This review contains spoilers
Note- reviewed as part of the Ezio Collection
Returning to Assassin’s Creed II after so long, I can see its flaws more easily than when I first experienced it all those years ago; however, I can also understand why it moved me so deeply, and why the quality of some games depends not on their perfection, but on their heart.+
There’s no way to conduct a deep analysis about ACII without going into plot specifics, so if you haven’t played it yet and don’t want to be spoiled, my short recommendation is to absolutely do so. Just keep in mind some mechanics and aspects of the narrative haven’t aged well and, consequently, prevent the title from living up to the legacy its word-of-mouth would suggest.
Prior to its temporary abandonment of the modern-day, Assassin’s Creed was unique in that it was the first franchise to combine cyberpunk undertones with historical gallopades. In the present, you were a group of rebels fighting against a malevolent corporation, uncovering clues in the past to help you gain an advantage. Desmond was a regular joe thrown into the middle of this conflict, and his naivety acted as a perfect medium for the player as they entered this society of ancient artifacts and knowledge. In the past, you were one of his ancestors embroiled in their own rendition of the everlasting war.
ACII made several significant upgrades from its predecessor that were innovative and influential at the time. Unfortunately, as a critic looking back at in 2022, I have to take into consideration the slew of advances propagated by not only its successors, but the library of video games that have been released since then, and ascertain whether or not this masterpiece of the late-2000s still holds up in this day and age.
The beginning is as good a place as any to start - we get a small recap of the first game’s modern-day before Lucy breaks Desmond out of Abstergo and escapes to an Assassin safehouse. Recurring characters Shawn and Rebecca are given apt introductions that instantly showcase their personalities, and Desmond’s willingness to join the team is justified given his past ordeals with Abstergo. While completing ACI is, of course, ideal to truly understanding and accepting these developments, there’s no doubt that, in less than 30 minutes, Ubisoft succeeded in both catching up newcomers and setting the rest of the events of the Animus in motion.
Ezio’s prologue, likewise, is well-constructed, and a pristine example of how to effortlessly combine gameplay and story proceedings. A street scuffle not only heralds the debut of our protagonist and other characters who will play a role in the story down-the-line (Federico, Vieri de’ Pazzi), but also serves to familiarize players with mechanics they will be utilizing as an assassin (h2h combat, looting, doctors/medicine, parkour, and of course the iconic Leap of Faith). From there, you get a series of brief missions that serve to acquaint gamers with the rest of Ezio’s family and friends, and it is here that I noticed ACII’s first real stumbling, which is that more could’ve been done to give the family greater dramatization.
Now I get it, as a writer, you don’t want to spend too much time restricting the player, but that argument doesn’t quite work here because gamers are given a decent-sized playpen to free roam in in Florence, as well as side activities to do like races, husband beat-ups, and those ever-beloved feather collections. Part of me suspects that the short-changing was actually done because of time-constraints, in which case an easy solution would’ve been to axe Petruccio and dedicate his screen-time to an extra mission with Federico. Seriously, he serves no purpose other than to commence the aforementioned feather hunts, which could’ve been transferred over to Federico or even Giovanni with a small script change. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still sad to see him executed (the animators even gave him distinct fear expressions there in comparison to Federico’s blank stare); however there’s no denying that that tragedy stems more from him being a little boy than from his persona.
On the topic of tragedies, it’s hard not to see Corey May borrow from Romeo & Juliet: the roadside brannigan calls to mind the opening brawl between the Capulets and Montagues, while Ezio’s ascension of Cristina’s apartment evokes the balcony serenade. Ezio himself is distinctly passionate, this initial portrayal meant to be a jumping-off point for an arc that culminates in him becoming a mature veteran. That being said, the writers do lean a bit too heavily into casanova stereotypes that seem anachronistic (seriously, what is with Renaissance Italy being portrayed as this bastion of sexual activity - The Borgias, Da Vinci’s Demons, ACII - surely this can’t be veridical to the era)?
