Sly Cooper (Sly Cooper) Discussion

"Crime? I haven't stolen anything... yet."



Completing the trifecta of Daxter, Jak, and Daxter.... Ok, I really mean Jak, Ratchet, and Sly! They were the trio of 3D platformer series on the PS2. While Ratchet was known for his many guns and Jak had a more refined combat with a bit of mystic thrown in, Sly is more focused on stealth. While there are some combat options, most enemies were tough to take down, prompting you to sneak around, pickpocketing enemies for extra cash while stealthily ruining the villain's plans with the help of his 2 best friends: Bentley (the brains) and Murray (the brawn).

Within the Smash realm, Sly isn't much of a powerhouse and he's fairly light. He doesn't like enemies getting in his space since he has terrible defenses... so what makes him viable? He would be the one true stealthy character. With so many tricks up his sleeve, the game turns into cops and robbers, with Sly attempting to get in small hits without leaving the opponent much opportunity to react. He's quite good at it, too.


Passive: Shadow Power
Holding down the shield button makes Sly invisible. He can run around and jump while in this state, but there is a slight shimmer that can alert enemies to his location if you go too fast.
"But wait! What about the shield and roll?" That is the tradeoff - Sly does not have a shield and cannot roll. He's much more susceptible to direct attacks compared to other fighters because of it.

Passive: Backstab
Sly deals extra damage and knockback whenever he hits an enemy in the back with any move.


Neutral Special: Smoke Bomb
Sly takes out a smoke bomb and crushes it, causing an explosion of smoke, obscuring view. Upon using it, you can input a direction to teleport a short distance in that direction, unleashing another smoke bomb when you appear to signal where you traveled.
This move serves as Sly's trademark getaway move. Rather than push enemies away, he runs away from battle. Since he cannot roll, this is a must-have move

Up Special: Jetpack
Sly dons a jetpack and shoots straight upward for a good distance. A nice recovery move and can also serve as another escape technique. This does not leave him helpless after the move, but he will automatically take out a paraglider after the move, which can be cancelled by any other move.

Side Special: The Murray
"Fear the Murray!" Sly takes a sidestep, and Murray appears, charging forward. Murray himself is invulnerable to attack and is very strong, but is kind of slow. Sly can use the distraction Murray causes to ready an attack.

Down Special: Bentley Bomb
Sly does another sidestep, and Bentley appears, dropping a bomb. The bomb detonates after a short period, and if an opponent touches it, it sticks to them. The blast has a good amount of knockback, helping Sly control the battlefield. Unfortunately, Bentley is not invulnerable, and will escape (through some kind of high-tech teleportation or something) if hit before dropping his load.

Combo: Cane Swipe
A simple 2 hit cane combo. Nothing special about it, though he can repeat it very quickly after the 2 hits.

Side Tilt: Pickpocket
Sly reaches over his cane and attempts to grab something from the opponent. It does very little damage, but it serves 2 purposes: It stops projectiles (by pocketing them, but he can't reuse them), and it steals an item if the opponent is holding one (it can even steal items like Franklin Badge).

Up Tilt: Upward Swing
Sly swings his cane upward, doing a decent amount of knockback that doesn't scale well with %. Good for starting a small combo, but not much else.

Down Tilt: Cane Spin
Sly quickly spins his cane around him, dealing a decent amount of knockback. If this attack is repeatedly used, Sly can move around while spinning. If Sly desparately needs to get enemies away from him, this is his one option.

Forward Smash: Alarm Clock
Sly throws an alarm clock forward. Odd for a smash attack in that it's a projectile that does no damage. Any opponent that touches the alarm clock after it lands (and thus starts ringing) is stunned for the duration. The clock itself has a longer range and longer duration with more charge.

Up Smash: Decoy
Sly charges up a jump. Upon release, Sly drops a cardboard decoy and leaps high into the air, with a distance proportional to the charge. The decoy itself damages and stuns any who touch or attack it. His leap also does a slight amount of knockback. Useful for escape and as a make-shift counter.

Down Smash: Rage Bomb
Sly throws a grenade at the ground. The radius of the explosion is directly proportional to the charge. If it hits, the foe's controls are temporarily randomized. It otherwise does a bit of damage but no stun or knockback - mainly useful for messing with his opponent.

