We’re almost ready to knock the Panda King off of his mountain and stop him from extorting any more mountain villages. And once he’s done, the true mastermind behind the Fiendish Five is next on the list: The enigmatic Clockwerk.
Tonight, we finish up with Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus.
Thanks to Resbit for their video of the Master Thief Sprints and the Behind the Scenes video unlocked by doing them all.
We’ve discussed it before, but one of the weaknesses of the original Sly Cooper, that gets worse as the game progresses, is the oversaturation of mini-games. It starts out innocently enough with the odd twin-stick shooter section in Raleigh’s hub. And yet, in Ms. Ruby’s and Panda King’s hub worlds, almost half the levels are mini-games.
Which is part of what makes the finale against Clockwerk so frustrating. Only two of the stages, out of the seven, are pure platforming challenges, one of which is pretty short. The vast majority of the time here is spent doing minigames in order to advance the story. And they’re usually some of the toughest minigames of their archetype.
It also points to how pointless the lives system is (and why it was ditched in the future) because there are no checkpoints in any of these levels. If we perish or fail, we will need to restart from the beginning anyway.
Fortunately, the climb to the top of the tower and the ensuing boss fight are both strong enough to make up for the rest, ending the game on a climactic high note. It was a pleasure to play this game again, and share it with you all.
Next time, we return to Ratchet and Clank in Going Commando!
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