Accidental Innuendo: Go and pickpocket Carmelita as Sly. Congratulations, you've managed to get the Cooper cane into Carmelita's pants.
Adorkable: Bentley. Though initially a nerdy turtle who stayed in Mission Control, he eventually mustered the courage to go into the front lines to save his friends. Even after being in a wheel chair, he still has the strength to continue on.
Bentley can be seen as the true main character of the series. In the first game, he's the nervous Mission Control who's scared for Sly having to face the Fiendish Five. Then in the second game, he's still the nervous guy who plans everything and occasionally goes out into the field, and eventually gets over some of his weaknesses to rescue his friends singlehandedly. By the third game, he is confined to a wheelchair but takes it fairly well, having turned the situation on its head to become even more useful, powerful and confident than ever before. He continues making all the gang's plans, experiences love and jealousy, and beats his inner demons when Mr. M tries to corrupt him. Later he is betrayed by his love but gets over it and once again, proves his loyalty to his family and does what's right. While Sly and Murray also show noticeable change at certain points—Sly learning to forgive Panda King and Murray turning from The Load and a coward into a self-confident strongman who eventually tries to study his inner self, for example—Bentley gets the most of it and is responsible for many of the gang's successes.
Are Sly and his gang (and by extension the Cooper Clan) really lovable rogues with a code of honor or are they little better than the criminals they steal from? Their lessthan honorable moments have not escaped the notice of fans.
Clockwerk had his body remade with machinery as a method of attaining immortality, hating the Cooper Clan so much that he managed to turn it into a power-source that kept him alive since the Stone Age. Was Clockwerk ensuring the Cooper Clan remained as he killed older generations all part of petty-vindictiveness that eventually caught up with him with Sly, or was this more about keeping himself alive with his niche power-source, keeping the Cooper Clan from dying out so that he wouldn't die with them?
Angst? What Angst?: For seeing his parents killed in front of his eyes—as a child, no less—Sly's a pretty level guy.
Awesome Ego: Sly's default stance on a situation is either witty banter or (if its Carmelita) witty flirting, often responding to any and all security and obstacles with what boils down to "that sounds like a challenge." Thing is, having long-since earned the "Master Thief" title, this cockiness is fully justified.
Clockwerk is the most personal, long-standing enemy of Sly and the Cooper clan as a whole. An ancient owl preserved for centuries inside a robotic shell, powered purely by a "steady diet of jealousy and hate" towards the entire Cooper bloodline, Clockwerk has made various attempts through history to kill dozens of Coopers, more than willing to drag their teammates into his killing range. Though consistently outdone by the Coopers, Clockwerk orchestrates the formation of the Fiendish Five for his latest strike, murdering the parents of Sly Cooper in front of the boy and leaving him alive purely as Cruel Mercy. For years after aiding and enabling the rest of the Five to carry out their own heinous deeds that jeopardize hundreds of lives, Clockwerk reacts to Sly pursuing him for revenge by using Carmelita Fox as a hostage to force Sly into a Sadistic Choice that nearly kills them both. Though taken down by Sly, Clockwerk's evil permeates the rest of the franchise and haunts the Coopers long after his defeat, the vindictive owl's only goal ever having been to torment and annihilate the Cooper line, leaving Clockwerk as "the only master thief".
Honor Among Thieves removes the Clue Bottles altogether, has a ton of minigames and Carmelita's new voice and characterization is rather off putting and polarizing... but the game is still beloved for its exploring new gaming territory, deeper story, and character development.
Thieves in Time fixed those issues, but the otherwise well received gameplay and narrative were overshadowed byPenelope's poorly done Face–Heel Turn, and the Bittersweet EndingCliffhanger that Sanzaru has yet to resolve with a sequel, resulting in fans declaring it Fanon Discontinuity. It still has a fan following, but it's nowhere near as universally praised as the original trilogy.
Creepy Awesome: Clockwerk. In a game series full of goofy, cartoony villains, he stands out for being a methodical serial killer with time on his side.
