Show your bling and let me shine you!

Making a sequel, to anything, is tough. On the one hand, the temptation to cohere to the same core elements entirely is always there – but on the other, there is an intuitive sense that some reinvention is expected, if not necessary. Sly 2: Band of Thieves is one of those rare games that manages to not only grow the seeds planted in the first game, but find a stronger identity for the series in the ways it differs from the first game.

I love the first game, and in some ways, still prefer it to the game’s sequels. Part of that reason is the simplicity and the comfort of a 3D platforming world with a small hub and branching levels, each of which is self-contained and easily replayable. Sly 2 feels ahead of its time, however, in how it constructs its levels. 

Instead of discrete platforming levels, each of which feels inherently made for a video game (and thus, on some level, slightly less immersive), Sly 2 puts the player in the shoes of not just Sly Cooper but his fellow Cooper Gang members (Bentley and Murray), and allows each of them to wander around a single discrete hub. Instead of each hub breaking off into obvious platforming levels, each area feels much more grounded in its approach.

Take the first level, which is set in the middle of Paris, France. You wander around the streets, clambering over rooftops, but you can also sneak into buildings as you build towards the climax of each episode – a heist. In this way, Sly 2 has a much stronger theming than the first game. The plot’s throughline is much stronger, but it also grows immediately out of the previous game’s. It is, I think, amazing just how well they managed to weave the plot of the first game to have consequence for characters in the second game (and beyond).

The game’s exploration – and focus on a hub rather than a bunch of different levels that adhere to the theme – means we get kind of a proto-open world thing going on. But, unlike the Ubisoft open worlds that would help to codify the genre later on, Sucker Punch constructs a much smaller hub, with very little extraneous to do. Sure, there are still clue bottles to pick up, treasures to bring back to your hideout, and sights to see, but never does it feel like bloated busywork. The missions all take place in the hub, which makes the hub feel like one big level, which is recontextualized with each new objective the game gives you. It’s a joy to see how disparate parts of a level slowly cohere into part of a larger heist plan as the game continues. “Oh, so that’s what that’s for,” you’ll think to yourself. The game never outstays its welcome, and, unlike many 3D platformers of the time, does not feel the need to shove too many minigames in.

Instead, the focus of Sly 2 remains on two things: the core platforming / sneaking, and the relationship between the characters at the heart of the story. This tight focus means that the story moves along at a good pace, with some twists and turns that the first game never offered (and in fact still remain some of my favourite little twists that I remember from childhood). And it also gives the game the opportunity to perform callbacks to earlier levels. The last level, for instance, combines objective types from previous levels into a bunch of mini-heists of sorts, which makes the game feel just that extra bit more cohesive and coherent. It’s one thing to have minigames and gameplay alterations appear once and never use them again – but it’s another to have those same mechanics appear again, hours later, showing that the developers have a core idea in mind.

The character dynamics are great, and the story is sufficiently higher-stakes than really anything we see in the previous game. Each character gets a moment to shine (or several), but if there’s anything that doesn’t quite work, it’s the fact that the writing doesn’t allow characters to have arcs that are as strong as they should be. But, I am speaking with the benefit of twenty years of hindset, and not having to develop a game in two years.

This is a game that revolutionized the series, and should have revolutionized the platformer genre. It’s focus on stealth differentiates it, sure. But what also helps is its tone. It is both a wry, tongue-in-cheek, Saturday morning cartoon romp, but it is also a game with intelligently written characters, that act in consistent ways, and with a tone that doesn’t talk down to the young people who were intended to play it. Some moments are scary. The characters are allowed to lose or to be outsmarted, and plans don’t always work the way they’re supposed to. Villains, while they monologue to themselves in order to allow the player to eavesdrop on them, also each have moments that make them memorable, frightening, or just fun to confront.

I used to believe this game was fiendishly difficult. It certainly was as a child, and it is about ten times as difficult as the previous game. But each mission is, ultimately, fair, and just requires the player to learn and to be patient, something I wasn’t necessarily when I was a very young person, playing this in front of an enormously fat television.

The game celebrates its twentieth anniversary this year on September 14th. I am hoping I’ll be able to make a video for the occasion, because after replaying this game semi-recently, I feel that I enjoyed it more than I ever have. That is helped slightly by the nostalgic undertones that warmed my heart after a frankly exhausting last few weeks – the music, and particularly a ballroom dance section, brought back such a flood of memories that I was almost overwhelmed – and when the credits rolled, I felt compelled to write stuff about it again.

It is a game that has stood the test of time, and I’m terribly sad that 3D platformers like it aren’t being made with the budgets they should be. Sly 2 proves that games for children can be complex, enriching, and challenging for everyone, and can retain their charm for years and years to come. I hope to share a video later this year (if I can make it work…) and to also play it through on stream, when I get the time. It’s a gorgeous game and deserves the attention it still rightly gets from some. A remake – particularly one that added a few bits of well-considered dialogue here and there to build characters out – would be deeply appreciated. I doubt it will ever happen, but one can dream.

Suffice it to say though, the game remains, as the first villain says, greeeeasy sweet!