(For any English-speakers who like to keep it real, it's best to read me in the voice of Kevin Miller
. For all you folks over in Japan, try Tomokazu Seki or Takeshi Kusao. And before you ask, all spoilers are unmarked. You've been warned, pal!)
Hey, everyone. Why am I here, you ask? Simple. Heard a certain electrokinetic humie I know from an old gig decided to show up here and talk about himself. Since I'm a fun guy and good sport, I just couldn't let that sap hog all the glory, so here I am to quite literally steal his thunder away. note
Now, I'm sure some of you more seasoned guys and gals don't need any real introduction from yours truly, but if you do, I should probably start right at the beginning.
The name's Sly. Sly Cooper. I'm an art lover, a bon vivant, and as you all should know, an internationally famous master thief. In fact, us Coopers ourselves are a long, long line of master thieves dating back thousands of years. Though I can assure you that no honor, challenge or fun can be found in stealing from the common man, which is why my family line's always followed a code to only steal from other thieves. So you can consider your wallet safe. For now.
Let me start at the beginning, back I was just an eight-year-old kid, and it was the night I was supposed to inherit from my father our family's greatest treasure, the Thievius Raccoonus. It was an age-old encyclopedia of thieving knowledge my ancestors had passed down through the ages, and with it in hand, I hoped it would teach me everything I needed to be especially sneaky in my future career.
Though fate had something different in mind. A band of power-hungry crime lords called the Fiendish Five broke into our home, struck down my parents, tore out the pages of the Thievius Raccoonus, and scattered them to the… five corners of the earth. After I lost just about everything that night except my cane and the clothes on my back, I was shipped off to the Happy Camper Orphanage.
But hope was not lost, since it was there I met two new companions: Bentley, resident turtle boy who does machines, cracks codes and serves as the strategy behind our operations, and Murray, our getaway driver, and who's grown all the way from a ham-fisted burden to our ham-preaching enforcer over the course of our adventures. And ever since that first meeting at the orphanage (and a premiere cookie-stealing heist), the three of us have been close in a way that simple words just can't do justice.
As the years went on, our outfit— the Cooper Gang— truly began to take off, and despite humble beginnings, we started pulling some daring heists in big-name places all over the world. Paris, Bombay, you name it. And how could I forget about my first run-in with the especially lovely and passionate Interpol inspector Carmelita Fox? Ah, those were the days.
Ten years after my parents' death, we finally found a lead on the Fiendish Five (thanks to Carmelita having a file with as much info on me as she could find) and started our big mission to hunt them down and take back the Thievius Raccoonus. Outwitting each member took some split-second skill and strategy, but we managed to take them down one by one and began restoring my family's treasured guidebook back to its rightful state.
Eventually, it came the time to put down their leader, a giant owl horrifying beyond all reason who had replaced his body with cold robotic parts: Clockwerk. He revealed to me that he'd achieved eternal life through pure jealousy and hatred against the Cooper Clan, and dedicated his existence to wiping us out since the beginning of time. He nearly succeeded with me and my parents, but chose to leave me alive as proof that our legacy was worthless without the Thievius Raccoonus.
But I made sure to prove him wrong.
Thanks to the combined efforts of our gang, with even Carmelita herself stepping in for a bit, Clockwerk and his Death Ray were taken out of commission. My parents were finally avenged, I gave the lovely Ms. Fox a little token of my gratitude before we soon returned to our usual game of cat and mouse, and the Thievius Raccoonus was returned to its rightful state. It was finally time for me to write my own tales in the book.
After a couple years' worth of other adventures, our gang learned that the Museum of Natural History in Cairo was putting Clockwerk's mechanical parts up on exhibition, so we pulled a job to steal and destroy them for good. But by the time we arrived, they were already stolen by the Klaww Gang, a new crime syndicate whose members planned to use each part as instruments for a grander scheme. To make things even more complicated, Carmelita had a new partner, Constable Neyla, who we knew definitely had something up with her.
After a lot of twists and turns in our crusade against our new foes, including me and Murray getting captured for over a week, Neyla framing Carmelita for conspiring with us, and all the Clockwerk parts we nabbed from the Klaww Gang getting stolen back at the last minute, we found out that two-bit cockney liar was in league with them from day one. Having already backstabbed everyone else along the way, she hijacked Clockwerk's body and its immortality for herself. Against all odds, we managed to stop her "Clock-La" form and end Clockwerk's reign of terror for good this time, but Bentley's legs were crushed as a result of the scuffle.