But these are small potatoes. The bigger issues prevail following the Hanging, namely the following: Maria and Claudia being reduced to minor roles, Uncle Mario not even interacting with the girls in the Family to show his sympathy, and, worst of all, Leonardo not giving a sh*t about the calamity despite being described as close to the family. I mean seriously, it’s amazing how many times this franchise has tried to portray two males as BFFs only to completely skimp on the screen-time necessary for such a relationship to be believable (Edward & Adewale, Arno & Napoleon, Bayek and Hepzefa), and no matter what the nostalgihacks tell you, it’s just as bad here….perhaps even worse considering the dialogue blatantly tries to hammers it in ala Bond and Felix Lester’s contrived “brotherhood” in No Time to Die. The truth is Leonardo’s primary purpose is to be a skill tree for Ezio to learn new techniques, and because it’s all story-mandated anyway, he doesn’t have anything else going for him on the outside.
Rest assured, not everything is flawed. One of the best things ACII does is successfully disguise tutorials as story-driven missions. Blending and courtesan hiring from Paola is covered under her teaching Ezio techniques to get-in close to kill Uberto; assassinating and hiding bodies cloaked by protecting Leonardo; advanced swordsmanship from Mario tied to a training montage wherein Ezio learns the truth about his family’s heritage; throwing knives hidden beneath dispatching archers protecting the gates of San Gimignano. It’s fascinating to go back and see this all play-out under veteran gamer eyes.
There are two other benefits to returning to ACII after a prolonged period. First is a surreal occurrence wherein, because I replayed it a bunch, I can anticipate what’s going to happen/be said, yet not know the exact wordage. Mark Meer once described playing through the Mass Effect games as feeling like Dr. Manhattan because he had spent weeks recording/repeating all the dialogue, and I can relate to the same evocation here.
The second pertains to a bit of invigorating retroactive continuity that comes from having completed the many sequels. If you did so, one thing you’ll find upon revisiting ACII are the traditions, lore bits, and historical revisionisms (via the glyphs) that unintentionally cause you to think about the larger AC world due to it being expanded upon by its aforestated follow-ups. For example, the very first glyph contains portraits of Napoleon and George Washington carrying Apples, and you actually get to see these firsthand later-on in Unity and III respectively. Leonardo joking with Ezio about the need to cut off his ring finger for the Hidden Blade brings to mind Bayek’s own digit loss in Origins. These instances reminded me of a similar experience I had when I rewatched the first Iron Man in theaters: because the MCU has been significantly expanded in its subsequently released films, my head couldn’t help but make connections to actions that had occurred in those other flicks whenever they were (unintentionally, of course) referenced.
To return back to the story, AC games have generally fallen into one of two denominations: they’re either arc-based with loose connecting tissue or singularly-focused with compartmentalized sequences. Both ensure you’re proceeding through the game in chunks, but with the former the overall story is much more episodic, whereas the latter shapes it to be like a conventional video game. Neither option is superior to the other, and different games benefit from employing one strategy over the other.
In ACII’s case, it is definitively in the singular camp. While Ezio does use a list from his father to seek out his targets, the Templars are tied together as members of an Order that actually interact with each other. They're not isolated the way the antagonists in ACI or Origins were, and their part in the death of Ezio’s Family is explicitly clear. Interestingly, one of the biggest surprises I found in revisiting their conversations and data files was how grey a lot of them were. Talk to any casual AC fan and they'll tell you a setback of the Ezio Trilogy was turning the Templars into caricatures without the moral wavering that occupied the first game’s sect. I too was of this belief, but perhaps we all thought this because we were seeing things through the lens of Ezio- a young man who was so driven by blood he didn't give a second thought to what the other side had to say. ACII certainly wants to prioritize that point-of-view, but it still contains pieces of gray that hold it above more black-and-white titles like Origins and Odyssey, and that greyness is two-fold.
First up are the inclinations- what you’ll find is the majority of the Pazzi Templars are motivated by being economically eclipsed, or outright screwed over, by the Medici Dynasty: Umberto’s loved ones were evicted, the Pazzi’s banks were failing in competition with the Medici’s, Antonio Maffei witnessed Medici-hired mercs sack a city; and even little Vieri, the Italian iteration of Malfoy, became cruel from his father’s neglect.
I’m not saying there aren’t petty or evil initiates in the mix (Francesco Salviati) or that the above are fully justified in their actions; what I am saying is there is enough seasoning amidst the salt and pepper. And they’re bolstered by the flipside, which is Ezio’s allies lacking their own ethics. Lorenzo may be called “the Magnificent,” but he was far from it, being as much a hard leader who committed horrible acts.++ Caterina Sforza, though not prominent in ACII’s base game, is described as having murdered innocent women and children simply because they were related to her male enemies. And Anthony’s Thieves Guild in the second half is composed of, well, thieves, robbers who make their living stealing from the upper classes.
