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"Alright, it's the crime of the century and The Ball's in motion!"
Bentley

Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves is third game in the Sly Cooper series, developed by Sucker Punch and released on the PlayStation 2 in 2005.

Shortly after the events of Band of Thieves, Sly has learned of the Cooper Vault, a gigantic store of the wealth that his family has accumulated over generations of thievery. However, Dr. M — an old associate of Sly's father — has taken over the island where the vault is located to try to break into it, albeit to no avail. Sly must regroup his old gang and recruit new members in order to infiltrate Dr. M's stronghold and succeed at reclaiming his family's history, all while still on the run from Carmelita.

Sly 3 plays just like Sly 2, with mission-based gameplay that emphasizes stealth and platforming. However, the inclusion of new Cooper Gang members as the story goes on means that there are now more playable characters that can be used in select missions, which more gamplay variety due to their specializations. Notably, recurring Hero Antagonist Inspector Carmelita Fox is also now fully playable for the first time, with her turning the game into a third-person shooter while she's being controlled, at least compared to her brief Covering Fire mission, "A Temporary Truce" in the first game.


Mama mia! I wanna be buried in her tropes! It's-a heaven!

  • 11th-Hour Superpower: Near the end of the game, when Sly almost reaches the Inner Sanctum of the Cooper Vault, he learns a technique developed by his father: Rail Sliding on lasers.
  • And Now for Someone Completely Different: In addition to the usual Sly/Bentley/Murray team, 3 also features playable segments with Carmelita, the Guru, Penelope, the Panda King and Dimitri. Unlike Sly, Bentley and Murray, none of them are playable outside of their respective segments and can't be used in free roam.
  • And the Adventure Continues: Zig-zagged. On one hand, the status quo was fundamentally changed. On the other hand, it's made clear that whatever comes next won't be boring.
  • Artistic License – Geography:
    • It would be impossible for Murray's van (frozen in a block of ice) to float from Canada, out to sea to China, then upriver into the Kunlun Mountains, especially in less than a year. Especially since the Kunlun Mountains are landlocked.
    • The Australian geography is inaccurate, as both Uluru (referred to as Ayers Rock in-game) and Wave Rock are in Yuendumu, Northern Territory. In reality, Uluru is by the South Australian border, over 600km away from Yuendumu, while Wave Rock is near Hyden, Western Australia, which is nearly 300km away from Perth.
  • Bad People Abuse Animals:
    • Yes, this franchise is set in a world full of anthropomorphic animals, but at one point during "An Opera of Fear," Octavio dumps tar into a tank full of fish, killing all of them. Bentley is very upset over this, and avenges them by destroying a nearby Ferris Wheel that's pumping tar. Which then proceeds to crush a(n anthropomorphic) pigeon.
    • Bentley mentions that while he was spying on General Tsao, he witnessed him kicking a puppy. Twice.
  • The Battle Didn't Count: General Tsao may be the main antagonist of "A Cold Alliance," but the boss battle with him takes place in the middle of the chapter rather than at the end, unlike with other villains before and after. And afterwards, Tsao merely flees and continues his plans normally until the end.
  • Battle in the Center of the Mind: At first, Sly has to battle the Panda King within the latter's mind via the Guru's magic.
  • Big Bad: Dr. M. The main goal of the game is to get Sly his family vault while recruiting new members of the Cooper Gang. While all of the other villains are unconnected with one another and have their own agendas, the one getting in the way of the vault is Dr. M.
  • Big Bad Ensemble: Unlike in the first two games (and the one following game), each of the Arc Villains are completely unaffiliated with one another, the connecting thread between them being their affiliations to the Arc Hero of each chapter.
  • Borrowing the Beatles: The Oscars are a rock band that features as background characters, first appearing to be playing in the Italian Opera House that once housed Octavio, and later acting as the Guru's disciples in the "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue.
  • Call-Back:
    • When Muggshot tries to attack the Cooper Hangar in "Flight Of Fancy," he mentions wanting some revenge for what happened in Mesa City. He also remembers that it was Carmelita who arrested him afterwards, which is part of why he's willing to fight her.
    • When the Cooper Gang tries to hire the Panda King for the Cooper Vault heist, they find him in a deep meditative trance reliving his greatest failure. That turns out to be the time he fought Sly in the first game. It's in the same arena, Panda King speaks the same lines that he did in that game whenever you don't try to snap him out of his trance, and fights exactly like he did during the fight.
    • During the above situation, Murray mentions that he misses the van. This refers to the gang needing to leave the van behind in Canada to stowaway on Arpeggio's blimp in the previous game, with the ice the van was on even breaking off and floating into the horizon as the gang was en route to the blimp. When they find the van later in the same episode, it is almost completely encased in a block of ice, and Murray even explains to Penelope that he last saw the van floating away in Canada.