Draco in Leather Pants: The Cooper Gang itself. Despite their reputation of only going after criminals, supplementary information, one-off remarks in the dialogue, and even cutscenes suggest that they (Sly especially) are perfectly willing to rob museums and private individuals if they have enough security to be a challenge (and/or it would annoy Carmelita), and even engage in petty theft as a form of recreation between big jobs. They also have no problems killing, best shown in Sly 3, where Murray gleefully feeds miners to a giant crocodile as part of Bentley's plan. Not to mention their recruiting people like Dimitri, former mafia boss and drug pusher, Penelope, who regularly cheated at dogfight flying competitions so she could win, or the Panda King, a former mass murder, into their group. Still, the games don't dwell on these incidents, and most fans ignore them entirely.
Dimitri went from the first boss of Sly 2 to be the first person to appear in the second teaser trailer for Thieves in Time. The only game in the series he doesn't appear in is Thievius Raccoonus, which can come off as Early-Installment Weirdness if you didn't play the series chronologically.
Muggshot, the only villain (not pulling a Heel–Face Turn) to be brought back more than once thus far, appearing in two games and an animated short. He also gets a nod when Sly uses his name while in disguise during the feudal Japan level of Thieves In Time.
Even Better Sequel: Band of Thieves is considered the franchise' best game.
Evil Is Cool: Clockwerk, a giant mechanical owl with a huge evil lair, a badass voice, a fun boss fight, and an unexpectedly creepy niche as an attempted serial killer in a children's game. He's by far the most popular villain in the series.
Fanfic Fuel: Whatever the gang was up to between Honor Among Thieves and Thieves in Time, as we only get a few glimpses into what they spent the Time Skip doing. In particular, Carmelita telling Sly that he's her partner on the force at the end of the third game is a good setup to show them working together outside the cop-and-criminal dynamic, but none of the work they may have done is ever mentioned. Meanwhile, Bentley and Penelope are inventing a time machine, but it's never said that there aren't other inventions being made on the sidelines.
Because Paris is the only Recurring Location in the series, fans generally assume the gang lives there whenever not on a job. Some even suggest the main trio are of French nationality to explain why they always go back.
Because he was allegedly originally meant to be bisexual, has no Love Interest and shows some Ambiguously Gay characteristics throughout the series, some fans consider Murray to be either gay or bisexual.
Fanon Discontinuity: For a lot of fans, Thieves in Time simply does not exist, particularly due to the lingering cliffhangers that have yet to be resolved in a followup. Pretending the series ended on the third game allows the series to end on a fairly conclusive and upbeat note.
Fountain of Memes: Everything said by Dimitri from the games is highly quotable.
As a more negative example, Sly Cooper fans have some common ground with with TRON fans on account of both franchises being Screwed by the Network in the middle of a major cliffhanger, and having their most controversial title made by Sanzaru Games.
Fans of fellow anthropomorphic crime comedy drama franchise Zootopia also get along well with Sly fans, especially with Nick and Judy having a not-too-different dynamic to Sly and Carmelita.
As of Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time, both the Crash Bandicoot and Sly Cooper fanbases have gotten along well with each other, as both the aforementioned game and Thieves in Time had time travel, a new developer, a new art style and are the forth instalment of their respective series, even if reception to the latter is more mixed.
Fans have also gotten along with fellow Playstation 2 platformer mascots Jak and Daxter and Ratchet & Clank. They are also friends with fellow Playstation franchise staring an orphaned Deadpan Snarker treasure thief Uncharted.
Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Apparently the games are very popular in Finland, likely because they were some of the few PS2 games to get dubbed into finnish, making it easier for even young players to follow the plot (unlike say, Ratchet or Jak games) The fact that the dub is surprisingly good may also have had an impact.
Growing the Beard: The first game was a good if somewhat by-the-numbers platformer. The second game added the ability to play as Bentley and THEMURRAY, and removed Sly's One-Hit-Point Wonder status. The third game, while not as drastic a changeup from the first, greatly improved Bentley's playstyle, simply by putting him in a wheelchair stacked with gadgetry.
Harsher in Hindsight: In the August 2002 issue of PlayStation Magazine, there was a Photo Comic strip in which Sly attempts to crack open a safe, only to discover a card with the words "A Winner Is You" written on it. In response to this, Bentley exclaims, "No loot? Aw, now my bookie's gonna break my other leg!" Two years later in the ending of Sly 2, Bentley loses the use of both his legs while destroying Clock-La.
