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Assassin’s Creed II Game Review

Assassin’s Creed II is a 2009 action-adventure video game developed and published by Ubisoft for PC and other platforms. It’s an amazing sequel that improved upon the original in numerous ways.

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“Wanting something does not give you the right to have it“

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Although I personally find the original AC to be very underappreciated for many things that it did right, it was definitely a flawed game that had its issues. This sequel improved upon so many of them, thus receiving amazing reviews rightfully so. It is regularly cited to be the best game in the entire series, and although I still prefer ‘Origins’, I have to agree that this second entry is among the best in the franchise.

The plot is among those improvements. While I thoroughly enjoyed the storyline of the first game, this one is better crafted and more historically accurate and intriguing. The characterization is also better, but more on that later. This was the game that treated Desmond best. The present-day scenes are still the less interesting of the bunch, but at least some of them were pretty cool and the villains were memorable.

Set in Renaissance Italy, the game is surprisingly historically accurate, especially in its depictions of real historical figures. Containing conspiracies, crime and epic character arcs, the plot also spans many decades, making it truly a storytelling spectacle. It also continued the fantastical story of the original and the end sequence was truly highly intriguing and such a great twist ending.

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The world building is amazing, but the characters elevated this game above so many of its contemporaries. Altair was very good and quite underappreciated to me personally, but Ezio is clearly more memorable and among the best assassins in the entire series. He loses his family and is on a revenge quest to kill those responsible for their murder while helping many other people along the way. His arc is one that is emotionally powerful while his change in personality was believable and very well handled as he starts off naïve and happy-go-lucky and ends up being confident and vengeful, but still highly likable and charming. He truly is incredible.

Others also make a strong impression. Rodrigo Borgia turned out to be a very interesting, memorable villain and it was great how he remained a menacing presence throughout the entire story. Mario is also very likable as Ezio’s uncle (the reference to Nintendo’s Mario was hilarious). Caterina Sforza is the most memorable female character while of course one of the standouts is Leonardo da Vinci himself. He is so accurate to his real life counterpart and so instantly endearing and also quite witty that all of the scenes between Ezio and him were fantastic. The game presenting da Vinci as your helper in armors and weaponry was a brilliant choice that paid off. The flying section in his machine was marvelous, though it’s a shame that the machine was relegated to just one level.

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The one massive improvement upon the original that not many people talked about is the voice acting along with the dialogue and the tone. All of the dialogue is done in Italian accent and some even in the language itself and that level of detail led to such amazing geographical authenticity. The acting from everybody involved was excellent, especially the voices of Leonardo and Ezio. The original was laughably self-serious and repetitive at times, but this entry features much better written dialogue and a much lighter tone with more humor and that made this game more enjoyable and charming.

Assassin’s Creed II is an open world action-adventure stealth game and its world is quite bigger than the original one’s. Its Italian setting was gorgeously brought to life and the highlight for me was obviously Venice. I’ve been there three times by now, so I recognized most of the landmark buildings and locations. The game so truthfully and meticulously recreated these places, thus making it feel lived in and historically intriguing.

Other locations are much less interesting, though traversing the Apennine Mountains was quite cool and adventurous. It’s a shame that the Vatican was present only in the last level, but it was a great level at least. The sun-drenched Tuscany was beautiful to observe while Monteriggioni acted pretty much as the game’s hub. Ezio’s uncle Mario lives there and he gives you the opportunity to renovate the villa by buying all the weapons and armor, purchasing all the paintings, repairing everything etc.

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This is a pretty cool aspect of the game for completionists, though it’s not the most interesting one. Getting back to the villa to just deposit the money was requisite at times and that was annoying, but the fast travel option helped me out considerably. You now have to go to the doctor to buy potions to replenish your health, which was a cool idea, but the game is so easy and giving you potions way too often that the challenge was simply not there. You can hide from enemies in haystack and other objects as you could before, but there is also an option to clear your recognition meter by taking down these wanted posters or bribing city officials. Couple all these elements with the much more energetic and complex NPCs who just go along doing their thing made for a truly advanced, very well thought out game.

There are around 200 main quests in the game, but there are side quests that you can finish. Being a completionist myself, I completed every single element of this game and I loved it all. There are these feathers that you have to collect, but there isn’t a map for them, so you go in blind. It’s the repeat flag collecting formula from the original, but thankfully this time around finding the feathers was at least a bit easier.

You can also buy treasure maps and hunt these treasures and these are easy to find. Assassination targets were obviously a lot of fun, especially when requiring a lot of stealth from the player. The tailing missions, both main and side, were easily the most boring ones as always, but the tombs are a whole other story. There aren’t that many of them with each city holding one or two, but every single one of them was glorious to behold. Each tomb holds a treasure, but to get there you need to get past so many obstacles in terms of platforming challenges that are pleasantly reminiscent to the Prince of Persia games, which was a great touch given that the first AC had been a PoP game in its inception.

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Assassin’s Creed II gives you the ability to swim, which was a welcome addition that the original sorely lacked. Driving gondolas in Venice is also a wonderful option as is driving horses and carriages. There is this one mountain horse carriage ride level that was brilliantly structured and so cool. Similar to a plane level, these are too fleeting, but still fun levels that add a lot of variety to this gaming experience. Day and night cycle is also added and the mercenaries and courtesans addition was also very interesting.

There is just one gameplay element that isn’t particularly accomplished and that is the combat itself. Now, it is improved over its predecessor’s fighting, but still it left a lot to be desired, especially in comparison to the newer entries. They give you a variety of options, but only a couple are really worth using. For example, there is some sort of primitive gun in the game, but it’s so terribly awkward to use that you are better off without it. I ended up using the quick blades for the most part. Yes, the swords are excellent, but I prefer being quick on my feet than being strong, so the briskness of the blade was highly appealing to me.

These sword fights can be fun, but the addition of potions and the utter stupidity of the enemies made them way too easy. And that’s the main issue with this game – its overly leisurely difficulty level. Admittedly, it made the game a fun breeze, but I sometimes needed at least a bit of a challenge, which I rarely received. Most of the enemies just stand there waiting to be cut down and the decision to give you the option to quick kill multiple enemies at once backfired as it makes you feel as if you are cheating whenever you do that move.

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The world building in Assassin’s Creed II is incredible and it’s complemented by excellent graphics. It doesn’t have the best visuals of the time (that year’s ‘Arkham Asylum’ looks much better for instance), but it’s still polished, thoroughly detailed and painstakingly recreated in its cities, clothes and weapons. The voice acting is incredible and the score is very strong. The Ezio’s Family theme is simply amazing, moving and perfectly fitting for the character’s richly layered arc. The sound is also excellent, but the keyboard controls were still too complicated and playing the game on PC was at times tricky for me.