  • The Caper: The whole game is a setup for a caper to break into Dr M's stronghold and rob the Cooper Vault.
  • Casual Danger Dialog: Sly gets one during "Operation: Reverse Double-Cross" after being lured into a trap with a fake Penelope dummy strapped with dynamite.
    Sly: Penelope! That you? It's time for a rescue! *cue reveal* LeFwee! Huh, he's good!
  • Central Theme: A recurring theme in this game is the theme of change. Several characters in this game are shown to be in dire straits or fallen from grace due to clinging to the past, with the protagonists by contrast accepting their own possibilities and changing for the better.
    • Don Octavio was a talented opera singer, who fell out of the limelight as rock took over the music scene. The whole reason he became a criminal in the first place was to force people to listen to his music.
    • General Tsao represents the negatives to clinging to tradition and antiquated values. He’s a raging misogynist who believes only sees Sly as an equal because of his family’s name.
    • Panda King is revealed to have been completely fixated on his defeat at Sly’s hands ever since it happened in the first game. When Sly is placed in telepathic contact with him, he finds that Panda’s been in a memory loop of his boss fight for years now. General Tsao took advantage of his obsession to exile him from his homeland and take his daughter for an arranged marriage. Sly breaks Panda free from the memory loop by convincing him to face Sly as he is in the present. Panda himself then has to acknowledge that, despite his enmity for Sly, he needs to move on from his failure against him to become the father and guardian his daughter needs him to be.
    • Dr. M was the Gadgeteer Genius for the gang of thieves led by Sly’s dad - basically, he was to Sly’s dad what Bentley is to Sly in the present. M believed that Sly’s father was nothing but a Glory Hound and felt that he himself was entitled to the Cooper Vault’s riches. For many years, Dr. M’s only goal was to unlock the Vault and take the treasures within. Even after he acknowledges that Sly isn’t his dad and that he genuinely cares about his friends, Dr. M clings to his obsession to the very end. This results in his death when he refuses to leave the mountain containing the vault as it collapses.
    • The epilogue has the entire Cooper Gang, with their final heist completed, using the treasure Sly left behind for them from the vault to retire from their criminal careers and fulfill their own individual pursuits in life. Bentley and Penelope go into business together with their technical knowledge, and Murray becomes a professional race car driver. Sly himself ultimately takes his chance to move on from his family’s legacy, faking amnesia to finally start a new life with Carmelita.
  • Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys: Referenced at one point. One of the jokes Murray can tell to a stern Belgian to make him laugh is on a chicken crossing the road to France, because it was not a Turkey, or a Turk. The joke wasn't really hilarious.
  • Chinese Vampire: The zombie praying mantises in "A Cold Alliance" are described as vampires, are located in China and have the stereotypes of their Asian versions, including the hopping.
  • Colossus Climb: The finale of "Rumble Down Under" involves Carmelita growing to a giant size thanks to being possessed by the Mask of Dark Earth. Sly has to climb up her body to dislodge the mask from her face, and it's clear that he's enjoying the situation somewhat.
  • Comically Missing the Point:
    Don Octavio: You ain't nothin' without this little guy's brains. So, I figure I'll just scoop 'em out real slow and use 'em to fertilize my tomato plants.
    Bentley: I'm allergic to tomatoes!
    • In the mission where you have to tail Octavio, if you get caught, he doesn't really get mad at being followed so much as he does at Sly doing a pretty bad job of it.
      Octavio: I got a shadow, huh? You stink! Back in my day, thieves knew how not to get caught!
  • Contrived Coincidence: Dr. M has mines that go after ships made of metal around his island. Sly's ship is wood, due to stealing it from pirates that still use 18th century styled vessels. But, another wooden ship shows up to the island, that of Carmelita.
  • Cranium Ride:
    • The Guru can possess a guard by jumping onto the back of his head and hypnotizing him with the Moonstone.
    • Sly needs to spire jump on the heads of levitating guards to meet General Tsao for the second time for stealing Bentley's computer.
  • Criminal Amnesiac: Inverted. Sly claims to have amnesia at the end, and Carmelita tells him that he's her partner. It's later shown in the stinger that he's faking it to be with her.
  • Cutscene Power to the Max: The characters are capable of pulling off ridiculous jumps in cutscenes. Perhaps the most egregious example is Penelope, who manages to jump all the way up to the top of a pirate ship's mast with literally no assistance at all.
  • Dead Hat Shot: Happens to Captain LeFwee after he is knocked overboard. It's implied that the sharks got him.