You may be wondering how all these facts fell under the eyes of AC fans - even if the game was deliberately structured to ride Ezio’s blindness, surely the sheer amount of counterevidence I laid out would offset the near-permanent labels that currently befall the rogues, like “cartoony” and “over-the-top”. Well, the problem is most of this info is shoved into data files (like Shaun’s well-made video bios) or optional letters that you have to take extra time to peruse; an action we know gamers are generally avoidant to do. Some of the short conversations in the Confessions hint at this ambiguity, but it is nowhere near worn on its sleeve as much as ACI and (later) ACIII do.
Unfortunately, going this route does have the downside of diminishing their uniqueness and memorability. While Rodrigo wanted Giovanni dead because he was an Assassin, his primary incentive to get the other fellows of the Rite on-board was to simply highlight Giovanni’s friendship and defense of Lorenzo, and consequent opposition to the House of Pazzi. Now, not every game needs a strong antagonist- many rest their appeal on the protagonist(s) and their fortitude in overcoming obstacles. And since ACII does, as I said before, prioritize a linear end-scheme, it doesn’t stumble the way Unity did because it’s treating the uncovering of the mystery as the objective, not these side tangents. However, those seeking more memorable malefactors will not find them in ACII.
Regarding Rodrigo, he’s another instance of memory serving me poorly. I had thought that he was akin to the Emperor from Return of the Jedi, primarily manifesting in the finale as a poorly-thought out grand baddie. Recrawling through the mud of ACII has revealed that to be a lie- this is a game whose first act warrants a second playthrough (or online watch) because your initial one is obscured by Ezio’s ignorance. Just like Desmond does for the modern-day, Ezio is an avatar for newbies unsure of the conspiracy afoot, but this has the side effect of making context clues oblivious the first time you witness them: the small talk Giovanni makes of the machinations occurring in Firenze, the thieves and whores he associates with, and, most importantly, the consistent presence of Rodrigo among almost every major Templar. From skulking in the abode of Uberto to headlining meetings, Rodrigo may be dressed like Palpatine, but he’s more in the style of Boingo from Hoodwinked; having a hand in every major part of the story as he builds-up to an ultimate aim.
I know I classified Assassin’s Creed II as linear, but one of the great things about doing a live review (that is, filling up this doc as I play the game rather than post-completion) is being able to see the blossoming picture and adjust my writing accordingly. Rodrigo’s constant prowling in almost every sequence maintains that original marque, however it should be noted that the game does feature acts. Acts are similar to Arcs in that they are set around a new threat, but differ in terms of not being standalone.
I’ll use ACII to illustrate what I mean. When you’re finished with the last of the Pazzi (Jacopo), Ezio sees another figure associating with Rodrigo, Emilio Barbarigo, leading the Florentine to travel to Venice and discover a new Templar wing, the Barbarigo Family. While they’re up to their own shenanigans, they’re still under Rodrigo’s command: as I said, a new threat, but not standalone from the Pazzi.
Sadly, this is the place where my reminiscence objectively fails as the beginning of this phase in Ezio’s life is full of storytelling defects. To start with, why doesn’t Ezio go after Rodrigo? The other Pazzis were directly involved in the death of his father and brothers, so I understand him prioritizing them. Now though? Rodrigo’s identity was long unveiled by Mario, and his status as a member of the elite Borgia Family doesn’t exactly make him elusive. If there was even a bit of dialogue that addressed this shortcoming, I would have no issue, but as it stands it makes absolutely no sense for Ezio to abandon the Spaniard in favor of helping out the citizenry of Venice.
By not having a direct connection to the scaffolding of Giovanni and co., the Barbarigo group is at a further disadvantage in terms of story impetus. They’re not personal to the protagonist, and therefore come off as a hit list. To compensate, the writers go for a darker tone, depicting them as less sympathetic than their Pazzi brethren by murdering rivals, gerrymandering elections, abusing merchants, poisoning politicians, and even rigging games. There are a few shades of silver here and there: Emilio’s iron grip on the mercantile district has rid it of crime; Silvio’s father was murdered by his power-hungry Uncle, and Dante was the victim of a foiled-assassination plot by Marco. But these are even more shoved into the background than the Pazzi’s, and I can’t blame anyone who missed them since they’re only told in Shaun’s video diaries.
