For the longest time, Sly 3 was always my least favorite game in the trilogy but after replaying it a few years ago and playing it again now, I've come to appreciate it a lot more. When it comes to story and writing, it's my favorite in the series however in terms of gameplay, it can be very unevenly paced and structured when compared to Sly 2. Apart of me gets the criticism of "not enough Sly" but another part of me understands why considering by this point, Sucker Punch was starting to become aware of the problems with the titular character's movement and by extension Bentley and Murray's. Sly 3 was a sequel that was made in a year and there wasn't going to be a change in the game engine so no possible mechanical improvements but the syngery between gameplay and story was the strongest part of Sly 2 so just hone in more on that which Sly 3 does.
The story is by far the strongest aspect of the game. It's the best tale in the franchise. Not only is the gameplay and story synergy here but the main villain with Dr. M is the best too. He's far better written than Clockwork and Neyla with him having former history with Sly's father and his hatred for him feeling more justified by comparison. He does loathe Sly and his lineage he does offer a hand of compassion towards Bentley and Murray which rounds him as a character. He also represents the highest stakes the series has ever had with Sly needing recruit more members to his gang to beat Dr. M at his own game.
The new characters and returning characters are all well written. The Guru being the best of the former and the Panda King being the best of the latter. Panda King being my favorite in terms of writing in how his face turn and coming to gripes with who he once was and accept Sly's help.
This introduces the biggest change in the game in terms of structure: there are less levels but they are each longer and the mini game count is doubled. This would spell doom but since this is following Sly 2's structure that means that while you are doing lots of mini games and playing as the main trio feel like it's on occasion, every mini game and every mission contributes to the overarching main goal of defeating the main villain of that level.
Another difference now is that since the levels are longer and every villain gets beaten in the same episode, they will now get the occasional drop on the much expanded Cooper Gang. Don Octavio will kidnap Bentley in one mission. General Tsao might be the most destable villain in the series in his world views, manages to even make Bentley lose his cool when stealing the laptop and even manages to geniunely get on Sly's nerves. The Baron will also try to pit Mugshot and the Cooper gang together and so on.
My only big issue is the story that while in the gameplay, the capers don't go according to plan as they did in Sly 2, it's never acknowledged with the story. There's never a moment of Sly saying to himself, "maybe we should retire since things aren't going as well as they once did".
The ending is still a great way to cap everything off with everyone moving on to different things and Sly putting his lineage behind.
When it comes to story and writing, Sly 3 is the series' best but when it comes to gameplay, it's still mostly on the serviceable side all though now more uneven than before. The series is no stranger to mini games, the first game had it's fair share but the furthur you get into Honor Among Thieves, more and more mini games get introduced almost to the point where whenever you play as Sly or even Bentley and Murray it can feel like a whiplash of, "I forgot Sly was in the game".
This reaches it's boiling point in Episodes 5 and 6. Early on, it's fine but by Episode 5, there's multiple mini games, a very bizarre pirate ship section that feels a little too fleshed out for what is supposed to be a side attraction and then it's just mini game after mini game. I was honestly just super surprised when I got to control Sly again to the point where I said, "wait, this game had platforming?" There's also a very challenging wave section as Murray towards the end and the melee combat system has not really been improved from Sly 2 on top of trying to be familar with his play style again.
While Sly 3's characters and mini games does serve the story, it makes the game side of it very all over the place. While Sly 2 didn't improve upon Thievous Racoonous, it was more even with the playable characters being Sly, Bentley and Murray.
However to defend this, Sly 3 doesn't reuse the same objectives of "pitpocket x guards, take pictures, tail this person, hack into this computer, beat up these guys" or any mission involving TNT barrels again. I personally wished Sucker Punch didn't have to rely on more characters and mini games to do it even if I know it might be engine limitations and deadlines.
Overall, Sly 3 has a good story but that can lead to uneven pacing and structure with still no mechanical improvements.
No comments:
Post a Comment