The Mask of Dark Earth interfering with our plans to recruit the enigmatic Guru of the Australian Outback to our gang. More than that, it’s turning all the NPCs into a macro furry’s dream come true.

And since we’re running a PG-13 stream here, that’s gotta stop right now!

I must confess, remembering that the lemonade bar level was used as part of the demo for Sly 3 made me nostalgic for the era in which game demos were more common. Thankfully, the practice has regained some traction in recent years, when companies like Square Enix have started to release demos, even allowing us to import our saves from the demo into the main game most of the time. Still, it’s something that more companies could stand to do.

The other thing of note is the Mask of Dark Earth itself, as it’s pretty unique in the context of Sly Cooper villains. Usually, we learn about the villain’s backstory and motivations, the things that drove them into a life of crime. Here, it’s just an evil mask. There’s nothing to hook into for interesting conversation pieces. The best you can say is that I have friends who are happy to see it because macro and growth are their kinks.

It’s not a bad thing. It’s just unusual for a Sly Cooper villain.

Our friend Murray is back in the gang, but he’s still facing an emotional crisis of sorts since he broke an oath to his Guru. We had best help him apologize to his mentor and face his issues head-on.

And if we can add a new member to the Cooper Gang at the same time, all the better.

At this point, we’ve recruited our first new character to the Cooper Gang. With that, we can start talking a bit more about one of the more contentious aspects of Sly 3.

It’s not a new conversation, even in the context of this channel. We’ve discussed it both in the context of Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped and Spyro 3: Year of the Dragon. Like many third games in platforming trilogies, Honor Among Thieves attempts to use new characters, vehicles, and other gimmicks to add variety to the core Sly Cooper gameplay. To some level, we’ve already taken steps in that direction back in Band of Thieves, by making Bentley and Murray playable characters.

However, they were core characters back in the first game too, presented as vital members of the team. Their chemistry as a trio is at the heart of what makes the Sly franchise so beloved, and adding new members to the mix does run the risk of diluting that chemistry by taking time away from it. After all, every minute we take with a character like the Guru is a minute we aren’t spending with one of the main three.

In fairness, the game does a great job from a writing standpoint of making each integrating each of the new characters into the personal story arcs of all core Cooper Gang. Though one could argue they take some mechanics away from Sly, Bentley, and Murray just to give them to these side characters.

It’s a tough balance to tow.

I’ve learned my lesson from last time and slept soundly the night prior to the stream, so now we won’t have any issues with my falling half-asleep in the middle of playing the game.

After all, our buddy Murray needs us, and I can’t help him if I’m passing out at my desk.

While we took pains to appreciate David Scully for his performances as Rajan, Dimitri, and Octavio in the Sly trilogy, it’s worth pointing out the incredible quality of the voice performances across the board, especially as they improve over the three games.

It seems like a lot of actors, from what I can find on IMDB, haven’t done much voice work since 2013 when Thieves in Time was released. And considering the talent they all brought to these games, that’s a real shame. The chemistry that the core cast of Kevin Miller, Matt Olsen, and Chris Murphy brings to the table, after working together for so long, adds so much to their performances. It’s difficult to tell how much of it is the writers getting more comfortable writing them versus the actors getting comfier reading the lines, but both are contributors.

Ironic that this would be the topic of conversation in this episode since at the times both of writing and recording, the Bayonetta 3 controversy is still fresh in the discourse, but the conversation goes where it goes.

Our plan to sabotage Octavio and restore the waters of Venice from heavily polluted back to merely highly polluted is proceeding apace. If we keep at it, then The Murray will be back with us in no time.

I played pretty poorly in this episode, but in my defense, I didn’t sleep a wink the night before. As a result, I was completely out of it.

Still, possibly another benefit to losing clue bottles is that the system of dialing in safe combinations had a chance to be repurposed in these little segments where we need to find the safe combination in paintings. It’s small, but it helps sell the fantasy of being cool, suave international thieves.