Dash Attack: Knockout Dive
Sly jumps forward, spinning his cane while in midair. It has a good amount of knockback and mobility, so he never has to stop for long.

Neutral Aerial: Barrel
Sly goes inside a barrel lined with explosives! It really limits his horizontal movement upon activation. Another tap of the A button will explode the barrel, hitting enemies all around him. He'll stay in the barrel if he lands on the ground, though - and can then walk around before exploding it. Another property of the barrel is that it protects him against projectiles, giving him some cover against spammers.

Forward Aerial: Cane Smash
Sly slams his cane forward in front of him, acting as a meteor smash. It comes out faster than other forward aerial meteor smashes, allowing him to get a quick kill if the opportunity presents itself.

Backward Aerial: Voltage Strike
Sly's cane lights up with electricity as he stabs it behind him. It stuns enemies momentarily so he can regain his footing.

Up Aerial: Overhead Swing
A generic swing of Sly's cane above him. Nothing significant about it.

Down Aerial: Air Dive
Sly stops all horizontal movement and dashes to the ground, spinning his cane until he hits it. It has a good amount of knockback, similar to his dash attack, and is useful in a pinch to adjust his trajectory.

Grab: Cane Grab
Sly reaches out his cane to attempt to pull in enemies.

Pummel: Rapid Punch
Sly simply punches his helpless opponent. Nothing special.

Forward Throw: Push Away
Sly pushes the handle of his cane into the opponent, knocking them back a set distance. Sly can act out of this very quickly, allowing him to escape.

Backward Throw: Swing Around
Sly swings his cane around, throwing the enemy behind him. It has the most knockback of any of his throws, but it's still not much of a kill move.

Up Throw: Silent Obliteration
Sly dissapears into a tornado of hits on the enemy before ejecting him/her into the air.

Down Throw: Takedown
Sly lifts his foe with his cane above him before slamming down to the ground behind him. Deals a good amount of damage and leaves the enemy prone.

Final Smash: Agent Fox
Looks like Carmelita showed up! Sly jumps behind a cardboard cutout as Carmelita drops in. You now control Carmelita for a short time as she blasts enemies with her shock pistol.

Taunt: Sly shrugs. "Chasing after shadows again?"

Victory: Sly swings his cane around and puts it on his shoulder.

Loss: Sly tips his hat down and claps.



Supporters: 10
Roy
Slissith
Spoon300
Naughty Ottsel
Johnny64
OmegaSteve777
Lego Shaq
Braystar
Playtimebro
JacobDaGun

Very nice so far. However I'm not declaring support untill I see more.

Slissith wrote:

Very nice so far. However I'm not declaring support untill I see more.

Finished up the moveset in the OP.

Not much in the way of kill moves (pretty much limited to dtilt, fair, and Murray/Bentley) but quite a few interesting moves available - most notably all 3 of his smash attacks have no knockback!

Ok so I see that you finished the moveset. Very nice.

I support, but I also have a concern; Sly appears to be way too gimicky, so while the movset might work in theory, it might not work in practise. But imo it would be worth giving it a shot, because Sly's gameplay would be completely unique.

Yeah, I definetely support.

Same Here, good sir! Another Smashing Moveset, give us a few more and we may have a 'PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale' reunion.

I could see Sly's Shadow Power work in online matches but it would be hard to use in local matches (unless you practiced invisible matches in melee).

Slissith wrote:

I support, but I also have a concern; Sly appears to be way too gimicky, so while the movset might work in theory, it might not work in practise. But imo it would be worth giving it a shot, because Sly's gameplay would be completely unique.

I agree in that he's gimmicky, but that's the point of him. How else do we make a stealth-based character in a fighting game?

Spoon300 wrote:

Same Here, good sir! Another Smashing Moveset, give us a few more and we may have a 'PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale' reunion.

We're probably not going to have Kratos, Drake, or Cole... so that's not happening. I think the PS2 trifecta + Crash/Spyro is plenty... though Sackboy isn't a bad option.