When Carmelita showed up to arrest us just after all was said and done, I knew how much my friends went through during this long journey of ours, so I agreed to turn myself into Interpol on the pretense that they would be let go. But they managed to give me a little help before leaving, and I, in turn, managed to give her the old slip yet again. She didn't seem that fussed about it then, though.
Sometime in the following year, I broke into a high-security prison to have a word with a guy named McSweeney, the retired muscle of my father's original trio. Through him, I learned about Kaine Island, where the Cooper Vault full of my family's treasure was hidden. We soon found out that a mad scientist named Dr. M (who I'd later learn was the estranged brains of my dad's old outfit, incredible, isn't it) had already spent years trying to break into the vault himself. With the vault being hard enough to get into even without Dr. M's personal fortification of the island, Bentley and I knew that it would take more than just us three to pull off such a tough caper.
So it became the goal of our next adventure to find other world-class thieves, recruit them, and pull off our toughest heist yet (with Carmelita hot on our tail as usual). Murray was our first recruit, having spent the last year trying to find himself after the Clock-La incident. Next, we recruited his mentor in the mystic art of Dreamtime, the Guru. We then completed our gang with RC expert Penelope (who got together with Bentley during that caper) and two of our former foes: the Panda King of the Fiendish Five and Dimitri Lousteau of the Klaww Gang. With our gang finally assembled, we all set off to Kaine Island for the grand heist.
In spite of a couple setbacks and a quick brush with death, we were finally able to get to the Cooper Vault. After I traversed it and reached its innermost sanctum, Dr. M followed me there to crush me and take the Coopers' treasure for himself. After a fight that was long and hard enough to shake the Vault to its limit, Carmelita arrived in the nick of time to arrest us both. I took a blast meant for her from Dr. M and after finishing him off, she came over to me to see how I was doing. I took the opportunity and pretended that the attack made me lose my memory, and after she told the seemingly-amnesiac me that I was her "partner", we quickly hightailed it out of the Vault as it collapsed.
So Carmelita and I were finally able to enjoy each others' company as a result of what happened at Kaine Island, and I pretty much retired from thievery. It was a nice break.
But after a while, the thief in my blood started roaring up again, and I secretly began plans to pull off one last heist… behind her back. But just as I was about to make my move, Bentley appeared in order to tell me that entries in the Thievius Raccoonus were starting to disappear as a result of something affecting history. He, Murray and I soon reunited and, using Bentley's newly-finished time machine, made it our mission to travel to different eras in time (such as the Old West or even the Ice Age), save each of my ancestors and find out just who the culprit messing with them was.
Later into our adventure, we caught up with Carmelita (who was definitely not happy about the whole "lying about amnesia" thing, but I think I made things up with her), as she was also thrown through time by the same mastermind who started this whole mess—Le Paradox, an egomaniacal art collector and the latest member of his own lineage of master thieves. We learned that Penelope had sold us out and gave Le Paradox a time-traveling blimp of his own so that he could topple my ancestors' legacy and steal their canes to use as his own personal trophies. After we fixed all the damage he and his cronies did to Cooper history, I finally confronted him on said blimp as its time machine finally broke, but at the last second he escaped with my paraglider and left me on the blimp for dead.
And that's the last thing I remember happening before waking up alone in ancient Egypt along with what was left of Le Paradox's time machine. As of now, I still don't know when my friends are finally going to find and rescue me, and I dread that it might not be any time soon. So, getting comfortable here and maybe seeing if I can meet up with one of the Slytunkamens is probably the best option for now, assuming I don't suddenly wake up one day next to a Carmelita that still thinks I have amnesia or something. Besides, I think the endless view of sand from every direction is actually starting to grow on me.
But besides my usual capers of going on globetrotting heists, I've also had a few other excursions here and there, some favorable and some not. There was this one time (can't remember when) where Bentley and I were kidnapped by aliens who forced us to compete alongside a long-eared cat guy, a robot, an elf, and a short guy with a loud mouth in some weird space dimension Olympics. We've never really brought that incident up again. I also vaguely recall a time when I traveled to a bunch of weird places and traded fists with some people while looking for a couple missing pages of the Thievius Raccoonus, eventually finding them in the hands of some bargain bin treasure hunter who wouldn't give them up the easy way.
Apparently I was also supposed to get my big-screen debut a while back, but thanks to some backlash, the aforementioned cat-creature messing everything up and a few other things, it's more or less been swept under the rug. But a few say I might have better luck as a TV star, so who knows what'll happen next? When it happens. …Hopefully. And no, I'm not counting the time when two of those cat-creatures kidnapped me and my friends to use as decoys.