It’s also worth pointing out how well the team at Sucker Punch handled the fact that one of the core three members of the Cooper Gang is now disabled. They don’t make any efforts to dance around it, or the events that lead up to it and how both those things have impacted him, but nor do they dwell on it. It’s just a part of Bentley’s history at this point, and it’s something he’s quickly come to terms with. Arguably, with the improvements he makes to his wheelchair over the course of the game, he’s more capable now than he was back when he could walk on two legs. And over the game’s story, we’ll see more of him and how comfortable he’s become despite his circumstances.

I’m not among the disabled community, so I can only speak on that based on what I can observe. However, given the fact this was a 2005 game, it’s pleasantly surprising to see them tackle this subject with nuance.

If we want to get Murray back, it looks like we’re going to need to bring Octavio down a peg, and stop him from polluting the waters of Venice… more than they already are. Let’s help him out.

As I mentioned in this batch of episodes, one of the most immediately noticeable changes to the game in Sly 3 was the absence of clue bottles and the vaults whose combinations they revealed. I believe the reason for that was simply the short dev cycle this game went through, but either way, I’m one of the few people who seem to think it was better for the game.

I felt that clue bottles in Sly 2 felt more like a legacy carryover from the first game than a useful mechanic in their own right. As someone who likes to finish everything as soon as possible, I would start most episodes by scouring the map for clue bottles to get all 30 of them before I even start the story mission. Not only did this hurt the pacing, but in many cases, the clue bottles were hidden in places I couldn’t access until I made enough progress on the main story missions, leading to my frustration.

Without them, this pacing killer was a non-issue. I could just play through the story without feeling the need to constantly detour just to take a few clue bottles that were off the beaten path. Additionally, not many of the powerups unlocked through clue vaults in Sly 2 has a dramatic effect on the moment to moment gameplay, so even when I got them they would just clog up my gadget select screen.

Obviously, my opinion is not the commonly popular one here, but it is my opinion and I’m sticking to it.

With Dr. Nefarious defeated, we have finally reached the end of our adventures in the Solana Galaxy and the original Ratchet & Clank trilogy. Fortunately, we have another funny cartoon animal mascot from the PS2 era whose trilogy has yet to be completed.

I’m of course talking about Sly Cooper. We’ve been with him and his pals throughout their adventures to take down the Fiendish Five and the Klaww Gang. Now, it’s time for his biggest heist yet.

Welcome to Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves.

Before Thieves in Time came out, there was fierce contention among the Sly Cooper fandom over whether or not this or The Thievius Raccoonus was the “worst” game in the franchise. Neither of them are bad, by any stretch of the imagination, but nor did they reach the heights of Band of Thieves. The debate is now over since Thieves in Time is still pretty poorly regarded, but it was interesting while it lasted.

As I mentioned in the episode, there was a comic that was released between Sly 2 and Sly 3, that worked to bridge the gap in time between the two stories. I erroneously said it was through Playstation Magazine, but it was actually brought to us in collaboration with GamePro and DC Comics, which is why I had a copy of it. It’s worth checking out since fans have made scans of each page for anyone to read.

You don’t see many of those kinds of cross-media one-offs anymore. It was pretty common in those days, when print media was still a viable medium for gaming news and review outlets, to make these kinds of projects. These days, something like this would probably be made for an official YouTube channel instead, but it was still fun for the time.

That said, it’s still a part of gaming history, and I’m happy to see it preserved.

I’ve played more than a few roguelikes, and game modes inspired by them, in my time. Though I would hardly call myself an expert on the genre, I’m always on the lookout for another one that can satisfy me while I listen to a podcast or talk on a Discord call.

And as someone who has played and loved Yacht Club’s Shovel Knight, the idea of translating those mechanics into a roguelike is enough to get my foot in the door.

I admit, when I first attempted to play the game for about an hour prior to stream, I was pretty lukewarm to cold. It’s not that I hated it, but more than I wasn’t sure it was what I was looking for. In general, I dislike being placed under a time limit. I enjoy being able to take my time when I feel the need to, so having a death trap pursue me if I take too long to progress deeper isn’t appealing on the surface.

And yet, during the stream, as I began to get my bearings and understand a bit more about what was going on mechanically, I felt myself enjoying the game more and more, even if vocally I was still expressing skepticism. What can I say? Sometimes I’m just stubborn that way and need more time to process my feelings about what I’m playing.