TaXMaN wrote:

I could see Sly's Shadow Power work in online matches but it would be hard to use in local matches (unless you practiced invisible matches in melee).

With enough practice, the Sly player should know exactly how far he ran/jumped so he can judge a good time to strike. This gives him an extremely difficult learning curve, however.


The Shadow Power was indeed taken from PS All Stars... but he actually was one of the best characters in that game, even without the ability to block/roll, and the shadow power wasn't as useful (a patch nerfed it so you became visibile after a few seconds of it). This was mainly because he had an instant counter that was better than any block and a really good kill move... while we don't have the counter here (it's represented in his up smash), the shadow power is more useful and he has more toys to play with.

I have to say, I'm really happy to see Sly given such a good moveset. I agree that he should be everything a heavy-hitter like Captain Falcon or Ganondorf isn't. Like the Jak & Daxter moveset, this really does justice to the character. Well done! My only concern is that, with so many moves that are more subtle and complicated, he might alienate some players with his "extremely difficult learning curve".

Still, he's got my full support, and I'd love to see such a unique character in Crusade.

Naughty Ottsel wrote:

I have to say, I'm really happy to see Sly given such a good moveset. I agree that he should be everything a heavy-hitter like Captain Falcon or Ganondorf isn't. Like the Jak & Daxter moveset, this really does justice to the character. Well done! My only concern is that, with so many moves that are more subtle and complicated, he might alienate some players with his "extremely difficult learning curve".

Still, he's got my full support, and I'd love to see such a unique character in Crusade.

Thanks! I feel like Crusade could use more difficult-to-use characters, ones that push the boundaries of what a character is. We already have some interesting characters like that (Little Mac, for instance). Maybe Sly should have more 'normal' moves, but I feel like that would promote more aggressive play and thus ruin who he is.

Roy wrote:

Thanks! I feel like Crusade could use more difficult-to-use characters, ones that push the boundaries of what a character is. We already have some interesting characters like that (Little Mac, for instance). Maybe Sly should have more 'normal' moves, but I feel like that would promote more aggressive play and thus ruin who he is.

Yeah, don't worry. You got it pretty much as right as you could the first time. His stealth-orientation is what makes him so unique and appealing in the first place, and the Sly games themselves take a while to master, so Sly as a character should reflect that.

The only moves that stand out to me as the most likely to be problematic are the Alarm Clock and the Rage Bomb; particularly the latter. If the Alarm Clock stuns enemies, what's to stop a player from spamming it and using Murray to slam their opponent again and again? The Rage Bomb, while I like the idea, also seems a bit over-infuriating for whoever's on the receiving end. Even if these can both only be used one at a time each, they seem like they'd be easily abused. What kind of restrictions can be put on them, if you don't want to change their mechanics?

Naughty Ottsel wrote:

The only moves that stand out to me as the most likely to be problematic are the Alarm Clock and the Rage Bomb; particularly the latter. If the Alarm Clock stuns enemies, what's to stop a player from spamming it and using Murray to slam their opponent again and again? The Rage Bomb, while I like the idea, also seems a bit over-infuriating for whoever's on the receiving end. Even if these can both only be used one at a time each, they seem like they'd be easily abused. What kind of restrictions can be put on them, if you don't want to change their mechanics?

The Alarm Clock is laggy and only works at a range - thus, an opponent can rush you while you're charging it and avoid it completely (while you can't defend since no shield). Like most of his moves, he has to be careful when he uses it.
Hm... maybe if the Rage Bomb didn't randomize, but did some other effect? In the original game, it just made enemies attack other enemies instead of you, but I don't know how else that could translate into Smash. On the other hand, there's nothing stopping an enemy from hitting you since it has no knockback or stun... other than the randomization potentially ruining their attack.

I'm honestly stunned on how good and gimmicky this moveset is. Full support.

Roy wrote:

The Alarm Clock is laggy and only works at a range - thus, an opponent can rush you while you're charging it and avoid it completely (while you can't defend since no shield). Like most of his moves, he has to be careful when he uses it.
Hm... maybe  if the Rage Bomb didn't randomize, but did some other effect? In the original game, it just made enemies attack other enemies instead of you, but I don't know how else that could translate into Smash. On the other hand, there's nothing stopping an enemy from hitting you since it has no knockback or stun... other than the randomization potentially ruining their attack.

