DESIGN REVIEW: Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus

I heard good things about the Sly Cooper series, but never got around to playing any of the games. However, with the PS3 HD collection being released, I decided to see how good the games were and whether they stood up to the test of time. I always like to start at the beginning, so I jumped into the first Sly Cooper game without hesitation. After I completed the game, I was pleasantly surprised and came away impressed with the game - it's a beautiful, stylish 3d platformer that I had a lot of fun playing.

LIKED:
- Level Progression. The game is divided into 5 episodes - with each episode having a set of levels before the player is finally able to take on the boss. Each episode contains a completely different environment that suits the boss - for example, a wet island that is a frog's hideout, or a stronghold in the mountains of China for a panda bear. As the player starts each episode, he must gather keys by completing levels, which he can then use to open up more levels, and ultimately take on the boss.

The cool thing is that each level is one big picture, and all the levels complement each other very well by seamlessly blending into this bigger picture, both artistically and function-wise. A dirty, desert casino town in Utah is broken down into a level navigating the cliffside, a casino stage, rooftops and a back alley. All the levels have the same color palette and contain a few of the same art assets, but each bring something new that isn't seen in any other level.

What this means is that I really felt like I was on a continuous journey the whole time I was playing the game, and even though the game is clearly broken down into levels, which is a very popular thing to do when making platformers, I was working towards a clear goal. Reinforcing that are the groups of locks which Sly must come up to and unlock them, one by one with his collected keys. Completing each level and getting a key became a meta-game of its own, all leading to an epic confrontation with the boss of the lair.

To keep offering variety, there were a couple mini-game levels sprinkled into the game - like turret shooting and racing. The last episode contained many more of these mini-games, which is kind of a bummer, because I wanted to fully explore the levels with Sly. I suspect Sucker Punch ran out of time, but it worked out pretty well overall.



- Level Design. The individual levels in the game are overall pretty small, but they're very well built, often utilizing verticality, with gameplay areas stacked on top of each other. Most levels use a common zig-zag pattern that has the player playing all over the level instead of just progressing in a straight line.

You begin to appreciate and respect the level design when doing the master thief sprint runs, which are timed runs through levels. Shortcuts become fun to discover, and sometimes involve doing things that the level designers didn't intend you to do (bouncing off a wall to skip half the level).

The point is in a game that's all about swift, sneaky movement and precise controls, the levels and environments are the real stars of the show.

- Art Style. Did I mention the game is a marvel to look at? Sure, you can tell that the models are all low-poly, but the textures are clean and the colors are all done so well, that you instantly forget about the models and focus on the entire picture.

The environments were definitely the highlight of the game - each episode has a specific color palette, and they're all very different from each other. My favorite one was the panda king's China stronghold because of the calm, yet mysterious atmosphere it implied. Thick snow covered temples and trees, and colorful lamps hung throughout. These levels were just fun to play, containing many dynamic objects like fireworks and elevators.

Even though I enjoyed every episode, the swamp lair was by far my least favorite because everything was dark and things just blended into each other.

Another art aspect that I enjoyed were the cutesy, stylized 2d maps of every lair that showed a small picture of each stage when you entered it. They were fun to just sit and look at, identifying every detail. It solidifies the Sly universe and shows how much care was put into it.



Characters were also done well, using a standard comic book cell-shaded, inky filter surrounding their silhouettes.

- Collection Elements. Platforming games are notorious for being huge collectathons, tasking players with collecting a variety of things. Sucker Punch did collecting right by having only 2 types of things - coins and bottles.

Coins, being the unimportant carrots which are scattered everywhere throughout the level to lead the player forward, and the more secret bottles that the player collects, hoping to get all of them in each level, and open up a safe to get a new special move.

The problem with many games is that they don't help the player at all with these harder collection objects. Things like secret packages in Grand Theft Auto games or flags in Assassin's Creed - it's all up to the player to go find them, without even a sense of direction.

90% of the bottles in Sly Cooper can be found on the main path, and the rest can easily be acquired if the player chooses to explore the level a bit or just rotate the camera here and there. The levels are small enough to warrant full inspection from the player. Plus, if the player is near a bottle, it emits a sound letting the player know that they're close. Not once did I ever have to resort to using a guide to find these during my playthrough.

It's great to see Sucker Punch get collecting right so early and continue implementing it in their future games: in Infamous, the players can find scattered blast shards by using a radar ability, and in Infamous 2, the player can actually earn a power that will direct them to each blast shard on the map until they're all collected.



Sucker Punch understands that finding secret objects in the game shouldn't be a chore, and instead an interesting diversion that can help you unlock cool things.

- Story. It's great to see an actual fun story in the game which involves the main character's ancestors and the Thievius Raccoonus, a family book being stolen by a group of villains. The game revolves around Sly getting the book back, page by page. It's simple, cute, and better than "hey, I'm out to kill all the bad guys" plot.

