Assassin's Creed II (2009)

I think it was pretty risky for the second game to completely switch the ancestor character up after the first game but they definitely pulled it off. Ezio is such a good character in the past and in the modern day the mystery from the first game is expanded into more fleshed out worldbuilding.

One of the sequels of a great game that improves on nearly everything.

4.5 / 5 Stars

Assassin's Creed 2 was the first game I got on my Xbox 360 and I have played it so many times since getting it. AC2 genuinely has a special place in my heart when it comes to video games. I consider it a masterpiece, honestly.

Assassin's Creed 2 tells the story of Ezio Auditore, a playboy rich kid turned assassin who seeks revenge against those responsible for the death of members of his family. Ezio's arc as he grows in this role is absolutely fantastic and makes for an amazing video game character in my eyes.

As a game, the combat, assassinations, parkour, and gameworld itself are just fantastic. There's something about Renaissance Italy and the charm of it that just really gets you hooked on this game. AC 2 also introduced many new parkour elements and features not present in AC 1, improving on an already great parkour system.

I think Ezio's charming and unique nature as a character is one of the most golden parts of this game. You can't help but love his character because he's so well-written. He grows, not only as a person, but as a friend, an assassin, and eventually a leader.

There's a reason why AC 2 is, in my eyes, one the best games to ever release. No matter how many times I've played it, it never gets boring. Replaying games isn't something I like doing unless the game is really that amazing. AC 2 is one of these amazing games.

Assassin's Creed II was an interesting game for me. I played through most of it over the course of maybe a week, and then took an extended break of over a year before I finished it. Initially, I felt that the game was weaker than its predecessor, but now I'd say it's on equal footing, perhaps better.

While I enjoyed the story, I can't say I was incredibly invested in it. That said, Ezio is a really great protagonist, and this game does a great job of establishing and developing his character. Ezio is what really sells the story of AC2 for me. The mission structure is decently varied, with a number of side missions you can also take part in. I didn't find much of the side content that interesting aside from the assassination missions, but they're not bad by any means.

Gameplay is rough around the edges in many ways, partially due to aging, but it's still a lot of fun. Parkour is the highlight, with several improvements over the first game and a nice freedom of movement. Combat on the other hand... well, it's not awful, but it's not great either, especially compared to the other two games in the Ezio Trilogy. You'll often find yourself slowly whittling down enemy health later in the game, which can make fights a bit tedious, though the mechanics themselves are pretty fun. I find that it becomes a chore against tougher enemies, but lower-level ones are still pretty easy to fight.

Finally, this game has a really great world. Like the first game, there are multiple cities to visit in AC2. Florence is my personal favorite, but the others are great as well. They all have a unique feel and personality to them, which helps set them apart from each other. They're fun to traverse, and one of the best parts of the game.

Overall, Assassin's Creed II really lives up to its reputation, I think. Some aspects haven't aged incredibly well, but if you're willing to look past that, you're in for a great experience.

CTRL+C, CTRL+V

What really shocked me about this game is how blatantly lazy it is. They literally copy-pasted areas over and over again. You will climb the exact same tower a bunch of times. The exact same walled area with a guard appears at least half a dozen times. And every scroll is in the same office with guards in front of it. It honestly caugh me off-guard that they would be this lazy. But "lazy" is probably a good one-word review for this game.

Again! Again!

The thing that really killed AC2 for me isn't that it's bad, it's the repetition and the lack of a real feeling of progress. Your equipment gets slightly better and you learn new skills that you won't use 99% of the time. It feels inconsequential. Seven hours in combat is still the same boring button-smashing and grab-killing. So far only one or two bosses actually required me to block and time attacks.

Upgrading the villa seemed interesting but it's almost entirely cosmetic. Constructions just give more money or a higher discount. You can't, for instance, hire courtesans to go on a mission with you after building a brothel. It just generates more money. Which you have to manually collect. Just like you have to manually repair and restock after fights, which takes you through far too many menus. It gets tedious quickly.

Busywork & Linearity

Between viewpoints, treasures, the villa, repairing and clearing your reputation after bumping into a guard the game loves to take up your time with irrelevant nonsense. The actual content itself, the missions and tombs, are mediocre too. The (moronic) story is told fairly well but missions are so linear they rarely encourage any creativity. You can only get to locations via a set path and defeating enemies is a dull affair, in part because this game about a freaking assassin lacks a stealth system.

Conclusion

AC2 tries to keep you busy with nonsense to distract you from the fact that the gameplay compares poorly even to the original Deus Ex which was released 9 years earlier.

AC2 was revolutionary compared to the original. Ezio was a far more likeable character, charming and debonair, capable and just. The setting of a romanticised version of renaissance Italy was just incredibly beautiful, and I often wandered the streets just marvelling at the detailed recreation of a world hundreds of years and thousands of miles away from my living room. Furthermore, the gameplay was vastly improved thanks to the incorporation of Leonardo da Vinci and his revolutionary inventions (and fixing that "glitch" that prevented Altair from swimming). The collectibles, while barely related to the story, were rewarding and buying every building in the city to rake in money in real time became an obsession for me. I really felt like a person of influence, and in my battle against the Templars I needed every resource I had at my disposal to change the fate of the world.

AC2 also had a memorable advertising campaign that featured some cool augmented reality! I stained the screen of my laptop with permanent marker tracing symbols to hold up to my webcam, which then projected some awesome images into the air. (Don't worry, toothpaste got the marker off.)

Other additions to the AC series have all been great, but none of them made the leap quite as large as AC1 to AC2. Seriously revolutionary stuff.