Board Thread:Sly Cooper series discussion/@comment-25371179-20150109013313

WARNING really long rant, if u know me then u know i love to rant, tl;dr at the end lol

ALSO if u havent played sly 4 yet there are spoilers so yh here we goo

I've played Sly Cooper for a really long time (probably since before I was 10) and have always been a hardcore fan of it since, mostly because I'm not a huge video gamer. Being a hardcore fan, I always wanted there to be a Sly 4. I got sad that the series seemed to be, well... dead. I was overjoyed when I heard there was a Sly Collection on the PS3, thinking it was still alive, then hearing there would be a Sly 4.

There are video games I enjoy though, of course, and Sly was one of them. I always enjoyed the series because of, well, everything about it! From the story to the style, to the soundtrack to the actors and animations, the romance and the drama, and even some of the more spiritual parts of it (i.e. immortality and vampires, which don't usually interest me). I think it's one of the most underrated series of all time despite it's somewhat large fan base, and I hope the movie can fix that. I also hope a future Sly could fix that... well, kind of.

When I was surprised with Sly 4 a little before Christmas but during my break, it was actually great timing because I had just finished Sly 3 (for like the 50th time - seriously, these games have the best damn replay value, I could never get sick of them) so I was pretty much all ready for Sly 4. I'll admit, I was a little disappointed in it, I felt like the story wasn't that great, I really did not like some of the character changes, I thought the graphic style they were going for was bad, and was it just me or were there some changes in the mechanics? All in all though, it was still a pretty good game. I did learn about the secret ending, with Sly being trapped in Ancient Egypt and that the characters in the universe don't know that, so basically he's trapped in time and missing. A number of things could happen. He could somehow be saved, he could alter the future, he could freakin die, who knows what will happen since there have been no confirmations for a Sly 5 yet lmao. But after I beat Sly 4, it kind of got me thinking deeply about the future of the series, and I got really concerned.

Since the last time I had played the Sly series I was young, I never realized the story deeply. But when I beat Sly 3, I kind of realized: wow, that was supposed to be the ending, wasn't it. I mean sure it didn't end how we expected it to, with the Cooper Gang still united and the Cooper family still continuing, but it sure did end happily. Bentley was with his true love Penelope and they were working on future inventions, Murray was with his true love (the van) and a pro racer, and Sly was with his true love Carmelita, and finally, for the first time, he was on the right side of the law, working for Interpol. He was always on the right side of morality (bringing justice to criminals in his own way), but never on the law since he was still a thief and criminal himself. I had realized: maybe this is how it was supposed to end. There was never intended to be another Sly Cooper video game. And it was honestly a great ending. After all, the Cooper Vault had been destroyed and all the treasures lost (I think?... that was kind of poorly conveyed since there was a part showing a new vault with Bentley and Penelope), so it kind of did seem like the end of the Cooper thief line. All-in-all, I was happy. But then, I remembered there was a Sly 4, and I was wondering: how could it possibly go?

Sly 4 changed a lot of things. Things I have a feeling Sucker Punch would not have done. It is a fictional story after all, and the people with the rights in their hands can do whatever they want to it. And they sure did... they turned Penelope into an evil yet understanding character, broke the relationship between Sly and Carmelita up pretty much (although I guess that was inevitable, Sly being a thief and all...), and - to me, one of the worst parts - "had the" Clockwerk Eye survive?! As much as I would love (as a guilty pleasure) for Clockwerk to "return", I now kind of realize how Sly 2 was "meant to be" his ending, permanentely, and it was a good ending. Here's a really geeky example that I found out when I was watching that new Star Wars trailer. There's this thing in the Star Wars universe called Expanded Universe, and before Disney bought SW, it was canon (or non-canon... WHICHEVER MEANS OFFICIAL, sorry I'm not great at this:$). It was licensed through LucasArts I think. If you ever watched SW, you probably remember the Emperor and how he was killed, which fulfilled that prophecy. I heard there was this story about how the Emperor returned, and it was officially licensed, and most people didn't like it from what I saw since they felt like the last Star Wars movie was meant to be his ending; he wasn't supposed to return. I kinda applied that to Clockwerk. Sly 2 was meant to be his ending; he isn't supposed to return. Of course, SC and SW are totally different, and maybe they could pull off a Clockwerk return, hence why I say I'm more concerned than saying "DONT HAVE HIM RETURN". Clockwerk is just one example though. Take Penelope as one that most of you could connect with probably. Despite the Black Baron, was she meant to be an evil character? "Would that have happened?" I don't know, but it sure did, because that's how Sly 4 went.

Basically, I am concerned that Sly 4 has put the series in a direction it would have never gone in, and that should there be a Sly 5, it will continue to go in a direction it was never meant to go in.

tl;dr summary of the whole thing - I feel like Sly 3 had a solid ending to the series, I always wanted a Sly 4 but by the time I finished it, I realized that it could completely change the series in a direction it wouldn't have gone before, making me nervous about a Sly 5 and anything further in the future.

aight thats it, would appreciate y'alls thoughts, just wanted to express my concerns and see what y'all think about them, i am sorry about the rant, i just get carried away...........

(expect some more discussions in da future, i promise ill try to make them short oops lmao) 