A charismatic protagonist. A bromance. Manipulative enemies. A powerful family. Revenge. All of this is what made Assassin’s Creed II the great game it still is today.
The Story
Casually said, the games’ story is all about the classic “Hero’s Journey”. You start out as the inexperienced young boy, without any responsibilities and through an unexpected turn, you’ll end up as the lone survivor and the character progression kicks in. After a VERY personal loss, you’ll flee the (beautiful) city of Florence and try to take your mother and sister, as the last three survivors of your direct family, to the (even more beautiful) small town of Monteriggioni (this is actually a really hard word to write down) where you get greeted by your Uncle Mario (with the words: “Don’t you recognise me? It’s a-me, Mario”)
One really gets attached to Monteriggioni as it is your responsibility to lead the small town to economic success. With every upgrade one purchases, the town gets a little nicer and you’ll love it a little more.
The Graphics
For a game published in 2010 (for PC), it aged very well. It was the first of three games published with the newly updated Anvil Engine, and you can clearly see the development from the first game. Still today the graphics look decent, of course not able to outperform games like The Witcher 3.
The Soundtrack
In my humble opinion, the soundtrack is a huge step up compared to the first game, just as the whole game. There is a reason why parts of the score are still used in modern Assassin’s Creed games in a slightly changed way. Because it defined Assassin’s Creed like no other part of the series. “Ezio’s Family” just sticks to your memory, the speech he gave while this piece of art was running in the background just underlines how the soundtrack is woven into the game’s core.
The Gamplay
The first Assassin’s Creed was not good. I didn’t like it or play it through, because of the structure of the whole game. Go into a city, talk to the informant, do three side quests and after that you can talk to the informant again. Do all that so you can eliminate one major player and return to your boss. After my third repetition, I stopped playing because I lost interest in the game. Luckily that did not happen in this game. Quest structures are interestingly built and believable. Sad is that most quests are still built with the same structure. Go to place X, kill target A or chase target B and kill them. Only a few quests offer a different experience, but these are rare and get lost in the mass. What I want to show with that is that you have to do the same thing over and over again, but every time in a different context, which is why you mostly don’t even know that you are doing the same thing again. Expect for the assassination contracts. There you do the same thing over and over again in the same context.
However, Ezio is uncontrollable sometimes. With either mouse and keyboard or controller, Ezio has his own head at some moments and just jumps to his own death. At the end I died more often to a random jump straight to the ground than through the hand of an enemy.
This leads me to the [b]combat system[/b]. It is easily seen through and understood. You are soon able to kill hordes of enemies just by waiting for them to attack and counter them. Combat is really simple but sometimes it actually can get hard. Although, if you pile up too many enemies, they are able to overrun you and every counter in the history of AC games won’t save you. So, even though enemies can overrun you, most of the times you are able to counter them all out. Playing with the controller, I sometimes had the problem that the game didn’t register if I used the counter, which was not game-breaking but annoying.
Personal Touch
So, after spending 32 hours in it, Assassins Creed II is the next game in my library that I completed at 100%. I remember playing it back in 2015 and I will never forget the feeling I had in this game when I stopped the stupid idea of making Let’s Plays on YouTube. I was enjoying the feeling of running around in Italian history, avenging my family and just being Ezio Auditore. Playing without the pressure to release anything on YouTube. Playing as long as I want and how I want, without feeling the constant reminder in my head to edit it afterwards and keep it interesting for the audience. It was a relief. So, Assassin’s Creed II will always hold a special place in my heart and I will hold it dear with all its mistakes.
Now, playing it again, with every mission done, I was actually annoyed at the end. The mistakes I mentioned earlier get to your nerves after more than 20 hours when you experience them over and over again.
Buyer’s Advice:
Go and get this game! It is still a masterpiece and enjoyable in every way!
It excels in story and gameplay but struggles with repeating elements that annoy the shit out of the poor soul playing.
As the second instalment of Assassin’s Creed, it literally made everything better than the first game, giving the player a completely new feeling of Open World and showing what an immersive story and game can achieve.
Rating: 80/100
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