Sly vs Ratchet vs Jak Series- Nostalgia as a Factor?

[Madryse]

1. Sly Cooper

My favorite series, it might be repitive for some, but every game is repetitive. I really liked the loop of the Sly series and fun characters & great cutscenes made it even better for me. Also the stealth gameplay is a plus for me.

 

2. Ratchet & Clank

The PS2 Series didn't have a good presention in the story, the gameplay was the only thing that was good and that got boring after awhile. The characters are alright, I didn't really care for them that much. I use to play R&C multiplayer all the time and that one was fun so that's a plus. I have played all R&C expect for the reboot, into the nexus & the spin-offs I have played deadlocked though. I also quitted R&C2 around the end because it got really borring and annoying (I was collecting some gems or smthing like that), it was the same as the first one and I was playing them one after another and that wasn't a great idea. I then watched the rest on youtube and started the 3rd one almost a year later.

 

3. Jak & Daxter

Haven't played it enough to have an opinion yet but I will start it soon. I actually have finished the first one but it was meh, but like Sly it gets better after the second one, I've played a bit of it and it was good but the far and between checkpoints made me stop playing it for a while and forgot about it but I will pick it up again soon as I said.

Edited September 10, 2016 by Madryse

[Zach]

1) Sly Cooper series

2) Jak & Daxter series

3) Ratchet & Clank series

[fastflowdaman]

On 24.8.2016 at 2:55 PM, Valtekken173 said:

I think R&C deserves the first place. Great gameplay, great stories and characters, creative as hell in the settings, weapons and enemies department, and best longevity.
Sly comes in as a close second, having great gameplay, platforming, stories and characters, but lacking some of the all-out mayhem and destructive fun of R&C.

J&D is the worst among these three, with only one truly well-made game in the series, even though it has a very simple gameplay (J&D The Precursor Legacy), a bad game that tried to copy GTA III and failed miserably at it (Jak II: Renegade) and a good game that felt more like a patched version of the previous game in the series (Jak 3). At least the other two series have always been consistent in their quality level, whereas J&D managed to be a tone, gameplay and quality level rollercoaster...not good.

 

Second that. Only things to add are that Sly 4 sucked ass and that his green and purple sidekicks are annoying AF.

Edited January 11, 2018 by fastflowdaman

[DarkSoleride]

For me has to be the Ratchet & Clank series, so many memories playing this with my friends bringing our PS2 consoles over and copies of our games playing them side by side or in local multiplayer. Jak and Daxter i never really could get into and Sly i have never played until late last year. 

[jasondm300]

This is a really hard decision.  Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy might be my favorite 3D platformer of all time.  but the rest of the series I think kind of sucks.  Sly has been great (Sly1, Sly4) and utterly terrible (Sly 3).  Ratchet and Clack are probably the most consistent of the the franchises, in that almost every one of their games are great.

[cris3f]

I know this is an old thread, but for me platformers on the Playstation are not very good. The only one I consider reasonable is Crack in Time, which is not even on the list. Jak and Dexter has an awful Vita port and it's not that good on the PS3 either. I hate the movement and story of Sly games, they are very moronic and tiring (to make things worse the dubbing in my main language is dysmal with deplorable voices that even makes things a lot worse).The Ratchet trilogy is a lot worse than Crack in Time, which has a reasonable story and some clever ideas.

But Nintendo has always had platformers a gazillion better than these ones. Sad, one of the great Plasytation weaknesses and one of Sony failures.

 

Edited June 24, 2018 by cris3f

[Pottercito_]

On 18/7/2015 at 1:10 PM, markcavan said:

For me first Ratchet and a close second to Jak but a VERY distant third goes to Sly.  

 

Having just recently completed Sly 2 I can say its the worst game of all three classic PS2 series.  I've yet to play Sly 3 as I believe its much of the same again :-(

 

Sly 1 was okay but Sly 2 was just beyond awful and I was so glad when I finished it.  None of the Ratchet or Jak games have made me feel like that and I've played them all on PS2, PS3 and PSV.  Yes, Jak 2 is hard and frustrating in parts but its not impossible with some practice you'll get there and is a really fun game.

If you played all the versions in all platforms, I am sure you hated Jak II in PS Vita it was the worst port ever, I still have nightmares, I did not enjoyed anything when platting it on VITA, I just wanted to end that platinum as soon as I can and get out of that nighmare lol, never in my life I will play Jak again on my vita, even the controls were glitched and messed out to the point that it was so frustrating, and more if we take into account the hard the game is. 

[Nute202-]

1. Jak 

2. Sly

3. Ratchet

[DN91]

Personally, the best series is Ratchet & Clank. Yes, it obviously plays a big nostalgia factor, but let's focus on the PS2 games (mainly, the trilogy):

the gameplay and is awesome, you can level up a ton of stuff, the graphics is still really good even after 20 years, the controls are very good...

I've been playing the Sly saga recently, which even that one is not bad, unfortunately I didn't have them on PS2 so there's no nostalgia factor playing here. 

While for Jak & Daxter... Eh. The 1st game is one of the best games I've ever played, but the 2nd one was pretty bad. It was a sudden and complete change from what I got used to play in Jak 1. Jak 3 basically managed to pick up 2's formula and spice it up a little, in fact the story and the gameplay got a noticeable improvement, but Jak 1 is always the best one for me. 

[mega-tallica]

R&C > Sly >>> J&D

 

I loved all the R&C and Sly games, but I only really liked the first J&D. 3 was alright but 2 was abysmal. 