And now that you've heard about my exciting career, you might as well stay to take a deeper look at my endearing quirks and tools of the trade when it comes to the fine art of thievery. Just don't forget that this place is almost as good at stealing your time as I am at stealing everything else. Have fun, pal!
Here's all you need to know about me:
- Ace Pilot: As unexpected as it is, I'm pretty good with a plane...
- Universal Driver's License: ...and a hovercraft, a submarine, a jetpack...
- Aesop Amnesia: When at the brink of death, you might wonder if you should cut out the cat-and-mouse game and embrace your foxy police lady, and after the vault job and the "amnesia" that's more or less what I did. With enough time, though, the thief in my blood began screaming to get going again, and... well, yeah, I kinda got ahead of myself a little. The guy behind my voice thinks it might be because I wanted to bring Carmelita into my lifestyle since she already brought me into hers, but everything's up in the air at the moment.
- Always Save the Girl: If Carmelita is truly in danger, I'll come to rescue her. It doesn't matter if there's a trap or two involved, I'll help her out no matter what.
- Amnesiac Lover: Faked it after the Cooper Vault job to be with Carmelita. When the time came for her to figure out the truth, she, er, didn't take it very well.
- Ancestral Weapon: My trusty cane, inherited from my father. All Coopers had a cane of their own, but a lot of them varied in shape and size. Rioichi from feudal Japan had a bamboo cane stylized like a sai, Sir Galleth from Medieval-era England had a sword shaped like a cane, the list goes on.
- Anti-Hero: Make no mistake, pal. I may have stopped more than a few guys from doing terrible stuff to more than a few places, but I'm still a wanted crook. No badge of honor for me. But of course, all the people I've saved these places from were even worse criminals, and of course, what would a gentleman thief like me be without a heart?
- Awesome Ego: I'm just that good, people.
- Back Stab: Not the literal kind, that would be gross, but a classic skill of mine would be sneaking up on a guard from behind and knocking them over with my cane.
- Bag of Spilling: Yeah, I'm... more than a little out of practice on performing some of my clan's trademark thieving skills, but I can still do the Ninja Spire Jump and Rail Slide moves as good as I ever did.
- Beauty, Brains, and Brawn: I'm the "Beauty", Bentley's the "Brains," and Murray's the "Brawn."
- Blatant Burglar: Mask, hat, it's pretty much self-explanatory. But with or without it, I'm still pretty good at my job, so why fix what isn't broken?
- Blue Is Heroic: I love to wear blue and my ancestors have a blue hue to them and I'm the star of my line of video games. Ever notice that heroes like me love to wear blue and how some villains like Mugshot or the Grizz wear purple? You could even say that purple is the new black for villains!
- Blow You Away: My Silent Obliteration technique involves me moving fast enough around an enemy to create a tornado that quickly and quietly takes care of them.
- Break the Haughty: Not by too much, but ever since Clockwerk's near-resurrection crippled Bentley...I've been a little more concerned about my friends' well being.
- But Not Too Foreign: When the Coopers got around, they got around. Even if I was born in America, I have roots in Egypt, Arabia, England, Scotland, Japan, Germany and even more.
- Calling Card: Just to make sure the Cooper Gang's targets know: I was here, and you can't do anything about it.
- Cane Fu: That family heirloom is more than just for show, folks.
- Can't Stay Normal: While my downtime with 'Lita was fine and all, I just couldn't let go of my family's legacy of thievery and needed to pull another job. And to think, it rather nicely segued into our time-travel adventure.
- Character Development: Over the course of our adventures, I've been a bit more open to helping my pals with their feelings and problems.
- Chick Magnet: According to Bentley. I could go further into this one, but I don't think I need to.
- Childhood Friends: With Bentley and Murray ever since our orphanage days. Once again, a guy couldn't ask for a better gang of friends.
- Chivalrous Pervert: Carmelita's just one of the prettiest people I've ever seen, so can you blame me for trying?
- Conveniently an Orphan: Not by a long shot, in contrast to that cat-guy for the first few years of his adventures. My family legacy is often at the crux of our greatest adventures, and I have the cane to prove it.
- Criminal Amnesiac: More like Phony Amnesiac Cop. It didn't stick.
- Dating Catwoman: My relationship with Carmelita in a nutshell. I'm a suave gentleman thief, she's a hard-as-nails cop and there's some banter and a shock pistol in-between here and there. And having her on my tail has always made our capers all the more fun.
- Deadpan Snarker: Me? Snarky!? Not at all!
- Domino Mask: Yes, I'm already a raccoon, but it's still the mark of a true thief.