Po from Kung Fu Panda is kind of similar to Panda King, isn't he? Knows kung fu, uses his fat to his advantage, and both works use a lot of fireworks.
And now we have a time-traveling raccoon with a tendency to steal stuff in the MCU, played by Bradley Cooper.
Magnificent Bastard: Bentley Turtle is the ingenious brains behind the Cooper Gang, using his proclivity for technology and strategy to see his team through to success in all of their endeavors. Though initially hanging back as a non-action voice to focus on mapping out the best tactics for Sly to use, Bentley eventually enters the field as an excellent operative, using sleeping darts, explosives, and other personally-designed technology to take down opponents in both stealth and combat situations. Plotting out the methods to take down the Fiendish Five and the Klaww Gang, Bentley regularly engages in sabotage and manipulation of worse criminals into turning on each other, all while he helps the Cooper Gang pull off heists of their own. His crowning technological achievement is creating a working time machine that he uses to save the Cooper bloodline from erasure by Le Paradox, closely followed by him masterminding the infiltration of Dr. M's island. Polite yet ruthless, Bentley will do anything for his friends and rip off the worst of the worst to see the Cooper Gang's success.
The sounds Clockwerkand Clock-La makes, such as the sound of its wings flapping, and the flanging effect its voice has, are so cool.
The sound of a breaking Clue Bottle. Only slightly less wonderful is hearing their distinctive clinking growing louder as you hunt them down.
Narm: In Band of Thieves and Honor Among Thieves, Sly's character model was designed in such a way that he always has a cocky smirk on his face. This tends to... get in the way◊ when the situation calls for him to be shocked, sad or in awe about something.
Special Effect Failure: In general the in-game cutscenes of the first three games are not well animated even for the time. It's pretty obvious the game models were made for gameplay, not cutscenes. Models will stretch unnaturally at points, characters models will have trouble expressing emotion sometimes like mentioned above with Sly and they will often go into their idle animation when they are not talking which can make some scene awkward. Thieves in Time improved in-game cutscenes however.
A world-class thief with a storied family legacy and a big ego teams up with two other (almost) equally-skilled criminals to rob over-the-top villains for fun and profit, all the while doggedly pursued by one very frustrated Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist. Oh, and the hero has a doomed crush on someone they really shouldn't, the gang drives around the world in a beat-up old automobile that's way cooler than it has any right to be, and no one ever wears any pants. Is this Sly Cooper or the Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal version of Lupin III?
Some fans have also compared the Sly Cooper franchise to the original Spyro the Dragon series. Both franchises are 3D platformers where you play as a Mascot with Attitude. The firstgames are subjected to Early-Installment Weirdness before the respective series' would go on to codify the things that define the series in the secondgames, which many consider to be the best of their respective franchises. The thirdgames try to expand upon the very things that made the first sequel beloved - including the additions of many new playable characters - but are ultimately seen as inferior but still solid games. The fourthgames were the first console games of their franchises made by a different developer for the console generation that came afterwards and suffer from Fanon Discontinuity as a result.
Superlative Dubbing: The Finnish dub is likely part of the reason the games are so popular in Finland. The voices fit well even if the cast sounds a bit older than the English cast, the jokes and names are translated wellExampleMugshot became Kovanaama, a slang word for a tough guy and like the beloved Finnish dub for Biker Mice from Mars, there are some adult references hidden in (Bentley, for example calls Dimitri a gigolo at one point). The fourth game's dub is still good, but suffers a bit for its slightly more literal translationnote Mugshot's name is now a literal translation "Turpakuva", for example and Bentley's new voice actor who sounds nothing like the old one.
What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: You play as a raccoon thief who witnessed his parents' murder at age eight and seeks to avenge their death in the first game, becoming a career criminal that is portrayed as cool. In addition, the series contains suggestive humor, depictions of tobacco use, and references to alcohol. There is even an international drug cartel in Band of Thieves, which was rated E (though increased to E10+ for rereleases). To this day, no game in the series has ever received a rating higher than E10+.
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