It's not nostalgia so much as it is the fact that the game was Assassin's Creed before Assassin's Creed was even a project proposal. The clue bottles are placed in a way that collecting all of them will show you a bunch of tricks and shortcuts and give you a general idea of what the level is like for the rest of the missions, which all build up to the final big elaborate heist where all characters participate. It's a long game, though, and indeed mission variety is subpar, but it's still better than Sly 3: Attack of the Mini-Game.
Sly 1 is the best one, though. A really cool 3D platformer with very unique levels, short but perfectly paced and it has unlockable techniques that are actually useful during normal play. Unfortunately it's unlikely they've added the dev commentary for completing the Master Thief runs.
. Do you like Sly 1? If you love that game, you could also dislike this game due to not exactly building off what the original did (linear Crash-meets stealth stages).