  • Death Course: The Cooper Vault. The vault is mostly surrounded by water, which you have to avoid drowning in, you have to walk on rails while avoiding giant wheels rolling on them, climb on giant rocks that turn in opposite directions, slide on a railing that tilts up and down, walk against a ledge that is hit by axes three times, ninja spire jump on swords that emerge and disappear from two walls across from each other and the ceiling or else you fall in the abyss, crawl under barrels to avoid getting burned by a wall of light coming toward you... the list goes on. Justified in that only a Cooper fully trained in their family's skills would be able to make it through, preventing most from traversing the inside of the vault by stealing the cane... unless they bring a way to fly through the course, like Dr. M does.
  • Debut Queue: The prologue mission (which takes place at the end of the story) features a bunch of mysterious voices in silhouette who are apparently part of Sly's crew now, in addition to the usual characters. The rest of the game's levels center around recruiting the various characters who appeared in the prologue.
  • Defeat Means Friendship: Penelope joins the gang willingly and without second thoughts after Sly defeats her in the dogfight and exposes her as the Black Baron.
  • Down the Drain: The sewers in "Flight of Fancy."
  • Dress Code: In "Flight of Fancy," everyone is required to wear pilot caps and jackets whenever they are inside the hotel lobby, due to the hotel being the main venue for the aerial dogfighting competition. Outside, though, they can wear their normal attire.
  • Dude, Where's My Reward?: When you complete a treasure map challenge, you're treated to an animation of Sly doing a fist pump and... a bit of game completion percentage.
  • Establishing Character Moment: When we first see Dr. M in the prologue, he's casually chatting with one of his guards, asking about the latter's family... before just as casually mentioning that he poisoned said guard's drink at lunch for not changing the security code from 1-2-3 properly.
    Richards: I'll improve, I swear!
    Dr. M: No, you'll die.... any second now.
    Richards: (gurgling noises)
    Dr. M: (following some unrelated dialog over a radio) ...oh, and get a janitor for the lab elevator... Richards got sloppy.
  • Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas:
    • Bentley has to provoke Muggshot into a fight. He isn't intimidated by the scrawny brainiac's insults... until Bentley hits him with this: "Your mother is a broken-down tub of junk with more gentleman callers than the operator." That does it.
    Muggshot: Nobody talks that way about my mother! NOBODY!
    • The second flashlight guard from the “Guard Duty” mission expresses joy that his shift is ending early because he loves his mother’s homemade spaghetti, saying he wants to be buried in her pasta sauce.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: Muggshot hasn't gotten any more noble since we last saw him, but he flatly refuses most of Bentley's attempts to provoke him, on the grounds that fighting someone in a wheelchair is pretty messed up by anyone's standards, including his own.
  • Evil Mask: The Mask of Dark Earth serves as the main antagonist in "Rumble Down Under." When the mask possesses someone, they grow bigger and become more aggressive. After its host is defeated, it escapes by floating away.
  • Flanderization:
    • While Murray is a Large Ham and enjoys breaking things in the second game, this is now taken up to eleven, as he borders on Heroic Comedic Sociopath. The guy gleefully throws mine guards into the jaws of a giant crocodile in "Rumble Down Under"!
    • Carmelita always had Black-and-White Morality in the first two games, but she previously displayed some nuance about it, especially during the events of the second game where she was briefly stripped of her badge due to Neyla's manipulations. In the third game, Carmelita becomes far more hostile to the Cooper Gang than she was previously, and her relationship with Sly is reset to where it was at the start of the series.
  • Flashback: The prologue and final chapter of the game take place right after each other. All episodes between those two take place during a flashback that begins at the end of the prologue.
  • Foreshadowing:
    • Look carefully at McSweeney's flashbacks to Conner Cooper's crew's heyday. The third member of the incarnation of the Gang was an ape, hinting at The Reveal that Dr. M was the brains of the team back then.
    • In the prologue, Dr. M mistakenly recognizes Sly as a different Cooper, but he's quick to correct himself. Later, it turns out he mistook Sly for his father, M's former partner in crime; the two Coopers happen to look alike.
      Dr. M: Cooper! No... you must be Sly Cooper, the new keeper of the cane!
    • Penelope works for the Black Baron, but is never seen in person during "Flight of Fancy." That's because she is the Baron.
    • During the Black Baron's introduction, he warns that his guards have orders to attack anyone they find outside his hotel after sunset. However, as Sly climbs up the Black Baron's castle not long afterwards, you can hear the baron complaining about the apparent lack of guards patrolling the area. As it turns out, Muggshot bribed a sizable amount of the guards to help him attack the Cooper Gang's air hangar.
