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When it comes to the motion picture industry, it does not traditionally look kindly on Q1. There are a handful of Academy Award nominees that receive wide release after dipping their toes into the previous year to gain eligibility for voting, but for the most part this time of year is a dumping ground for Hollywood. It is the time of year when delayed films are finally released, and stars looking for a comeback without much competition gravitate to. The budgets are low, and the expectations aren’t much higher.  That same cannot be said for gaming, at least not recently.  

In the past, Q1 was where games were sent to die. Missing the holiday season is a big deal, and so games released in January were generally there to get them off the books of publishers. They needed them released, and didn’t care when so they went to Q1.  That has changed recently. Publishers and developers are now seeing Q1 as a potentially lucrative quarter. There are several reasons for this, including the simple fact that it is still winter in North America, and gamers – like most sane people – are more likely to hang out inside. Last year saw several blockbuster releases around this time, and both Nintendo and Sony released their most recent handheld systems in Q1 – the 3DS in 2011 and the Vita in 2012. And this year Q1 is even more crowded. 

We’ve already seen a few big releases like Dead Space 3 and DmC: Devil May Cry, and before the quarter is complete we’ll have a new God of War, Crysis 3, BioShock Infinite, and many more. Part of that is due to the new love affair publishers have with Q1, and part of it is almost certainly related to the pending announcement and subsequent releases of the next Xbox and PlayStation, probably around Thanksgiving. There has yet to be a single game announced for Q3 and Q4 (with the exception of Grand Theft Auto V in September, which is the result of a delay). Once the new systems are unveiled, there will certainly be a flood of titles for the next gen, but that leaves developers with the titles they are currently working on for this generation and need to get on shelves before the next gen titles steal all the excitement. But with all the big name releases coming this winter and spring, there are bound to be a few that are lost in the shuffle, including Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time. 

That’s a real shame too, as Sly Cooper: Thieves In Time is a great platforming adventure at a very reasonable price of $40 (possibly so you will be encouraged to purchase the Vita version for $30 that offers cross-play). It features colorful, detailed graphics, wildly varied gameplay scenarios, and far more content to explore than you’d expect from a game that is ostensibly aimed at an all-ages demographic. Granted, the gameplay is nothing terribly innovative, but the concepts seen in Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time are classic ones polished to a high sheen in the era of the Nintendo 64 and they remain timelessly appealing on the PlayStation 3 and PS Vita handheld today.

If you expect a brilliant story, complex character motivations, and enough political intrigue to make George R. R. Martin smile, you’re going to be starkly disappointed by Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time. The story found in Thieves in Time is just not a work of art, but then again it’s also not supposed to be. Instead, it’s more fitting to compare the game’s plot to those found in the animated films released by Dreamworks. You know they’re usually going to lag behind the best in the industry, but they can still be quite enjoyable (especially if you’re a child). Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time is exactly the same way. The game’s plot is riddled with clichés and humor that will best play to a younger audience, but if you know that going in you won’t be appalled by it. In sum, the story in Thieves in Time is a largely harmless excuse giving developer Sanzaru Games the freedom to include any manner of gameplay within the title.

The quick and dirty, no spoilers version of the tale is that Sly, Bentley and Murray are sent back in time to restore the past. A villain has discovered a way to permanently erase Sly’s ancestors from history, so in a solution that directly references Back to the Future at least twice the trio travels through time to save Rioichi Cooper, Sly’s distant cousin from feudal-era Japan. 

Thanks to the aforementioned clichés, it’s easy to fill in the rest of the game’s plot based on that short synopsis. Rioichi, as you’d expect, is both a ninja master and a sushi chef. Ancient Japan is populated largely by anthropomorphic animal versions of samurai, ninjas, martial arts experts, and any other stereotypical figure you might find in an Akira Kurosawa film. Not that developer Sanzaru Games took the lazy, paint-by-numbers approach to the world of Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time. Though the firm made sure to populate its game with common, expected faces, that’s merely an effort to make the environment relatable. The attention to detail Sanzaru infused the world goes with beyond these stereotypes however, and proves that a ton of love went into the creation of Thieves in Time.

Given the family-friendly aim evident in Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time, there’s absolutely no reason that Sanzaru Games had to accurately depict things like period-specific coinage of its otherwise totally fictional vision of Feudal Japan, but it stands as a quality example of how this game is not just a great title for the kids, but is also perfectly capable of entertaining their parents or older siblings – a feat made doubly impressive by the lack of gore and busty female characters in Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time.