I love me a good platformer game. The genre has fallen out of fashion in recent years, with indie attempts at the genre often rolling back the years too far toMario’srise in the ’80s, rather than theCrash BandicootandSpyro the Dragonsweet spotof the late ’90s. Meanwhile, truly modern platformers have ditched ‘platforms’ almost entirely for open world expanses rather than the far-superior open zone playpens. But I’ve been diving back into the old hits, and it’s reminded me of a uniquely rewarding feeling platformers can give you.
Compelled by TheGamer’s ownJade King writing about playing Sly Cooper for the first time, I grabbed the trilogy off PS Plus and booted up a series I hadn’t played in over a decade. I was even getting Trophies popping as I went, which means I must never have owned the original Sly Cooper (Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus, known in the UK under the much worse name Sly Raccoon). I definitely played it at a friend’s house, and owned the rest of the series, but maybe there were secrets I had never seen.
Hidden Gems Make Platformers Into Hidden Gems
Where did I look for these secrets? Behind me, of course! If you guessed this, you must be one smart cookie who reads the headline and everything. When a platformer puts a secret behind you, you feel like the smartiest smarty pants to ever put on smart pants. You’re meant to go forwards! But instead, you go backwards! Huzzah, what’s this! A prize!
Platformers are built on a sense of satisfaction. You’re not expected to get everything right the first time, you’re expected to fail, get better, and conquer your hurdles. This feeling of achievement comes when you finally get past a water hazard that the devs never meant to make so hard, when you beat a level, and when you collect every gem. In big and small ways, that’s how platformers keep you hooked. But the pantomime of ‘it’s behind you!’ is hard to top.
Sly Cooper Is Reigniting My Nostalgia
I haven’t even encountered this in Sly Cooper yet. The basic overworld is a Spyro-style open zone, but the levels are far more linear, like Crash. So each time I go into a level, I turn around and search for a clue or a coin, the two basic treats to be found in Sly’s world. Thus far, all I’ve found is the exit portal to run straight back out again.
But one day I’m gonna find something good, and what a day that will be. Crash has trained me well on this. While the second Crash game has you start the level in a strange stone airlock room which makes going backwards impossible, the two games either side of it play around with hiding boxes right under your nose (or more accurately, your buttcheeks) that make missing the gem an agonising experience. The best example comes in Sphinxinator, where there’s not just boxes behind you, but one of those boxes contains an extra life. Sly is more random in where it chooses to dole out free lives, but someday soon, I’m going to stumble onto a great secret in Sly. I can feel it in the wind.
Discovering secrets is the charm of platformers, and Sly Cooper understands that to a tee. If memory serves, this gets better as it goes on too, so I’ll have a lot more to uncover by the time I work my way back through the trilogy. Maybe even long enough thatSonygets its act in gearand makes a new one…?Maybe it’s hidden where I least suspect: maybe it’s behind me.