Before even entering Venice, the transition in Sequence 6 from Firenze is laughably bad. At a short length of two memories, you spend the first escorting Leonardo, which is simple enough, but then the second has Ezio in need of a ticket to get on the boat. Sounds like the perfect set-up for some pickpocketing of patrons right? Well no, wouldn’t you behold, Caterina Sforza has been conveniently abandoned on an adjacent isle, and there’s a boat right nearby for you to take to her rescue!
Yeah, even as a kid, I found the set-up ridiculous, and this replay does it no favors. Just like with the failure to pursue Rodrigo, you aren’t given any kind of explanation as to how Sforza ended up there, and as far as I can tell, there isn’t any historical record supporting its inclusion.
Sequence 7, however, is where the pacing really takes a nosedive. It consists of fetch quest upon fetch quest as Ezio runs around committing errands for Antonio in order to help the Thieves Guild build back its strength to assault Emilio’s Palazzo. They’re boring, the missions depict the gameplay problems, and worst of all everything is slooooooooow. It’s not surprising to learn that it took Ezio four years to aid the Guild considering it feels that long.
Not helping things is the fact that Venice is the worst designed city in the game. To put things in perspective, I should delve into the gameplay. Assassin’s Creed has always been about three pillars: parkour, stealth, and combat. Parkour pertains not just to the actual movement systems, but to the environmental layout- as Origins and Odyssey would show, retaining the core AC freerunning doesn’t matter if you don’t have a flow from which to initiate your traversal. Buildings, poles, clothesline, mountainscapes, trees: the material is of little consequence as long as there is an assemblage that works in sync with the programming to give your steps ease.
ACII has aged incredibly well in this regard, and I can’t deny that it is an utter joy to be able to run from edifice to edifice nonstop. The sole problem I’ve ever had are the placement of those occasional signposts or gates that deliberately impede Ezio, forcing you to take a moment to pull yourself over to begin the next batch of jumps, but that’s slim pickings in the grand scheme of things.
I bring this up because Florence, Tuscany, and even Monteriggioni have been painstakingly crafted by Ubisoft’s artisans to be a playground for traceurs, making the ball-drop that is Venice all the more shocking. I get it- this is a city known for its waterways and curving roads, but it seems like the designers didn’t even bother trying to circumvent the issues that came with such obstacles. You’ll find yourself looking for bridges to cross the rivers because there is no connecting rope between divided buildings. For those wondering if you can ford the canals, the answer is no; you have to swim or use a gondola. Some have these metal buoys strung-up near their coasts, but they’re never planted in a straight line from shore-to-shore, and even if they were, for some reason Ezio is hit-or-miss when it comes to leaping between them, rendering them unreliable as parkour points. And don’t even get me started on trying to grab a hold of a fixed boat- it’s downright broken.
On top of this, the architecture is noticeably taller than its counterparts in the aforementioned towns, making ascents more time-consuming, and the curvatures I attributed to Venetian engineering don’t help with street traversal. Combine all this with the fact that you frequently have to go from one side of town to the other in your quests here, and you can see why this place frustrated me. If you could parkour from end-to-end without interruption like the three other Italian states, it’d be fine, but that you’re instead forced to come back down (or skydive into the waters from above), peregrinate to the other side, and then reorient yourself ad nauseam kills it.
As sluggish as Sequence 7 is, things are made with 8 and 9. While they don’t resolve the overarching issue of Ezio opting to stay in Venice for an extended period, Patrice and his team spice things up with pure innovation. Operating da Vinci’s famous Flying Machine to infiltrate a fortress and participating in the Carnevale are pristine examples as to why ACII’s mission structure garnered much more praise than ACI’s - it’s variety, it’s given story-context, and most importantly it’s fun.