    • When the Cooper Gang arrives at the Panda King's shrine in the Kunlun Mountains, Murray complains about the walk it took the gang just to head to said location, noting that walking long distances was never a problem when the Cooper Van was around. Later on in that same episode, the Cooper Van is found on General Tsao's turf, and Murray makes sure that the van is brought home.
  • Friend-or-Idol Decision:
    • Murray has to choose between following the peaceful ways given to him by his master, or save Sly and Bentley from being beaten to mincemeat by Octavio. Naturally, it takes him only a brief second to toss away peace and protect his friends.
    • Dr. M tries to point out to Bentley that he's the true brain of the group, just like he himself was to Sly's father, and tries to convince Bentley of this. Too bad Bentley had spent the whole game having this internal dilemma, having felt jealous and angry at his life and abilities (including his disability) against Sly's life and incredible athletic ability, and tells the villain that being in charge is nice, but being friends with Sly and Murray is far more important, having realized that Murray and Sly aren't coworkers to him, but like family.
  • Gambit Roulette: One of Bentley's plans depends on the villain being goaded into revealing a certain piece of information, which the Cooper Gang would use to pick between one of two plans they already had set up.
  • Gameplay and Story Integration: Whenever Carmelita is the playable character, the breakable objects in the world will only ever drop health pickups and never coins, as she is not a thief and has no reason to steal money from anyone.
  • Giant Woman: Carmelita becomes this during "Operation: Moon Crash," the finale of "Rumble Down Under." She initially becomes about double Sly's height when she interrupts the Cooper Gang's plan to destroy the Mask of Dark Earth, resulting in it getting onto her face. Bentley's tranquilizer darts only increase her size, which makes Carmelita big enough to grab one of the miners' big trucks as she chases down the Cooper Gang, who attempt to escape in one of the other trucks. The Cooper Gang plays Catch and Return with some Exploding Barrels she throws at them, but upon seeing this only makes her even larger, they instead plan to remove the mask, which entails Sly climbing up her clothes to make her swipe at him and break pieces of it.
  • The Gloves Come Off: Murray flat-out refuses to do combat and harm anyone at the beginning of the game. This changes the moment Bentley gets knocked out of his wheelchair by an unfairly powerful Octavio.
  • Goggles Do Nothing: Well, they're actually glasses, but they don't even do what they're designed to do! In the mission where Bentley and Penelope sneak into LeFwee's base, Penelope opens the chest, and gets sprayed in the face with blinding dust, which is completely effective, despite the fact that she's wearing glasses.
  • Good Bad Bugs: In-universe example. When preparing for the final dogfight, Bentley hacks the aircraft control tower. This computer system is connected to the local windmill monitoring system, and when he's finished, a software bug causes a windmill to speed up, ending in its propeller flying off and destroying a dam. Bentley later uses this "windmill throwing stars" bug to prevent airship reinforcements from helping the Black Baron during the dogfight.
  • Guest-Star Party Member:
  • Hate Sink: General Tsao is a Chinese warlord who takes an arrogant pride in coming from a family line of warriors. The Arc Villain of the levels set in China, Tsao has kidnapped Panda King's daughter Jing to forcibly marry her and merge their "great bloodlines." When Sly confronts him, Tsao says he prefers servants and obedience to love and friendship and states that as a woman, Jing doesn't know up from down. Despite his pride in being a warrior, he chickens out when Sly gets the upper hand in a fight, and summons vampires and a dragon onto his village to avoid further interference. When Tsao is arrested, everyone is glad to see him go.
  • Heavy Voice: When Carmelita is under the effects of the Mask of Dark Earth, her voice gets deeper as she gets larger.
  • Heel–Face Turn: Panda King and Dimitri were originally antagonists in the first two games, but are now recruited to help break into the Cooper Vault. Penelope also spends "Flight of Fancy" as an antagonist as the Black Baron.
  • High-Speed Battle: When fighting the giant Carmelita in "Rumble Down Under."
  • His Name Really Is "Barkeep": Turns out, the Panda King's last name is actually "King," as evidenced by his daughter's name, Jing King.
  • How We Got Here: The game starts out with the Cooper Vault caper before flashing back to how Sly and Bentley started putting together the crew.
  • I'm a Humanitarian: Dr. M taunts Dimitri by saying that he will eat the latter's eyeballs.
  • Innocent Innuendo: In Episode 1, Sly talks to a hungry guard who mentions wanting to be buried in his mother's pasta sauce as a metaphor for how much he likes her cooking. Sly parrots this to Bentley without any context, and Bentley can barely bring himself to respond.