DISLIKED:
- One Hit Kills. I understand that Sly Cooper is supposed to be a sneaking platformer, with the emphasis on being stealthy, but one hit kills feel ridiculously lame. That's right - get spotted by an enemy or fall off the level and you have to restart. It's particularly the worst in the beginning of the game when you don't have the special moves that make you invulnerable to falling off levels and the sparsely placed checkpoints don't help.

There's a mechanic that allows the player to take extra hits by obtaining "lucky charms", horseshoes that can be earned by collecting 100 coins throughout the level. When a horseshoe is earned, the player can take 1 or 2 hits without dying (there's a silver and gold horseshoe).

I feel that this doesn't work the way it's intended because you usually have trouble in the beginning of the levels, not later on when you have near 100 coins. The coins stay even if you die, so I suppose that's nice.

However, it's not the same clever "Sonic rings" gameplay mechanic, and makes some levels tougher than they need to be, particularly in the swamp area.



- Useless Special Moves. As you collect all the bottles on each level and unlock vaults, you gain special moves that you can use. They range from passive buffs that are always on like not losing a life when you fall into water, to active ones that you have to manually use. The problem is that most of the active ones are useless.

There's a move that allows you to slow down time, but it slows down time for everyone, not just you. Automatically, it loses all sorts of cool possibilities like you activating it to slow down laser beams so you can navigate around them easier, or you slowing down patrolling enemies. Instead, the only useful feature it has is allowing you to carefully make dangerous jumps, which there aren't any in the game.

Opposite of slow, there's fast, which speeds up everything in the level. The only use is when you have to wait for a spotlight to move away, but they move at a good pace anyways. You'll likely do more bad than good when you use this move, accidentally tripping alarms.

The roll move allows you to navigate faster on the ground, but it's only useful during the master thief sprint times, where timing is everything. Why would you want to use it to rush through a level that you first encounter that you know nothing about?

There's a mine that can be activated, but it also doesn't have any use as Sly can't throw it particularly far. Why throw and activate a mine, when you can take 2 more steps and hit an enemy to defeat them? Worst of all, the explosive radius of the mine can hurt you too, which in a 1-hit kill game is a bad idea.

In your arsenal is a decoy, where Sly throws a cardboard cutout of himself onto the field, distracting enemies. I never used this move, as it would be faster to just walk around the enemy and hit them from behind with your trusty cane.

All the above while sound cool have little use in the game, no matter what kind of a player you are, which is a shame.

- Level-specific Objects. One cool gameplay alteration that was used during the main levels was a wooden barrel that Sly could jump into and use it to protect himself from some level defenses. It reminded me or Snake's box from the Metal Gear Solid series. The animation of Sly tiptoeing in the barrel is really funny and well done, and I wished that more unique objects like the barrel were used throughout the game.



There's a couple levels where Sly mans a turret or drives a hoverboat, but those are more minigames than main gameplay alterations.

I just think that there could have been more comical objects that Sly could have used like waterguns or balloons that expanded on the gameplay and added variety.

- Weak Sound Effects. Both music and sound effects are lacking. The music while isn't bad is decent sneaking music, but not anything memorable, as I can't even remember one song off the top of my head.

Sound effects sound muffled and the game could have used some new sound effects in certain situations. One example is when the player grinds down vines - there's no sound effect to accompany the grinding which feels awkward. I know vines are not the same as rails, but grinding things in video games is supposed to be fun - here, it felt really lackluster. Games like Ratchet & Clank do this really well, offering fun sound effects to accompany the action on the screen.

DESIGN REVIEW: Nier

I'm not really a huge fan of Japanese developed RPGs, so it was with curiosity that I approached Nier, an action RPG that contains many elements from other genres, particularly bullet hell shooters. Nier really reminds me of a solo Monster Hunter. For me, Nier was a pretty tedious experience containing strokes of genius gameplay and presentation that are both severely underused.



If I had to recommend Nier, I would definitely say play the game twice without doing any of the sidequests - you'll get the full experience and the variety that the game has.

LIKED:
- Perspective Shifts. Nier is a 3d game with a player-controlled rotating camera. However, when the player walks into certain areas, the camera perspective seamlessly switches to a set angle. Most of the time, it's a switch to a 2d view, reminiscent of old school 2d platformers like Mario or Sonic, but with 3d models. Exactly like Super Smash Brothers Brawl.







There's one specific area in the game where the camera switches to an old-school over the top camera, and the main character becomes really small as he's surrounded by lots of enemies, which was really fun to play.

The problem is that these camera shifts are not used to their full potential. The 2d view is hardly used for anything action related - there were no set platforming sections, no cool 2d boss battles, nothing physics related. Instead we get the hero walking into a bar, talking with a person to get a quest, and then walking out. Huge wasted potential right here in my opinion.

Visually, these 2d sections look really nice with 3d models and are just cleverly thought out. For example - the hero's house has 2 stories, and as you walk in on the bottom and continue going through the house, past the right edge of the screen, the camera shifts up and he emerges on the 2nd story on the left side. Like I said, very clever.

