Assassin’s Creed 2 is a remarkable game, just shy of a masterpiece, yet all the same an incredibly enjoyable ride nearly from start to finish. What is unfortunate, however, is that the AC series never manages to push past the highs of AC 2’s, only ever achieving a more consistently fun experience. In saying this, it is important to understand that AC 2 is, at its core, the platonic ideal of an Assassin’s Creed game, and represents the closets the series got to fully encapsulating the identity of the AC series into a single cohesive game. Although the game suffers from some serious pacing and repetition problems, the game as a whole represents the best AC has ever been.
When I say that Assassin’s Creed 2 has an excellent narrative, I don’t just mean in relation to other video games. AC 2 is an achievement in story telling for any medium, yet in video games the narrative shines all the brighter. With some of the best characters the series has ever seen, along with an energy and flow of dialogue that it would never fully see again, AC 2 manages to capture something remarkably human in the origin story of Ezio Auditore. Ezio is a troubled young man, facing down the blade of injustice in a nearly literal sense. Losing his father, and two brothers at 17, Ezio is thrust into a world he isn’t ready for and forced to grow up far more quickly than he should have. Unfortunately, this incredible character arch is trapped within the confines of a video game, rather than enhancing it. Frequently, Ezio’s story feels rushed, and the best parts of his growth occur over minutes rather than hours, so as to push the player back into action as quickly as possible. This is where the game suffers the most, more so than any of the other short comings, as this greatly negatively impacts the best part of the game, and the only reason I would want to revisit it even today. The best illustration of this is found in the beginning of the game, wherein Ezio spends years training with his uncle Mario, yet those years, and all that growth that Ezio went through during those years only make up a tutorial that leaps forward an incredible amount of time with each flash of the screen, all to show the player a new flashy way of killing. This is not just poor pacing; it is a gross injustice to Ezio’s character arch. Removing this huge section of his growth, and all the same seeing Ezio go from an immature young man to a full-fledged Assassin in a matter of minutes ruins what is otherwise one of the best character arches in video games. Thus, although the story is fantastic, and Ezio is the best character of the series, it seems as though the best part of Ezio’s story was left on the chopping block. Ultimately, an interesting and fun adventure story is told regardless, although by the end of it Ezio’s insistence upon revenge seems none too fitting for who he had become. All the same, I can’t help but smile at the many moments of levity that are peppered throughout the narrative, led squarely by Ezio, who has an energy and wit that Altaïr desperately needed. Ezio is funny, he has many funny things to say, and there are many characters that bounce off of Ezio’s comedic charm exceptionally well. Take one of the best characters of the game, Leonardo DaVinci, the series’ first big foray into showing off historical characters. The dynamics between he and Ezio are funny and believable, their friendship and moments together frequently being my favorite parts of the story. Moreover, DaVinci as a character is engrained in the gameplay as well as the narrative, offering the biggest upgrades to Ezio’s arsenal as the narrative progresses. I absolutely love DaVinci, Ezio, Machiavelli, Caterina, Claudia, La Volpe, Mario, Rosa, and of course the always awesome Bartolomeo. All of them make up an ensemble cast of characters that carries an otherwise poorly paced narrative to something truly special.
The narrative is not solely held within the past, unfortunately, as the Animus once again rears its ugly head. Although not the worst use of the Animus in these games, Desmond and the band of annoying losers that make up the modern-day cast are once again, annoying losers. Any time the narrative abruptly pulls Desmond out of the Animus and forces us to trudge through the modern-day set pieces, the narrative and gameplay grinds to a halt. Although the Animus does facilitate some fun, if easy puzzles to solve that reward careful exploration, I still wish that the Animus was finally excluded from Assassin’s Creed. I can say truly, I despise the Animus in this game, but it is not nearly as frustrating as it is in AC 1. Little touches, such as reloading a save bringing you directly into the world as Ezio, rather than forcing you to fiddle around with menus as Desmond demonstrates a greater focus on the past, which only serves to benefit the narrative in the future. I am glad to say that the Animus does improve overtime, with some later entries seemingly scrapping it entirely, and as a result, it’s hard to fault AC 2 all too harshly, as it started the ball rolling towards a more bearable Animus.
Unlike Assassin’s Creed 1, exploration in AC 2 is genuinely enjoyable without a massive asterisks explaining that its only fun if you ignore about 12 things complicating an otherwise enjoyable experience. AC 2 is bigger, prettier, and has streamlined parkour and movement allowing for far more engagement and enjoyment with the world itself. Gone are the days of the slowest Assassin in history stopping after every single climbable spot to contemplate his place in the universe, and in its stead is fast, fluid, but still thoughtful parkour and platforming. Although this move towards streamlining the climbing in AC ultimately leads to a parkour system that is largely thoughtless and far too easy for its own good, AC 2 still requires at least a little bit of thought when scaling various buildings, with the particularly tall buildings acting as admittedly simple puzzles as you reach the top. This tiny bit of thought when climbing helps me better get into the shoes of Ezio, while not detracting from the speed and fluidity by which Ezio moves. I’m very glad to say this movement system stays throughout the Ezio trilogy and is improved with each entry. Unfortunately, the Ezio trilogy has the best movement of the series, and I feel that it only goes down as the series progresses, until Odyssey, where there may as well not be any Parkour at all. That being said, the parkour isn’t perfect. It is a fairly common problem for Ezio to lunge off a building to his certain death because the game didn’t understand where you wanted Ezio to go. Whatever algorithm the game uses to determine where the player wants Ezio to go certainly is not perfect and causes a decent amount of frustration throughout the game, especially in the various dungeons that act as extended platforming and puzzle sections to test your parkouring abilities. And although the series does improve at determining where the player intends to go, perhaps reaching its peak with Assassin’s Creed Unity, wherein I rarely felt like the player character was just jumping to their death for no reason, the increased simplicity of the parkour I think ultimately detracts from the experience and has me feeling bittersweet in revisiting the Ezio trilogy. Even thought it wasn’t perfect, I wish that the later games expanded upon the parkour system of the trilogy, rather than redesigning it to be easier and easier.