 

Having recently gone back and played a little bit of Sly, I can certainly see some issues especially with the parkouring in the original trilogy. Very wonky at times and honestly, Thieves In Time gets unrightfully hated on but it fixed a lot of the parkour issues at the very least and feels a lot tighter to play compared to Sucker Punch's games. Way more minigame-oriented compared to the other 2 so Sly can be an acquired taste as it's the most unique one out of the 3 PS2 era platformers.

 

R&C is just the best overall though. 

 

 

[DrBloodmoney]

6 minutes ago, mega-tallica said:

R&C > Sly >>> J&D

 

I loved all the R&C and Sly games, but I only really liked the first J&D. 3 was alright but 2 was abysmal. 

 

Having recently gone back and played a little bit of Sly, I can certainly see some issues especially with the parkouring in the original trilogy. Very wonky at times and honestly, Thieves In Time gets unrightfully hated on but it fixed a lot of the parkour issues at the very least and feels a lot tighter to play compared to Sucker Punch's games. Way more minigame-oriented compared to the other 2 so Sly can be an acquired taste as it's the most unique one out of the 3 PS2 era platformers.

 

R&C is just the best overall though. 

 

 

Was going to comment, but it seems largely redundant, since this is so exactly my opinion that I had to be like “wait… that’s not me…” 😂

[Zephrese]

All three are fantastic series that I'd argue hold up a lot better than some people claim or are willing to admit, and nostalgia definitely isn't the only reason that they're beloved by so many even to this very day. It's certainly a factor, of course, but it's also disingenuous to chalk it up to just being that or to exaggerate how much of a factor it actually is (especially just because one doesn't like them as much as others, if at all).

 

Overall I'd say Ratchet is my favorite of the three (and tied with Metroid as my second favorite video game series period), despite having grown up on Sly a bit more. Jak is also great, but - while they're also still great in their own ways, and I personally like them more than the first game - the latter two entries in the trilogy have a lot of things that bog them down a little bit for me (especially the second game, but it's also not remotely bad like people pretend it is nowadays for whatever reason...).

Edited 11 hours ago by Zephrese

[Breakingthegreen]

Ah the three games of my childhood. Anyway this is easy pickings for me:

 

1. Sly Cooper - My favourite game series of all time, in fact I recently got a new plushie of Sly for Xmas, What I loved (in 2,3 and 4) was how every mission was a piece in a puzzle that would be the main heist, it really never felt that the game was extending itself for no good reason. You face a problem, so you do something to overcome it. Super satisfying, it helps that it plays great and the stories are awesome cartoony adventures too.
2. Ratchet & Clank - I am very happy this game series is still going, and being treated with the respect it deserves, creative weapons and lightning sharp gameplay makes this series a very good time.
3. Jak & Daxter - The problem with this franchise is that it never did the same thing twice, you can't accuse it of getting stale, but when your franchise can be described as: Banjo Kazooie, GTA, Mad Max, F-zero. There's gonna be some folks that won't gel with all of the, For example, I don't like Jak X, I rarely like racing games in the first place, but when it's has hard as Jak X, I don't exactly feel welcome.

[Elvick_]

I played Sly 1 first during the PS2 era still going on, and Jak and Ratchet later after the PS3 had already come out. This includes the other Sly games too.
 

Ratchet and Clank is the best one. From the first game to the last it's the most consistent and it's the only one that simply got better throughout the PS2. And I'd say it got better throughout it's PS3 era, I get people not liking the shift of the style of humor or characterizations but I really love the over arching story of the Future games and A Crack in Time is the only R&C game to have me actually cry and QfB was a perfect emotional setup for ACiT. 

Sly is fun, but it gets progressively bloated with janky minigames that needed more time to polish, which drags each subsequent game down. I am not as against the plot of 4 as many, would it be my first choice the twist they chose? Not really, but my main issue is that 3 ended with a cliffhanger/tease of more and then we took forever to get something else and then we finally get something to resolve it and it ended on a worse cliffhanger than before and now we wait yet again. Overall Sly is still a very solid and fun series. Sly is the only one that didn't get any real spinoffs. It just got minigame collections (if we count the minigames the PS3 Collection had as an extra one beyond the Bentley thing).

Jak & Daxter is amazing, but then Jak II is open world which sucks and it has worse R&C shooting mechanics. If I wanted a lame R&C game I'd play Ruff Trigger or something (and I have). I've yet to play 3 because I haven't gotten through the second, and Jak X is fine though I've yet to beat it because I'm ass at it. Jak is definitely one where I'd most hate to see it rebooted/continued because I feel like it would be done really badly. Especially if ND touched it with their concept art from before they decided to just make TLoU. Yet to play the PSP game (now that it has trophies tho~). Forget how Daxter was, it's been a long time since I played it.

 

R&C has tons of spinoffs of varying quality, but personally I think they were all fun. Size Matters is the one I most remember disliking, and I think that was mostly over trying to get 100%. Hopefully it comes to the Catalog eventually so I can try it again with trophies. 

[BEAST_IHMOTEP]

Always on Jak’s boat

 

1 - Jak

2 - Ratchet

3 - Sly

 

And now for an unpopular opinion: I actually liked the change in style an mood on the Jak series. With Jak 2 being my favourite game on the PS2. Much more mature story and iconic characters. In fact I think this was the game that changed Naughty Dog forever from doing children’s games to adult ones.

Edited 9 hours ago by BEAST_IHMOTEP

[MonaSaxPayne]

1. ratchet franchise hands down

2. sly... only the first one. disliked all the others

3. jak.. also only the first one. disliked al the others also