I’ve spent a lot of time focusing on the narrative that I’ve been ignoring the deciding factor for most players, which is the gameplay. Next to parkour is the combat pillar, and it is admittedly the one section I was dreading the most to reexperience. You have to understand that even the most ardent purist will forfeit defending the combat, and sadly our recollections were correct. Fighting is atrocious. Prior to Syndicate, AC games employed a technique called pair animations. You can read it more in-depth here (https://critpoints.net/2020/03/24/what-the-fuck-is-paired-animation/) but in short, it consists of enemies having reactive animations whenever you strike them: they either block it, take the hit, dodge, or counter. Likewise, you have similar options when said enemies go on the offensive. Regardless of what happens, you have to wait for both characters’ animations to complete before you can begin a new one.
Perusing that article shows that acclaimed titles like the Arkham series and Dark Souls implemented similar schema, so why does it fail for Assassin’s Creed II? It comes down to many differences. One, you’re effectively restricted to a single goon at a time; Arkham’s freeflow enabled Batman to dance from one henchman to the next as soon as his attack was done, automatically getting to the next guy regardless of distance, whereas Ezio has to clumsily retarget, and that too only if someone is within range. Two, Batman is quick, reducing the realignment delay of animations, whereas Ezio swings much slower, exposing the interlude. Three, only certain thugs were able to counter the Dark Knight, and even they had methods of circumvention; in ACII, every single guard besides archers has the capacity to block or dodge you, drawing out the length of 1v1s tremendously. There are also no nonlethal takedowns, either groundbased or airborne. If you want to be merciful, you’ll have to waste time engaging mano y mano.
Tl;dr, it’s not fun. It’s also no secret that the Hidden Blade is broken in terms of providing insta-counterkills, meaning the majority of gamers will probably just use it whenever they get into scraps, which is a shame because a lot of amazing kill animations were programmed for all the armaments that still look sick to this day.
The enemy AI is also a joke. There may be a sundry of guard classes, but the only difference between them is their speed and HP. All can be taken out the exact same way and all will opt to let their brethren face Ezio one-at-a-time instead of attacking simultaneously. The few times one breaks from the ranks to sneak a surprise slice, you can easily parry them. And in the event that you are subject to a barrage of strikes, magic healing potions procurable from doctors will restore your constitution immediately.
The combat honestly would be tolerable if there wasn’t so much mandatory fighting. If there’s one thing I can praise the Barbarigo Act for above the Pazzi one, it’s that it significantly reduces such encounters, instead opting for parkour and stealth. Unfortunately, as I ranted about before, Venice diminishes the former significantly, leaving the stealth, which deserves its own talk.
ACII’s stealth is, without a doubt, the most disappointing aspect of the game. The expanded social stealth was novel in whilom, and really played to the assassin fantasy of being a blade in the crowd, but the problem is that that’s all ACII has going for it here; it lacks basic options available in other titles with subterfuge, namely the ability to manipulate enemy movement. When you’re on the ground and there are no crowds, your non-combat choice is to find one of three adjacent groups (prostitutes, thieves, mercenaries), spend money hiring them, and then sic them on the guards who are in your way. There are slight variations amongst the trifecta, but their general purpose remains the same of creating a distraction for you to slip by.
Unfortunately, even this strategy is hampered by these factions not always being within a reasonable distance, forcing you to go significantly out of your way to find one and drag them back, or to simply say screw it and engage in a fisticuff with the soldiers. Later on, during the Pazzi Act, you are given smoke bombs, but these are ternary in quantity (with no upgradeable pouches) and their effects are short-lived; if you’re doing anything more than darting past, such as robbing a bank or killing a target, you’ll find yourself in the middle of a quarrel the second you get out. Another expedient is the ability to throw money (10 florins), which attracts a mob of working-class citizens that flock around guards, but it has its own drawbacks that discourage it: the NPCs impede you as much as the sentinels, the paralysis is about the same length as the smoke bombs, and, unlike in Unity, Ezio is unable to blend with this new group, making it useless for a stealthy getaway. Those who suggest poison will be forced to stand for an extended period as the venom takes hold, and attempting to dope all guardians kicks off their alertness.