- Combat. Nier's combat is divided into 2 parts - ranged and melee attacks. The ranged attacks are done by shooting bullets out of a flying book companion (don't ask!) and this is where the game takes a cue from bullet hell shooters - blending 3rd person action with large streams of bullets - without a question, an innovation that no other game has tried before.

You can charge up other more powerful ranged attacks, but the steady stream of bullets from your trusty book companion is your go-to weapon.

Enemies in the game exhibit some cool bullet hell shooter patterns, particularly bosses who spew energy balls in a radius, and then specific line patterns. Nothing too crazy like Ikaruga, but you can jump and dodge these attacks. Oddly, you can choose to simply block them without taking any damage which wasn't really thought out well.



The main melee combat felt really nice and responsive. There's multiple types of weapons such as one handed swords, spears, and more massive two-handed weapons. Furthermore, there's a weight differentiation with some weapons being light and quick in combat, and others doing tons of damage, but being swung around incredibly slow by the hero.

The difference is immediately felt too - it's very apparent when the hero has what weapon equipped, which you can change on the fly in the middle of combat. This is a good thing, as I found myself switching between a light weapon for smaller enemies and a giant two-handed sword for the bigger foes.



The dodge button is quick and immediate as it should be, rolling the hero out of danger and there's even a counter maneuver that the hero can pull off if you're quick enough.

For an action game, combat is what the player will be doing most of the time, and I feel that the combat in Nier is satisfying, fun and one of the highlights of the game.

- Variety. Nier offers a lot of surprising variety in small doses. Some of this variety can be huge surprises like "choose your own adventure" quests done entirely via text, including riddles (!!!), limiting player actions in certain rooms (no dodge for you!), and having 4 different endings.

It's true that some of this variety is something you've seen before like fishing mini-games or upgrading weapons, but it's variety none the less. Video games are meant to entertain, and variety goes a long way when it comes to breaking the pace and keeping people playing and excited to discover what comes next.

DISLIKED:
- Side Quests. The side quests in Nier are tedious, boring and serve only to be there as content filler. All the side quests give money as a reward, and one very long one gives you a new weapon. All of the them require you to go from place to place, fetch something or obtain more materials by farming enemies.

Because there's only so many locations in the game, and they're all revealed pretty early on, you're just going back and forth between these same locations, without encountering anything new. Further adding to the injury is that at a half-way point in the game's main storyline, any uncompleted side quests become locked on for the duration of the game. And although there is a new game+, you still can't do them because the game picks off after the half-way point. None of this is told to you either, aside from a tab that contains all the uncompletable quests - if you happen to look through it.

After the half-way point, you get more quests that task you with doing pretty much the same things as you did earlier, going to the EXACT same locations.

I strongly recommend NOT doing the side quests and instead focusing on the main storyline and just running through that.

- Location Revisits. Like I mentioned above, the main storyline in Nier is broken into 2 parts. Exploring and looking at environments is half the fun in 3rd person action games, and that's what you do in the game for the first part. The second part? You revisit the exact same areas and the exact same rooms. Nothing kills the exploration element like knowing you have to go to an area you already visited before.

Combined with the tedious side quests, you really want to stop playing when you have to go back and forth between the same areas multiple times in the game.

- Gameplay Annoyances. The game is full of odd moments where I had to stop and say if the designers looked at this twice, they would have certainly changed it.

For example, climbing ladders in the game is an extremely slow process. You can speed it up by holding a button - but it's still not fast enough. Why even have the slow climbing animation? Why not just have the hero climb at the fast speed on default without the need of holding a button. Things like these, while small are easily noticeable by me, and irk me a lot. Plus, fixing this would have been a snap.

Another moment that I remember is when you first get to a new location - a city in the desert that uses the sand current as a method of transportation. You're made to go on a small raft and slowly taken to different parts of the city, being introduced to each shop owner - one at a time. The reason that this sequence stood out so much is because in all the other towns that you visit, there's nothing resembling this excursion. To add to the annoyance, you can only stop half-way, there's no choice to not go on it at the beginning.

Another thing that was glaringly bad were the tutorial messages. When you need to do something new, or have learned a new technique, a message pops up on the screen that says "new tutorial unlocked!". You must then pause the game, select an option, navigate to the right tab, select tutorials screen, and then wade your way through a huge list of tutorials to find one that has a "new!" marker to it. Yea, all that just to read it.

A simple fix could have been a button prompt alongside the "new tutorial unlocked!" message that would take you to the tutorial. How hard could that have been? Worst of all, there's very many tutorial messages, so if you want to learn as much as you can about them, you have to do this gruesome procedure for each one.

Additionally, some of the tutorial prompts come up way to late in the game. The dodging attacks tutorial popped up on the screen 1/3 of the way through the game for me which is simply unacceptable because I doubt I would have even gotten that far without knowing how to dodge.