The Sly Collection
Score: 88% ESRB: Everyone 10+ Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment America Developer: Sanzaru Games, Inc. Media: Download/3 Players: 1 Genre: Stealth/ Platformer/ Action
Graphics & Sound: The Sly Collection brings all three PS2 Sly Cooper titles to the PS Vita, and it does so with a nice graphical overhaul that only adds just a little more polish to games that hold up well, even after all these years. This PS Vita version of The Sly Collection is actually a port of the 2010 collection, and while you can't really compare the visuals of the Vita to those of the PS3, when compared to the original three PS2 games, the updated models and style really shines. While the games do keep to the cartoon-visual style, there is a bit more refinement to the design. Granted, the original Sly games did a lot in establishing and defining the cel-shaded look, but The Sly Collection seems to just have cleaner lines. The game's audio also seems to port to the Vita well. The voicework and background music heard throughout the original games seems to be just like they were back when the titles were first released.
Gameplay: The Sly Collection contains Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus, Sly 2: Band of Thieves and Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves, all three great stealth-platformer titles that featured one of the PlayStation's iconic characters during the PS2 era. In the series' first game, Sly, Bentley and Murray work together to try and claim Sly's legacy, a book called the Thievius Raccoonus. This tome contains his family's history and is used to teach each generation how to become a master thief. Unfortunately, the book was stolen and torn apart when he was young and Sly means to assemble the pieces and claim the skills that are rightfully his. Band of Thieves grants players the ability to control Sly's two friends. Where Sly is all about sneaking up and being stealthy, Bentley has some ranged attacks to take out his enemies. Meanwhile, you use Murray to charge in and use brute force to clear a room. The three characters really have different enough gameplay feels to keep things fun and different. Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves keeps the series going by giving the gamer more characters to play as and also making both Bentley and Murray a bit more useful. Part of that added usefulness comes from the fact that Bentley is now wheelchair-bound, but of course, Bentley being Bentley, his wheelchair has a few added features that still makes him a formidable member of the team. What is great about these three games is that it manages to hold onto its core gameplay style all the way through. While you can play some characters in a different manner than Sly's stealthy style, the feel of the game doesn't ever really change, not even when they keep tacking on playable characters, mini-games and other features.
Difficulty: Each game in the The Sly Collection has a different difficulty feel, but in all cases, I seem to remember them being more difficult when they first came out than they are now. Of course, that could simply be a case of having gone through the games before, combined with more experience in the stealth/platformer gamestyle. The being said, the relative difficulty between the three games seems to be about the same as they were back in the day. I found that Thievius Raccoonus was noticeably more difficult than the second game, while the third found a happy middle between the two.
Game Mechanics: The Sly Collection doesn't try to change the original experience all that much. Outside of the visual overhaul, very little has changed. I was a bit worried that the developers would attempt to integrate more of the PS Vita's unique control mechanics into the game, but for the most part, that isn't the case. Quite frankly, the rare times that the controls were changed feel right and make sense. It's obvious the team behind the port respected the original work enough not to try and make changes for the sake of having differences. Our review copy of The Sly Collection was all digital download, and as a result, I needed to grab a bigger memory card in order to have all three games at the same time. So be warned, space is a concern if you are going the full-download route. That being said, even if you pick up the physical card, Sly 3 still requires a download. The only reason I can think of is that there would have been a significant price bump to put the games on a single card, so that cost is passed onto the player since you might need a bigger card than you might be expecting. That being said, The Sly Collection is a solid package of a classic series. The games were good in their day, and the still feel good now. If you grabbed the PS3 collection already, then you might not be too interested in the Vita release, but if you are looking for a good portable version of the raccoon's adventures, then you've found it.
-J.R. Nip, GameVortex Communications AKA Chris Meyer
Related Links: Buy The Sly Collection at Amazon Game Vortex's Sly Cooper Coverage
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