ly Raccoon is for certain an overlooked Gem of a game, if I ever did see one. Back when The Playstation 2 ruled the block, Sly stayed mainly in the shadows compared to likes of Ratchet and Clank and Jak and Dexter. I'm not just saying this either, it took me 4 years after the PS2 was released to even hear of this game, and further few months to try and track it down... I'm so glad I did.

If you have played any of the sequels (Band of Thieves and Honour Among Thieves) before playing this game, then you might Sly Raccoon flawed. The Reason for this is very simple, the sequels improved on every aspect, as the gameplay had a major overhaul, which explains why this game, the original, has a different feel. This should not be overlooked however, as for one its simply a great game, and second, it has a lot of story.

Sly Raccoon follows the story of Sly Cooper, a thief in a long line of master thieves, which specialises in stealing from the evil master criminals: "as there is no honour, no challenge, no fun, stealing from ordinary people" The game involves recovering portions of the Thievius Raccoonus, which contains all the mastering knowledge the Cooper family has gained over the generations.

I might of given away that this game is full of story, which is true, it has a lot more than typical platformers (I'm looking at you Mario!). Sucker Punch (the people who developed and created Sly) have gone to great lengths to create a whole back story for Sly's Family, and is done incredibility well through cel-shading cartoon cutscenes - always a pleasure to watch. Don't think that this back story is in the introduction and that's it - it's throughout the whole series of Sly!

The gameplay isn't as good as the story telling, but stands up quite well compared to the likes to other platformers. Sure, it does have ideas used in similar games - collect 100 coins for a life, collect a lucky horse shoe for immunity from one enemy hit etc, but crafts together previously used ideas with excellent new ideas so well, that you will forgive the game for it.

Most levels you travel on foot with Sly, with some levels following a different pattern, such as in a few levels, you are chased by Camerial Fox (a policewoman), controlling the team Van in a race. The noteable exception of this rule is the last "world" in the game, which is completely different in style to the rest of the game. Wait to you play the final boss, its a thrilling end to a great game.

Which is also a thrilling way to end my account on sly. Crashb648 out.

General Trivia

• The game is known as Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus in the U.S. This isn't exactly what you would call a snappy title, so that is probably the reason why the name was changed to simply Sly Raccoon in Europe (hence why its called that on this tribute page)
• It was one of the first games to extensively use Cell-Shading. It was highly prised at the time, and the Sly trilogy is widely regarded as one of the more unique looking games on the PS2. Other video games that use it is Wacky Races, Sheep Dog 'N Wolf and the a couple of games from the Zelda series.
• The original game didn't sell as much as Ratchet and Clank or Jak and Daxter. So much so, that copies were hard to come by in certain parts of Europe.
• Released around the time as Ratchet and Clank, Ratchet and Clank won in the sales department. Sly however did spawn two sequels, with a third on its way, and a HD remaster collection for the PS3.
• That said however, it did make it to the greatest hits range in America, but interestingly, not platinum status in Europe, which it is almost for certain because of the limited copies.
• 7 Years after the original release, Sly Raccoon was given the HD treatment and released alongside the sequels, as The Sly Collection (Aka the Sly Trilogy). It was later released as a single Download Game on the Playstation Store.
• One of the few kids games that puts you in charge of normally, a bad guy - a thief. However, Sly and his gang steal from criminals, which is the reason why it didn't get flagged as inappropriate for children.
• The game was originally issued a 3+ age rating. It is now a 7+ rating, which contains "Non realistic looking violence towards fantasy characters". The reason for the change was there was no 7+ rating at the time of the game's release.

Soundtrack

• The Soundtrack is composed by Ashif Hakik, the only game in the series to be composed by him.
• The rest of the games in the series would be composed by Peter McConnell.
• This game was unique in a way, as it didn't really a theme. The track used at the start menu is used in the first level of the game. A theme would be created by Peter McConnell, for Sly 2 onwards.
• This soundtrack has a level variation style to the soundtrack. When Sly is sneaking near a guard, or gets caught, a different version of the normal level theme is played, which some is very different to each other.