Although parkour is important, as it is the means by which the world is explored, the world itself is important to discuss itself. When exploring, the player is able to fast travel between large open world zones, generally making up a city and the surrounding farmland or swamps. Although fast travel does cost some money, it costs so little compared to how much you will likely have throughout the game if you even take part in cursory searches for chests, or steal money somewhat regularly, it never feels like a chore needing to spend a little to fast travel. Instead, I think it’s a really good system that encourages exploration at least once but allows for fast travel when you don’t feel like backtracking. The exploration itself is additionally helped by a vastly improved means by which the player unveils the map, involving scaling a large building and “synchronizing”, which leads to a sweeping shot of the entire region unveiled. This consistently excites me into exploration, as I want to look into every nook and cranny that is teased during that sweeping shot. Not only that, but it is also always immensely satisfying to see the details of the map become revealed each time a point is synchronized. I can say that I truly love the exploration found in AC 2, although it is not the best of the series, as each game enhances these elements of world design to greater and greater effect, and remains the biggest reason why I keep returning to these games, even when the overall entertainment I’ve derived from each has gone down overtime.
Ezio has a few ways to get around the world outside of fast travel and parkour, namely the newly added boats and slightly improved horses. Although horses have been made somewhat useless by the reduction in space between buildings to climb as compared to AC 1, the feel of riding the horses has been improved. It is not so much improved to make it enjoyable, however, and I largely ignored horses except for the rare occasion where the map of a particular region was designed around riding horseback rather than walking or climbing. Boats, on the other hand, are surprisingly fun. Although clearly not as fantastic as the ship combat of AC 3 and beyond, the way the boat has to be rowed back and forth, with timing causing the boat to push forward faster, making gameplay similar to a rhythm game, was pretty fun. Although the game wouldn’t have lost much if boats weren’t included, I did find myself enjoying sections such as Venice where boats became nearly a requirement for exploration, as it was fun to row around on a little Venetian boat.
It is genuinely hilarious that in a series called Assassin’s Creed, the combat and stealth is almost always the worst part of the experience. This is most true in Assassin’s Creed 2, wherein the narrative is so great, and the world so beautiful, that the lackluster combat and stealth stands out even more. Combat is far easier than it was in AC 1. Although it is a dramatic improvement, the ease of combat is somewhat laughable at times. So long as you hold the block button, and dodge when larger enemies swing with ridiculously generous telegraphing, it is next to impossible to ever take damage. Every enemy encounter generally goes the same, like this: Enemies detect Ezio, Ezio attacks the weaker enemy until they either fall down and die, or a killing animation is triggers. Then, you wait for the enemies that always redirect your attacks to attack you, you redirect their attack, and punish. Rinse and repeat until all the enemies are dead, save for when there are bigger enemies in plate armor. For these enemies, you dodge, punish, dodge, punish, until they’re dead. Although some enemies will shoot at Ezio, and there aren’t any solid ways of avoiding these enemies yet, they are so bad at hitting you reliably, and Ezio moves so fast, they still aren’t much of a threat. Worse than the combat is the stealth, which, much like all of the Assassin’s Creed games, is characterized by extremely slow and boring trailing missions, guards that are simultaneously the dumbest things in existence, forgetting about Ezio if he’s been missing for just a few seconds, and not checking the most obvious locations for him, while also somehow managing to spot him from a vast distance, and follow the direction he went without any reasonable means by which to know Ezio even went that way in the first place. Any time a stealth sequence begins in AC 2, I let out a groan, as I know that, unlike the combat which is mindless enough to just push myself through until I get another entertaining cutscene or more fun exploration, the stealth is nearly unbearable. I hate every minute I spend doing stealth in Assassin’s Creed 2, and I just wish that the game had learned from the other most famous game series about Assassins, hitman, as Hitman: Blood Money does a significantly better job at making me feel like an Assassin while having satisfying stealth than any of the Assassin’s Creed games do, most especially Assassin’s Creed 2, all while being released 3 years earlier. Its sad to say that I genuinely feel that a person watching a full playthrough of AC 2 in order to view the story will have a better time than someone actually playing the game, as although exploration is fun, the combat and stealth are so mind numbing that no number of beautiful vistas and exciting parkour could make up for all of the moments of pure tedium. Yet I still love AC 2 more than any other game in the series, and it truly is one of my favorite games, which I think speaks volumes for how entertaining the story is.
Although not perfect, Assassin’s Creed 2 is, by a significant margin, the best the series gets. The way the story, characters, world, exploration, and tone coalesce forms a deeply satisfying and enjoyable experience. Although I do love the other games in the series, AC 2 truly was the peak. Despite this, the combat, stealth, and Animus substantially detract from the experience, and prevent the game from being more than just really good. I wish that AC 2 was a masterpiece, I love it to death, but it doesn’t quite hit the mark due to the sloppiness of some of the games content. This is, however, the first game in the series that I whole heartedly recommend anyone play at least once, if for no other reason than to experience the incredible story and explore the world, although I would not blame you if you used cheat engine to effectively skip the stealth sections. That being said, there is still a considerable experience to be had just watching the story, and I do recommend that to anyone who doesn’t want to cheat and doesn’t think they can sit through the stealth and combat as I’ve described them. As I’ve said, I love Assassin’s Creed 2, its one of my favorite games, but it is far from perfect.
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