was running wild, but it can’t be denied there’s a magic to them.

From the start, it's obvious that the game is going to be a singular experience. Setting the stage in a romanticised version of Paris inhabited by various animals instead of humans, the hero is the titular Cooper, a raccoon who comes from a long line of thieves who steal for good rather than monetary gain. His actions put him in a grey area with the law though so he needs help from his compatriots, a turtle named Bentley and a hippo named Murray, to evade capture.

Then as the target of the game is established, collecting pages from a book, the levels are portrayed as episodes in a cartoon series, each with its own location and final boss. These aren’t necessarily ground-breaking methods, they were definitely used in other games, but in Sly Cooper, they are presented in the most sincere and passionate way possible.

Part of the magic of PlayStation 2 gaming is that developers were trying just about everything to make the game and storytelling better. It didn’t always bear fruit or result in a good game, but the effort and ingenuity are undeniable.

There’s also a sense of intentional wackiness that has become timeless at this point. The type of refined comedy experienced from watching early Looney Tunes cartoons or a Buster Keaton film.

Reliably fun

Many older titles pale in comparison to modern gaming. Retro gaming is alive and well, of course, but beyond the true classics such as Super Mario and Tetris, most older games show their age almost instantly.

Although it's now 22 years old, Sly Cooper is the type of game that can still be enjoyed today. The action and platform traversing has aged well and is suitable for players of all experience. The style of platform gaming in Sly Cooper is the building block of some of today’s biggest adventure games, such as Uncharted.

Platform gaming has not faded away under the mountain of modern gaming either. While certain mechanics can feel outdated, the objective of collecting items, swatting away enemies and battling a final boss is as successful as ever.

Conclusion

Nostalgia is a powerful thing. Often it can also result in disappointment due to the media being not as good as we imagined it to be in our minds. Every now and then though, a piece of media will live to the nostalgia, and remind us of why it was so cherished to begin with.

Playing Sly Cooper on the PlayStation 5 doesn’t feel out of place at all. Sure, the PlayStation 2 logo at the start will bring on a cascade of memories, but once the game starts it feels as new and as fun as the first days of its release.

Retro gaming has been made easier with PlayStation’s PS Plus classics catalogue, and with Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus’s addition to the library, it can be played and remembered or experienced for the first time.