Regardless, both of these are entirely unfeasible in restricted zones where every enemy is vigilant and arranged in a way to guarantee detection from someone. As I said, here you can’t do anything to change their behavior: relying on the faction tactic is impractical because there are multiple sets of guards in the vicinity, you can’t throw something/whistle to move them away, you can’t shoot your poison from a distance, and the only environmental stealth are stationary hay carts that are few and far between. You do have throwing knives, however they aren’t synced to noise creation the way they were in ACC: China, and, in any event, you can’t free aim them. No, it would appear your sole recourse is to step into the limelight, trigger the enemy alert, and then sidle away as they follow you. Thing is, even this doesn’t work all the time, as guards are just as prone to returning to their original position as they are to dogging you.
To be fair, the lion’s share of story missions do throw in some proximate coterie you can recruit to aid, but it doesn’t absolve the general flaw, which is that 90% of the stealth mechanics are not fun to engage with, intrinsically discouraging them.
As for the social stealth, listen, when you’re in an area that has been designed around it, it’s amazing. I can’t put into words just how much of a bad-ass you feel like, hiding in plain sight, gawking at your target like they’re prey ready to be snapped! The only slight annoyance is when you’re trying to catch-up with a pack who are ambling quicker than you - the button for fast walk is the same as pickpocketing, and so, if you’re not careful, you can break-up the blend by way of thievery; to avoid this, you have to tap the sprint key, which runs the risk (no pun intended) of alerting guards faster.
Contrary to what the purists will tell you, social stealth was not harnessed well by the series prior to its removal in Origins/Odyssey. Assuming my remembrances are accurate, ACII, Brotherhood, and Syndicate are the only games that do such a fascinating idea justice, and I wished ACII had dedicated the same effort to its other areas of surreptitiousness.
Back to the story, well, there isn’t much to tell because it’s almost over!...at least from the vanilla version’s perspective. See, if you’re playing ACII via the Ezio Collection remaster (which I am doing for this review), you are given access to all the post-release content. Sounds great right? Well, the only problem is the two DLC sequences (12 and 13) are interwoven into the main game and now made mandatory for completion. My write-ups for them are published on their respective Backloggd pages (https://www.backloggd.com/u/RedBackLoggd/review/513830/ and https://www.backloggd.com/u/RedBackLoggd/review/513832/), but know that they absolutely kill the pacing of the main game. 12, or The Battle of Forlí, is tolerable since it at least begins instantly after the end of 10 and is relatively short (about an hour). The same cannot be said for Lucky Number 13, which drags out processions and ruins the otherwise fair cadence of the game. It is for this reason alone that I recommend prospective players use the OG version and simply watch playthroughs of the add-ons should they wish to see the events that transpire in them.
But what about the graphical upticks provided by the remaster? Look, there definitely is a visual improvement from the seventh generation, however I wouldn’t call it so significant that it overcomes the dead pacing. ACII, in general, has aged quite well. Yes, you do have your infamous NPCs with their jarring countenances and lazy eyes, but they are the minority. A good amount of the models are well-animated, and, most importantly, all of the architectonics are gorgeously-textured. Individual bricks can be made out, ascendable building materials distinguishable, cloth physics on-point, and the baked lightning absolutely rivals Unity (side-note, day/night cycles are not dynamic, instead influenced by mission selection and travel). Things I took for granted like the polished red paneling of banks, the reconstruction of Renaissance art, and the bending of sunlight around objects were recognized on this playthrough.
Anyway, that aside, after slaying the last of the Barbarigos, Ezio finds out that the crime family was yet another tool used by Rodrigo to acquire a Piece of Eden. Thanks to Rosa, he acquires the location of the shipping drop-off and infiltrates it in order to get close to the Spaniard. In the course of their grand battle, all of Ezio’s allies convene on the location, and the Borgia patriarch is forced to retreat.
I have a lot of issues with the way this whole penultimate sequence plays out. One is how contrived the transition is from the Barbarigos to the “Chosen One” plot. Up until now, we were meant to believe that Rodrigo was manipulating these families for the sake of acquiring control over Italy, but now that was all just a cover for retrieving the Apple? At least show hints throughout the main narrative indicating that he was up to something else as he chastised his underlings. On that note, how did any of the Templars even know that the Apple was in Cyprus and needed to be retrieved? The game doesn’t bother explaining a crucial part of this shift, instead presenting a new MacGuffin out of thin air, a MacGuffin that the Assassins don’t even bother trying to track down for two years. There is a small attempt at connecting it to prior events by having Leonardo expand on the Prophecy Mario got from the Codex, but that has nothing to do with the historical occurrences and feels painfully coincidental: that Leonardo translated the final piece of the riddle right before the ship from Cyprus returned.