- Everyone Has Standards: As I said before, me and my gang only ever steal from criminals. Stealing from or harming innocents is the mark of the cruel and cowardly. note
- Family Honor: Gotta preserve the Cooper legacy.
- Flanderization: I think that during that time-travel adventure I may have gotten a little too excited to get back to the grind. Jokes got cracked in such record time that they got sloppy, and I probably forgot to eat breakfast during our last day in Arabia. Regardless, I still trusted in my pals like always.
- First-Person Snapshooter: Bentley asks me to do this sort of thing for our recon missions. It's fun, and it helps with the eventual big heist.
- Foe Romance Subtext: With Carmelita. I don't think I even need to say it.
- Four-Philosophy Ensemble: I'd say I'm Apathetic mixed with Realist. I don't really need to worry about a lot of things since I'm just that good at my job, but when things get painful, the way I see it is you just gotta keep moving forward.
- Four-Temperament Ensemble: The "Phlegmatic" kind, if you couldn't tell already. I'm cool, I'm collected and I'm always there for my pals.
- Fun Personified: Sly Cooper, bon vivant inside and out.
- Gentleman Thief: I am indeed one very charming character, wouldn't you think?
- Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: Yeah... those aren't frayed pants like they say. Not a problem, though. This world is virtually one without pants.
- Hard Light: As I learned during my trek into the Cooper Vault, my dad invented a technique for rail sliding on laser beams! Really. It's as amazing as it sounds.
- The Hero: I guess? I don't really wear it on my sleeve, but I do take out a lot of cruel crime lords and my gang pretty much saved the world from both Clockwerk and spice-induced madness.
- Honor Before Reason: And challenge before reason, and also fun before reason. It's who I am and how I roll.
- Hooks and Crooks: The Cooper cane, obviously.
- In-Series Nickname: Carmelita calls me "Ringtail". Don't know why, but if it's her secret pet name for me, I appreciate it.
- Just a Stupid Accent: Excuse-a me? I find it incredibly-a hard to-a believe that-a my disguised Italian accent-a is-a just "stupid". It-a worked perfectly in-a Venice and Arabia!
- Just Like Robin Hood: Me and my own merry men tend to donate some of our scores to a few charitable causes, such as orphanages.
- Karmic Thief: Stealing from an average joe isn't honorable in the slightest, hence why our targets for thievery are usually people who definitely deserve it.
- Lineage Comes from the Father: Quite a few people have compared me to my dad, given both the family resemblance and the Cooper legacy I inherited from him. Don't really know as much about who my mom was.
- Mascot with Attitude: Sure, me and others who fall under this like that other kid share confidence and coolness, but I consider myself a refined variant. Compared to to how he thrives on being loud and proud, I do my job by sneaking around and sprinkling a little bit of charm here and there.
- Nice Guy: Who said being a thief means that I can't be friendly from time to time?
- No Guy Wants to Be Chased: Nope! Remember what I said about challenge and fun. I want that for my adventures and Carmelita just happens to be both.
- Only Sane Man: Yes, Bentley's the brains of our team, but it's often up to me to reel everyone in whenever things get really hot.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Whenever the snark and sultry go off, so do the gloves.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: Somehow not even Inspector Fox saw through that disguise at Rajan's ball. All I'm saying is it usually works.
- Phantom Thief: You can't catch me for long, mon ami.
- Rascally Raccoon: And proud to be one. I'm even the page image!
- Stealth Hi/Bye: Most cowardly crime lords never saw me coming... or going, for that matter.
- Super Drowning Skills: Really should've taken those swimming lessons back at the orphanage.
- Sympathy for the Devil: Vicious Klaww Gang member or not, I couldn't help but feel sorry for Jean Bison and his situation. Happy that he managed to land a new job at the EPA after we took down the Klaww Gang.note
- Taught by Experience: As I didn't have the Thievius Raccoonus at first, I had to self-teach myself how to do a lot of sneaking around and climbing. It paid off.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: When we decided to recruit the Panda King of all people for the Kaine Island heist, I was the most apprehensive since, well... he was one of the Fiendish Five that killed my parents. I (mostly) got over it with time, though.
- Time Master: a couple Cooper techniques seem to allow me to slow down time, speed it up or even stop it. No idea as to how, but they sure were useful... and entertaining, too!
- Trapped in the Past: Ever since my last caper. Thanks a lot, Le Paradox.
- And that's pretty much everything, pal. By the way, if you just so happen to have a time machine on you, would you mind helping a guy out? I kinda lied about the whole "sand growing on me" bit. note
