And how the worm turns. In this episode, we finally succeed in robbing Rajan of his remaining Clockwerk parts. Usually, that would be cause for celebration, but that simply won’t be in the cards for our heroes. Nay, what follows is one of the darkest chapters in the history of the Cooper Gang.
Can we pull through it, or will cruel fate have other plans?
Something unique to Sly compared to many other cute mascot platformers of the era, and eras past, is a willingness to put the main cast through pain. Video games often exist as a power fantasy, where the player is allowed to act in some way more capable than they are, or even could be, in reality. To facilitate that power fantasy, the protagonists we play are usually made to succeed at whatever goals they set out for themselves so that players can feel accomplished.
So seeing two of our three playable cast members getting incarcerated as a result of our heist was genuinely shocking at the time. It was the first time that our cast wasn’t able to get away. To top it off, the only one left is arguably the least confident in his own abilities, and it’s up to him to bust his friends out.
By playing around in this space, and doing something to shake up the usual formula, the game accomplishes quite a few important goals.
- It creates a gameplay scenario where we can’t rely on the full cast, which gives the subsequent chapter a unique texture before anything else in the series before or since.
- It shows that our characters aren’t invincible or omniscient despite how capable they are. They can be fooled or make mistakes, and those mistakes can have consequences.
- It raises the threat level of the Klaww Gang. Where the Cooper Gang was able to defeat the Fiendish Five decisively, the Klaww Gang is able to store a significant win in this chapter of the game.
And this won’t be the last time the series is willing to explore these darker colors. It adds a little more maturity that what you’d typically see from a cartoon mascot platformer.
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