The Therapist Gamer

Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time is the fourth main entry in the series.  The first three games were made for the PS2 by Sucker Punch, who went on to develop the Infamous games.  The first three games were remade in HD for the PS3 by Sanzaru Studios, who perhaps did so as a sort of job interview for making Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time.  As a result, I think they got a good feel for what a Sly Cooper game feels like but didn't really develop the series much farther than the previous entry.

 

Following the precedent set in the previous game, you play as multiple characters throughout the story line.  In addition to Sly, you can play as Bentley (the turtle in a wheelchair), Murray (the pink hippo), Carmelita (the fox detective), or a slew of "one-off" characters.  They are mostly pretty well rounded and have a variety of special moves and unlocks, but I mostly preferred playing as Sly and wish more of the game focused on developing his gameplay rather than thinning things out over several characters.  This is somewhat characteristic of the game as a whole - lots of fun ideas and variety but at the expense of a focused, polished experience.  

 

It's pretty amazing that this game, made for the PS3, is playable on the Vita.  It has large, open-world (ish) spaces to explore with fairly detailed environments.  There's a lot to like about this game, but it felt like a bit of a chore to get all the way through it.