Okay, I reread the OP, I understand the Alarm Clock better now. Now that I get it, I like it. As for the Rage Bomb, my only concern really is that, if someone spammed it, their opponent would have no way to effectively defend against the Bomb without the aid of blind luck. Maybe it could just reverse their controls, or swap the movement buttons with the C-Buttons. Something consistent, that can be partially expected, so whoever it gets used on can potentially overcome it's effects with practice, but will still be frazzled when it's used on them.

Naughty Ottsel wrote:

As for the Rage Bomb, my only concern really is that, if someone spammed it, their opponent would have no way to effectively defend against the Bomb without the aid of blind luck. Maybe it could just reverse their controls, or swap the movement buttons with the C-Buttons. Something consistent, that can be partially expected, so whoever it gets used on can potentially overcome it's effects with practice, but will still be frazzled when it's used on them.

I have a solution to this, so it will still mess up the opponent but won't be as difficult to fight off. What if there were 3 possible effects it could have? One is a simple reversal of controls, one swaps around the attack/special/shield options, and one does something else? So you don't know which one will happen, but once you know which effect occured, you can deal with it.

That sounds good. Having three possible effects is the best way to go. They'll be fair, and will still take time to learn how to be dealt with. And even then, like you said, you won't know which one you'll be hit with. Do you think it could also have a short timer for how long you have to wait before using it again? I know I'm kinda pestering about how to counter spammers, but a move like this, I feel, needs some kind of regulation.

We can just shorten the range so it's not as good unless you charge it. If someone is still right next to you after getting hit once and you use it again, either they deserve to get hit again or you're gunna get hit yourself (since it has no stun/knockback).

Yeah, thinking about it, that would work. Keeps the attack fair, without nerfing it. Seems to me like this moveset's as solid as it could be at this point!

I already supported this, but other people should, too. Get on that, people.

no support cuz, i dont believe in sly cooper

thebuddyadrian wrote:

no support cuz, i dont believe in sly cooper

He doesn't believe in you, either.

thebuddyadrian wrote:

no support cuz, i dont believe in sly cooper

...Is Sly Cooper a religion, what is this supposed to even mean..

Lego Shaq wrote:

thebuddyadrian wrote:

no support cuz, i dont believe in sly cooper

...Is Sly Cooper a religion, what is this supposed to even mean..

What i meant by believe is cuz i created the parappa post and his catchphrase is "i gotta believe!"

thebuddyadrian wrote:

Lego Shaq wrote:

thebuddyadrian wrote:

no support cuz, i dont believe in sly cooper

...Is Sly Cooper a religion, what is this supposed to even mean..

What i meant by believe is cuz i created the parappa post and his catchphrase is "i gotta believe!"

That's kind of selfish. Parappa and Sly could both be in.

i support sly

Support!

Suppot. We don't have a stealth character in any Smash, and the moveset is cool.

Lego Shaq wrote:

thebuddyadrian wrote:

Lego Shaq wrote:

thebuddyadrian wrote:

no support cuz, i dont believe in sly cooper

...Is Sly Cooper a religion, what is this supposed to even mean..

What i meant by believe is cuz i created the parappa post and his catchphrase is "i gotta believe!"

That's kind of selfish. Parappa and Sly could both be in.

Are you sure? I think theyre only gonna put in one playstation rep.

thebuddyadrian wrote:

Lego Shaq wrote:

thebuddyadrian wrote:

Lego Shaq wrote:

thebuddyadrian wrote:

no support cuz, i dont believe in sly cooper

...Is Sly Cooper a religion, what is this supposed to even mean..

What i meant by believe is cuz i created the parappa post and his catchphrase is "i gotta believe!"

That's kind of selfish. Parappa and Sly could both be in.

Are you sure? I think theyre only gonna put in one playstation rep.

Sigh...

Support

I have never in my entire life played a single Sly Cooper game, but the way you produced this moveset is spectacular. I pledge support for this, and I'm actually kind of excited to see it happen, despite having never played a Sly Cooper game before or even knowing these games existed until recently.

tl;dr, Support!