I’m still learning, having only progressed as far as the second stage, but I feel like if I keep at it I will be able to make it deeper, and more consistently. They did a great job translating Shovel Knight into a roguelike, and he still looks fantastic.

Though the number of other extras included in Up Your Arsenal is lower than it was for previous games in the franchise, owing to its fraught dev cycle even in comparison to its predecessors. Nonetheless, we will discuss them here.

In addition, at the time this game was being developed, one of the hot new accessories that hit the market for the PS2 was the online network modem and adaptor, which gave the console online functionality. For this reason, it was possible to add online multiplayer to the game. I don’t have anyone to play with, but there’s still enough functionality available to talk about it.

It’s pretty easy to make comparisons to Halo when talking about the multiplayer mode, but in fairness, I have it on good authority that translating Ratchet and Clank gameplay into the context of an old-school multiplayer shooter actually resulted in compelling gameplay. There’s still a small, but dedicated community that plays to this day, thanks to emulation.

Really, the most impressive part of it is that it was created at all. Obviously, that made use of some of the assets from it, like the Rangers and several of the maps, in the single-player campaign, but that’s par for the course. If the assets are there, you might as well have use of them.

I’ll want to try to set up a game of it with friends at some point, but until then I’ll appreciate it from afar.

Nefarious’s schemes have gone up in smoke, and the Solana Galaxy has been saved once more. Our heroes can finally relax and enjoy the premier of the latest Secret Agent Clank holofilm.

But just because they’re done doesn’t mean we are. Like Going Commando before it, Up Your Arsenal includes one of the coolest unlockables I have ever seen in a video game: The Insomniac Museum, where cut and unfinished content is given a chance to see the light of day of that curious minds like my own can get just a tiny glimpse into the game design process.

This episode is dedicated solely to that exploration.

Being able to see for ourselves how difficult that first Qwark vid-comic was before Insomniac retooled them to be more friendly is eye-opening. I can absolutely see a scenario where a 10-year-old kid isn’t able to get to the end of the game because they do not have the skill necessary to complete it. Since Insomniac already had a problem with that after some children had difficulty with the Glider segments in Going Commando, I imagine they were extra sensitive to this particular feedback.

Additionally, it’s fun to see what kind of weapons get left on the cutting room floor. Judging by both the museum in this and the previous game, many of the weapons we see get cut are cut because they would balloon the animation budgets for the game just by their existence. This is no longer the case in modern design, at least not to the same extent, because weapons like the Groovatron force the team to make a dancing animation for every enemy in the game, including bosses, but now that they’re no longer limited by the PlayStation 2’s paltry RAM and disc read speeds, that’s probably also been a huge boon.

It’s an incredible snapshot of an era where the game development process was far more resource and technology constrained than it is now. We’ve come a long way since then, for better and for worse.

The Biobliterator threat is still out there, but it needs to recharge before it can fire again. That means this is our chance to take it out of the picture before it turns any more people into robots. Even more fortunate for us, there happens to be a gun big enough to destroy the device on-site.

So let’s finish this fight!

As much as I prefer Going Commando over Up Your Arsenal, it’s hard to deny that it has a much stronger finale than Going Commando did. Even with the best armor we could realistically buy without going into New Game Plus, enemies still deal a respectable amount of damage, and create a reasonable challenge without feeling too overwhelming. It feels like an appropriately scaled final push.

It’s also fun to see all the gadgets (sans the one-time use Warp Pad) make their way into the final push too. This is more or less the final “hoo-rah” for gadgets in the series going forward. As the franchise doubles down on its more combat-focused direction, gadgets take less of the focus. Aside from the Swingshot and Grindboots, which have become standard tools in Ratchet’s arsenal, most of these tools are just minigames that serve as brief distractions before we return to the real platforming/combat hybrid action he’s known for.

Part of this is due to the shift in design. You’ll have noticed even in this game that levels are far more linear than they were back in Going Commando or the original game. Players may not know which path in a level was the “correct” path, but they knew each of those paths led to otherwise worthwhile on the other end. When levels become more linear, there’s less reason to use gadgets as gates than ensure players have completed certain objectives before they can continue their adventures.

It’s all part of the series’s growing pains. As it settles into its niche, it learns a lot from the early experimentation it did in this trilogy.