    Bentley: "Yeah... that's, uh, that's strange."
  • Interface Spoiler: During the roll call at the beginning of the game, all members of the "new" Cooper Gang are presented as shadowy black characters to avoid spoilers. However, Murray's subtitles are still in his trademark pink color.
  • Irony: In a meta sense. Murray left the gang to become stronger. However, the increased health of the enemies of this game means every enemy can take more punches from Murray, meaning that he may have actually become weaker. Flashlight guards previously took two hits for Murray to defeat, now they require five.
  • It's Always Mardi Gras in New Orleans: Sly and Bentley arrive in Venice only three days before Carnival.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Dimitri. He was abrasive to Sly when they meet up in Venice and Holland (understandable, since when last they met Sly beat his ass into the ground and left him to get thrown in jail), but after the Cooper Gang retrieves his diving gear for him, he jumps into shark-infested waters to help save Penelope, and eventually joins the gang, and without so much as having a favor to excuse it.
  • Journey to Find Oneself:
    • Murray in-between the end of Sly 2 and "An Opera of Fear." After leaving the team because of what happened to Bentley, he travels to Australia to train under a Guru to find his inner peace.
    • After his defeat by Sly, the Panda King enters a state of meditation that keeps him in a repeated loop of his defeat until he accepts it, though his meditation was imposed on him by General Tsao.
  • Journey to the Center of the Mind: Happens between Sly and the Panda King, in a recreation of the first game's boss fight with him. Also, happens offscreen with the Guru and the Kraken.
  • Karmic Death: Happens to Captain LeFwee when he is outsmarted and killed by Penelope, who knocks him into the ocean where the sharks devour him. Notably, he is the only non-main villain in the Sly series to be killed at the end of his chapter instead of arrested.
  • Kick the Dog:
    • Dr. M's introduction is him chatting up one of his guards about his family... to pass the time while waiting for said guard's poison to take hold.
    • Octavio dumps tar into an aquarium in one mission during "An Opera of Fear", killing all the fish. Bentley is understandably furious, and avenges the fish by destroying the Ferris Wheel.
      Bentley: I-I can't believe it, he flooded that aquarium with tar... all those poor dead fish! (later) Look away if you must, you're about to witness the dark side of electrical engineering. Kill a bunch of poor innocent fish, will he...?
    • Carmelita shoots one of the Black Baron's guards for no reason other to reaffirm her hatred of crime at the beginning of "Flight of Fancy".
    • In the first slideshow for "A Cold Alliance", Bentley mentions that he witnessed General Tsao literally kick a puppy twice during surveillance.
  • Kick The Son Of A Bitch: The gang robs General Tsao's family treasure temple in addition saving to the bride, and leads Carmelita to him just to add more injury (and incarceration) to the insult. This has nothing to do with their goal of rescuing Jing King, but Bentley feels the need to stick it to him after all his Hate Sink behavior and as revenge for Tsao breaking into the safehouse and stealing Bentley’s laptop.
  • Land of Dragons: The main setting of "A Cold Alliance" is a traditional Chinese village located in the mountains. The climax also has a dragon as the boss.
  • Land of Tulips and Windmills: There's an entire level dedicated to this trope: "Flight of Fancy." It takes places in the Dutch town of Kinderdijk, with a full compliment of windmills, flowerpots full of tulips, fields full of hay stacks, and even a leaky dike. Two of the three flavors of mooks in the level (hares and rams) wear wooden clogs.
  • Lighter and Softer: Than the second game, but still Darker and Edgier than the first.
  • Load-Bearing Boss: When Dr. M is defeated for the final time, the Cooper Vault starts collapsing, him apparently getting crushed to death by the collapsing ceiling and the fortress then also exploding.
  • Lone Wolf Boss: Unlike the previous two games, none of the villains in this game are connected to each other, each of them instead being their own independent antagonist.
  • Loophole Abuse: Murray is initially hesitant to help his friends during Episode 1 due to taking a vow of peace. He's convinced otherwise after Bentley points out he can "non-violently" assist by not fighting anyone while destroying some tar drums.
  • Lord British Postulate: One can kill the ordinarily invincible Carmelita in "An Opera of Fear" and in "A Cold Alliance" by using Bentley's size reduction bomb and attacking her.
  • Mad Libs Dialogue: The pirate insult conversations in "Dead Men Tell No Tales" work like this, where you string three insults together.
  • Make My Monster Grow: The Mask of Dark Earth does this to anyone it possesses. It even possesses Carmelita, resulting in a boss battle against her.
  • Mech vs. Beast: Discussed, but averted when the gang are trying to figure out how to defeat a giant Carmelita; Murray suggests a Humongous Mecha, but since the gang lacks one, they instead go with Sly's plan to climb Carmelita and remove the mask.