Worst still is Rodrigo’s escape when the rest of the Brotherhood shows-up. Now I get it, programming limitations (particularly for the original Anvil Engine) meant there was only so much you could show in cutscenes back in the day. However the way he flees really comes off as Scooby-Dooish. There is some partial reasoning divulged via dialogue that the Assassins got the PoE and therefore aren’t as worried about Rodrigo absconding, but that makes things even more ridiculous. You mean to tell me these people have 0 concerns over the Grandmaster of the Templars being alive to wreak havoc at a later date? And what of Mario and Ezio: why are they fine that the man who ordered the murder of their family members was passively let go? As evocative as it is to see all these past friends unveiled as members of a single Brotherhood, and Ezio inducted alongside them, the whole enterprise preluding it is a little silly when you think about it.
To take a break before discussing the finale, I’ll return to the gameplay. I reported most of the important facets revolving around the parkour, stealth, and combat, but there’s one section that blends all three into a negative hodgepodge, and that’s the slate archers. I have no clue what Patrice was going for here with these irascibilities, but they make rooftop maneuvers a complete chore for no logical reason. Guards on the ground will see you scale to a top with few comments, yet these toxophilites have a problem? There is no sense to it. Besides that, they are tiresome to deal with. Their meters fill up relatively quickly due to roofs being unmarked restricted zones; they’re coded with their own parkour, enabling them to give chase; and poorest of all, you have even less stealth options to deal with them than their counterparts on the ground, which is particularly aggravating when you need to avoid detection for a mission.
Look, it’s pretty much known that AC was the only stealth-associated series without a crouch prompt, but the absence of one isn’t a particular problem for the most part on account of walking automatically being low-profile (i.e., enemies won’t detect you sneaking up on them so long as you’re strolling over jogging). Unfortunately, without the ability to alter enemy locomotions, without crowds to hide in, and without guilds to commission from (thieves are the lone figures able to clamber-up alongside you, but can only be sent to fight instead of distract and are noticeably slower than you) squatting behind chimneys would have actually gone a long way towards allowing you to be more clandestine. Alas, you just got to hope that the goon doesn’t turn around as you’re slowly sauntering over to him.
As I mentioned before, throwing knives are a tool, but their range isn’t the best and require a lock-on before they can be flung, giving the enemy ample time to spin around. Still, they do do a decent job, up until you enter Venice, wherein guards now take two shanks instead of one to die- knives become about as efficacious at remaining undetected as the crossbow from the original Deus Ex. Around the middle of the Barbarigo Saga, you get the famous wrist gun that was heavily marketed at the time, which has a slightly longer range and one-hit KO function (I suspect the knives were diminished in power purely to give the firearm purpose), yet it has the liability of a longer lock-on time and creating a bang that flags neighboring bowmen.
For those hoping that a surprise attack would provide a remedy, you’d be mistaken. Running up to one of them is a high-profile movement, and even if you manage to deal the killing blow right as they’ve pivoted full circle, ACII doesn’t have a reactionary delay the way almost every other title does: it’s registered as identification and you’re desynchronized for getting caught.
When you’re just breezing over rooftops, the archers are not an issue at all- your speed easily exceeds theirs, and if you want to assassinate them, it’s a simple matter (though watch out if you’re on a corpse near the eaves, as it’ll pull you down with it!). I’m referring specifically to the many story memories and side missions that necessitate stealth- it’s a nuisance through and through to navigate by rooftop because of them.
Rants aside, we need to wrap-up the grand finale. Ezio travels to Rome to find the Vault spoken of in the Prophecy. The opening infiltration is evidently designed to fill-up your notoriety as there’s little wiggle room for sneaking around- enemies are arranged in patterns enabling easy assassination, and I doubt anyone will ignore such opportunities given their ease of access.
Circumventing to the interiors of the Papal Palace and air jumping Rodrigo (now known as Alexander VI) jumpstarts the endgame, and it is here that we get an example of something that seemed cool as a child, but as an adult lacks viscerality. Fighting the Pope and using the Apple to create clones may have been evocative when we were kids, but the poor fighting mechanics downplay it significantly. Alexander throws punches not like a man in his 60s but like one of the many young, healthy guards you encounter over Ezio’s life, and it’s sad that they couldn’t program something slightly different. Even the Al Mualim boss in ACI stands leagues above this skirmish. The only positive I’ll say here is the banter between the two is pretty interesting, concerning religious doctrine and its relationship to the Isu.
