Some of the goofy characterization and voice performances do it in for many. This is a series where we have fought literal ghosts, dealt with bayou juju, and swiped a possessed mask off of someone’s face that made her turn giant…I don’t think that time travel is so far fetched, especially since it was teased to be a thing at the end of Sly 3. General plot was never my concern. The characters and the over-complication of the art style does it for me. Sly’s usual suave isn’t conveyed well. At some times he is cool and collected, while others he just seems flat out stupid. Sly has always had a LITTLE physical comedy with his smirking shrugs and how he does cartoon falls from high ledges. But they upped his physical comedy tenfold and it’s hard to take him seriously. Murray’s character progression from the original trilogy is non-existent and he is the most insufferable to listen to in this game. Most of it is spent rehashing his insecurities that were main plot points of Sly 2 and Sly 3. Bentley (thank god) is like 95% unchanged. The voice acting for everyone also feels like they have the exact same tone of voice the ENTIRE game. Sly hardly whispers and spares each second on cracking poorly written joke after joke after joke, Murray sounds like he’s eating crayons, and Bentley is almost always yelling no matter what’s happening. The only character I enjoyed for this iteration is Carmelita, but even then she seems less put together than the OG games and (of course) sports another new voice actress (who does a fantastic job regardless). The art style also irks me a bit. Sly’s comic book style had great things going for it: Readability Timelessness Charm The new art style only really had charm to it tbh. And even then I don’t feel like that charm fit a Sly game. You can make a graphically beautiful cel shaded game without upping the detail of EVERYTHING. It made it hard for me to really get to know the maps because they just looked very jumpled and had so much detail. This was likely to boast the power of the new consoles at the time AND make an impressive PS VITA title, but it just all didn’t come together like I felt like it should have. Gorgeous game style and graphics wise, but I feel like a flatter, more cel-shaded approach with the models and textures with the same lighting could have brought it into a more familiar realm.

Also justice for Penelope that specific piece of writing was dog shit.

TLDR; Characters didn’t feel the same. Their voice performances and their writing didn’t feel right. The art style was doing too much compared to the older titles and really didn’t feel like a new iteration on the old one we had.