  • Mêlée à Trois: Most episodes of the game feature this, which is often the Cooper Gang vs. the Arc Villain vs. Carmelita.
  • Mix-and-Match Critters: Dr. M's forces are composed entirely of these.
  • Musical Episode: The ending of "An Opera of Fear" has Bentley partake in an opera duet/duel with Octavio in an opera duet as part of "Operation: Tar Be Gone".
  • New Work, Recycled Graphics: The game notably has the same graphics engine as Sly 2.
  • No-Harm Requirement: The game has a quest wherein the objective is to put a massive feral wolf to sleep — non-lethally — by shooting it with multiple darts. Unfortunately, you'll have to sneak up and shoot the wolf at close range, because the darts are specialized and thus really heavy. Without getting upwind of the wolf, because it can smell the sleeping potion in the darts. The player character for this mission? A turtle in a wheelchair.
  • Noodle Incident:
    • Murray apparently did something that made his Guru's hut smell bad, prompting the Guru to live in a cave instead. He refers to the incident as "The Unspeakable."
    • It was mentioned in the credits of the second game that Dimitri became a dance instructor on a cruse liner. How he got himself in an Italian jail after that is unknown, but as he was in a holding cell, it probably happened just recently.
  • Nostalgia Level: At one point Sly and The Panda King have their minds connected, and Sly is taken back to the boss fight with Panda King from the first game.
  • "Not So Different" Remark: Dr. M takes this to the logical extreme, refusing to even fight Bentley at first because he finds them so similar. Bentley ultimately decides to stay loyal to his friends.
  • Oddball in the Series: This is the only game in the series that:
    • Lacks the clue bottle collecting that was prevalent in the other games.
    • Features an ensemble of villains that aren’t connected to each other.
    • Lacks any missions set in Paris, with it only appearing in cutscenes.
  • Pacifist Run: Because Murray is upholding a vow of peace during the events of Episode 1, hurting any guards during the Tar Ball mission will cause you to fail it.
  • The Password Is Always Sword Fish: The password to the island's security system is "1-2-3". One of Dr. M’s guards named Richard was supposed to reset it to something else, but mistakenly did so before installing the new security system, allowing Sly to shut it off with the old code.
  • A Pirate 400 Years Too Late: "Dead Men Tell No Tales" features a trip to Blood Bath Bay, a series of small islands inhabited by "throwbacks" who still live by old fashioned, stereotypical, and anachronistic pirate culture.
  • Powder Trail: Penelope has to race against one with her RC car to save Murray from a barrel of gunpowder he is tied to in "A Cold Alliance."
  • Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: An amazing one delivered by Murray before fighting Don Octavio:
    Murray: That does it! I'LL FLOSS MY TEETH WITH YOUR SPINE!
  • Precursor Heroes: Sly's dad is revealed to have been in his own trio of thieves in his youth, with McSweeney filling Murray's role and Dr. M filling Bentley's.
  • Previously Overlooked Paramour: Penelope joins the gang and develops a bond with Bentley, but she spends a good portion of the game crushing on Sly, completely obvious to Bentley's own crush on her. However, after being rescued by Captain LeFwee in the penultimate chapter, she comes to realize her romantic feelings for Bentley, and they hook up. Of course, by Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time, this was thrown out the window when Penelope reveals her true colors as a manipulator and sociopath.
  • Product Placement: By inputing a Cheat Code in the pause screen during the biplane segments (R1, R1, Right, Down, Down, Right), Sly can replace his standard biplane for the Toonami plane, which not only sports a different design, but can also fire unlimited missiles that tear through everything.
  • Promoted to Playable: Carmelita Fox, the Panda King, and Dimitri Lousteau are playable in this game.
  • Private Military Contractors: Akin to Zenigata's own backup squad, Carmelita hired ape mercenaries to help her catch Sly.
  • Red-plica Baron: The game features a character named "The Black Baron," a flying ace who has never lost a dogfight.
  • Replay Mode: Unlike Sly 2, this game includes an option to replay each individual job (as well as the opening and closing cutscenes for the chapter), accessible when you select a chapter in the menu. Master Thief Challenges also let you replay some missions with a stipulation to make them harder, such as a timer.
  • Rule of Cool: The final Cooper family thieving skill not found in the Thievius Raccoonus, as we find out in the end of the game. The laser slide.
  • Schizo Tech: Alluded to. Sly's Victorian ancestor is revealed to have possessed a flying machine long before the Wright Flyer was built.
  • Seadog Peg Leg: Captain LeFwee sports one.
  • Secret Message Wink: Sly appears to have amnesia after taking a hit for Carmelita. Later, Bentley sees Sly and Carmelita together in Paris. Sly looks back at Bentley and shoots him a wink to signify he was faking the amnesia to be with Carmelita. "That sneaky devil!" indeed.
  • Sequel Hook: In the ending, Bentley reveals that he's working on a time machine, and very clearly intends to use it. And what's more, the final shot of the ending is of Sly turning to a hidden Bentley and winking straight into his binocucom, showing that he doesn't have amnesia after all.
    Bentley: That sneaky devil...
  • Shown Their Work: In spite of the inaccurate locations of Uluru and Wave Rock mentioned in Artistic License, the map of Australia shown in the opening cutscene of "Rumble Down Under" is accurate, with the states names and boundaries, capitals, major towns and cities, and highways displayed.
  • Smoke Out: General Tsao uses this to escape from Sly following his boss battle.
  • Spared, but Not Forgiven: Played straight when Sly confronts and fights the Panda King in his mind to request his help. Sly never openly forgives Panda King for his part in his family's murder; he just decides to move on. The feeling is mutual as the Panda King hates Sly for defeating him and ruining his reputation, but eventually the tension between them lifts.
  • Split Personality: The Panda King is briefly shown to have one. He actually has to talk his raging, violent half into cooperating before you can continue the mission.
  • Stealth Escort Mission: Sly and Bentley protect Carmelita from some thugs in Venice during her patrol of the canal. Carmelita never finds out that her "uneventful patrol" wasn't that uneventful.
  • Stock Audio Clip: Audio clips from Sly 1 and Sly 2 are re-used in the game, including Alésia Glidewell's grunts which are used for Carmelita.
  • Strapped to a Bomb: Happens to Murray in "A Cold Alliance" when he was attempting to open a strongbox connected to Tsao's phone lines.
  • Taking the Bullet: When Dr. M realizes he can't defeat Sly, he tries to take it out on Carmelita to make him suffer, and Sly runs right in front of her, only to be hit himself. She was very pissed.
  • Technical Pacifist: Murray, for all of "An Opera of Fear." If you punch an enemy, the player gets a MISSION FAILED and has to restart from a checkpoint. You get to fight as him at the end of it.
    • Murray can't punch anyone, but squishing guards with the Aboriginal Ball Form is A-OK, for some reason.
  • Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Downplayed: Sly is reluctant to have the Panda King on the team since he took part in killing his parents when the Panda King was still a part of the Fiendish Five. Likewise, the Panda King holds a grudge against Sly for his defeat and subsequent downfall. Panda King eventually has an argument with himself in the mirror about killing Sly, only for the good side to remind his evil side that Sly will teach them humility. They wind up working together just fine by the end of the episode. Sly was still wary of him, but he admits his fireworks will come in handy.
  • Theatre Phantom: Don Octavio is an opera performer turned Mad Bomber after music tastes changed when his career was taking off. He takes to dressing as a phantom while running the local mafia and planning to extort the populace into seeing him perform.
  • Threatening Shark: "Dead Men Tell No Tales" has an underwater section that is filled with these. They're also how LeFwee meets his end.
    • Not to mention that the Guru actually had to ride sharks in "Honor Among Thieves."
  • Timed Mission: Many of the Master Thief Challenges add a timer to the missions to make them harder than the original versions.
  • Title Drop Chapter: The final episode is named "Honor Among Thieves."
  • Took a Level in Badass:
    • Carmelita. She had her moments in the last two games, but was more or less a Butt-Monkey. Here, she is not only a strong leader to a team of mercenaries, but also becomes a playable character, gets into a boss fight with Muggshot, and was the one who ultimately defeats Dr. M (granted he was pretty much already defeated by the time she showed up) and saving Sly.
    • The flashlight guards are notably tougher than in Sly 2. With Sly, it's wise to either kill them stealthily, flee from battle if they spot you, or avoid them altogether, since they can take a fair beating before going down. Heck, even Murray can no longer one-hit kill them without flame-based gadgets!
      • Nerf: At the same time, the guards' AI has been changed to make fighting them more viable. In the last game, they were programmed to automatically attack whenever they were hit, turning any fight with one into a battle of attrition and likely a Pyrrhic Victory. In this game, they hit harder, but have a much more noticeable tell, meaning even Bentley can take one out without a scratch, once the player gets the timing down.
  • Tropical Island Adventure: Episodes 5 and 6, "Dead Men Tell No Tales" and "Honor Among Thieves." The former takes place on a series of tropical islands in the Caribbean known as Blood Bath Bay, home to a group of hostile pirate "throwbacks," while the latter (and the prologue of the game, "Beginning of the End") is set on Kaine Island, a tropical island in the South Pacific home to the Cooper Vault which has been taken over by Dr. M and his goons.
  • Unexpected Gameplay Change: The penultimate episode has naval ship battles, which are quite different from the standard sneaking around you typically do.
  • Unusual Euphemism: The insults and name-calling used by the Blood Bath Bay pirates. Sly even lampshades this at one point when bantering with LeFwee.
  • Video Game Cruelty Potential: Carmelita can be attacked and even pickpocketed as she roams the maps, but she cannot be killed unless you abuse an oversight with Bentley's shrinking bombs. There's no good reason to engage her outside of being a dick since she's far more deadly than the normal guards.
  • Walk the Plank: LeFwee forces Sly to walk the plank during "Operation: Reverse Double-Cross." Naturally, Sly hangs a lampshade on this.
    Sly: Making me "walk the plank"? You're the pinnacle of creativity, LeFwee.
    LeFwee: Not creative?! I'm the Smartest Man on the Seven Seas, you... you... slanderous scabbard!
  • Warm-Hearted Walrus: The walrus McSweeney is the former Big Guy of Connor (Sly's father)'s gang of Lovable Rogues. When Sly comes across him, he's very amicable in their interactions, and tells Sly of the Cooper Vault where the treasures and histories of the centuries of the raccoon's family have been safeguarded.
  • We Need a Distraction: Since Carmelita has become more actively aggressive and nearly ends up ruining "Operation: Tar-Be Gone!", Bentley plots diversions for her in subsequent heists to ensure she doesn't interfere. For "Operation: Turbo Dominate Eagle," she's distracted with arresting Muggshot. For "Operation: Wedding Crasher," she's tricked into taking Jing King's place as General Tsao's bride.
  • We Will Not Use Photoshop in the Future: Averted. When Bentley and Penelope exchange photos of themselves after meeting on ThiefNet, the photos are blatantly edited, and not even by computer software—they just taped a photo of their head onto a picture of a model's body and scanned it into the computer! Penelope's real hand is even plainly visible in her own picture. Humorously, neither realize how obviously fake the other's picture is until they meet in person. Strange minds must think alike.
  • Wham Shot:
    • The opening of the game has the silhouettes of The Panda King and Dimitri on Sly's bino-cu-com, meaning that two of Sly's former enemies are now allies.
    • The final scene of the gane has Bentley spying on Sly and Carmelita on a date, to which Sly turns around and winks. The context being that Sly presumably got amnesia taking a blow for Carmelita, who makes up a lie and says that Sly is her partner, but is revealed to be faking it the whole time.
  • What the Hell, Hero?:
    • Sly and the main villain Dr. M end up arguing over who's the leader of the gang. Sly insists that they're all equal, but Dr. M asks why their group is named the "Cooper Gang" if that's the case.
    • During "An Opera of Fear," Bentley calls Sly out on destroying the Blue Vipers (since it means protecting Carmelita from Octavio despite her being more dead-set and aggressive on locking up the two for their crimes), all because Sly "has a thing for her." Not to mention that with her around, it would be very difficult to stop Octavio and help Murray. "Operation: Tar-Be Gone!" proves that Bentley has a point, with Carmelita nearly fouling the plan.
  • When I Was Your Age...:
    Octavio: Hoo-ooh-ooh! That's the toughest talk you got?! You're pathetic. Back in my day, we had enforcers that would make people pee their pants just as soon as look at 'em.
    • He'll also complain that thieves in his day were good enough to never be seen should you fail to tail him unseen.
      Octavio: I got a shadow, huh? You stink! Back in my day, thieves knew how not to get caught!
  • Worthy Opponent: Penelope considers Sly as this upon him defeating the Black Baron (her alter ego), and proudly declares him the winner.
  • You and What Army?: Murray says this to Muggshot when the latter attempts to destroy the Cooper Gang's air hangar in "Flight of Fancy." Muggshot responds by bringing in his army, bribed members of the Black Baron's security force, to invade the hangar. They all get taken down through the teamwork of Bentley, Murray and Penelope.
  • You Owe Me: This is how Dimitri eventually joins the gang. First, he helps you reunite with Murray in exchange for busting him out of jail. Next, he gives you information in return for owing him a favor, which he calls in a few months later. After you fulfill this favor, however, he sticks around to help rescue Penelope and pull off the Cooper Vault job.

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Sly vs. Panda King

Sly has to battle the Panda King within the latter's mind via the Guru's magic.

How well does it match the trope?

5 (8 votes)

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Main / BattleInTheCenterOfTheMind

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