Narrative discrepancies also come into the picture, such as how Ezio knew how to create doppelgangers and how he survived the stab Rodrigo gave him. But perhaps the thing fans will remember the most is his nonsensical decision to spare Alexander’s life. This has been ragged on since 2009, so I won’t add to the dogpile outside of saying it’s made worse by Ezio literally minutes before claiming that he is NOT above killing Rodrigo and attempting to complete the assassination. Yeah, no one turns the other cheek in that small a timeframe.
The ending with Ezio and Minerva remains good to this day, and I know I’m not alone in remembering how much of a mindfuck it was to hear her directly address Desmond. In the present, the gang packs-up and abandons ship for another hideout, setting-up the events for Brotherhood.
Besides the main campaign, what side content is there? Fans will no doubt clamor about the Tombs, but I’ll be honest with you guys- even as a kid I never thought the world of these. They are INCREDIBLY built, do not get me wrong, with some of the most marvelous interiors you will ever find in a video game. However, they aren’t anything more than linear pathways. Those who tell you these are parkour puzzles are either lying or using a very lax definition of “puzzle” as there’s nothing to solve here. You’re simply traversing a route from the beginning to a midpoint where you have to initiate a switch and then repeat the process. And because the developers thought EVEN THAT might be too hard for gamers, the intros to every course open with a nice (unskippable) camera pan along the route you must take, followed by birds marking your designated landing spot. Overall, the crypts are a nice break from the narrative, but don’t go in thinking they’re some Tomb Raider-level environmental conundrum (note- the Ezio Collection throws in a few extra mausoleums called Templar lairs that are smaller-scale versions of the main game’s).
Then there are cheating husband sock’ems that are forgettable, and races/deliveries, which actually go a lot further than the previously-described undercrofts in terms of being actual parkour puzzles: you have to steer through courses that take you in a myriad of directions whilst hitting earmarked locations. Quite fun, and a great way to test your traceur skills.
Lastly, you got glyphs: pieces of code left-behind by the mysterious Subject 16. These are enigmas that must be cracked, taking one of four forms that, while repetitive, are offset by the conspiracies unveiled and information disclosed. Cam Clarke does a phenomenal job as 16, conveying a man literally going insane as he is overtaken by the Bleeding Effect.
Besides the gameplay, there are a number of quality-of-life issues that infringe the quality of ACII. Renovating Monteriggioni is a major source of income, but you can only make investments and collect residuals from the Villa Auditore- why not arrange banks or hubs in every state to prevent unnecessary travel? And on that topic, the fast travel system sucks. You can only do it from predesignated caravan spots, and they don’t even let you teleport to other stations within the city itself.
Weapons can only be equipped/swapped out at the Villa, instead of making it easy and allowing you to do so at blacksmith stalls; you can’t ride horses inside villages; codex pages are mandatory for the penultimate mission, hurting pacing; and, lastly, there is no map for those delightful feathers.
Let’s briefly chat about the sound. Much has been made about the score, and I can’t add anything more. This and Brotherhood were Jesper Kyd’s magnum opus, and they stand the test of time. His synthesizers and integration of vocals would have a lasting impact on the general music direction of the franchise (not to mention the integration of Ezio’s Family as the series theme). My only complaint has to do with the interlacing of his compositions into cutscenes. I don’t know if this was the result of poor mixing or a sound bug, but often you’d just have atmospheric music continue on from the free roam onto the scene, and it didn’t always fit. The iconic scenes that fans remember like Ezio putting on the Assassin robes for the first time or the opening titles are remembered because they had specific tunes synchronized to them, and that just isn’t the case for the majority of the game.
Sound effects are unfortunately a poor area. Because of the paired animations, there is no din linked to hitting inanimate environs, all weapon classes are copypasted amongst themselves, and guards (regardless of armor quality) yield the exact same slice and dice sonority. Also, can someone please explain to me why a dog starts barking every time you shoot the wrist gun? I will say that a doppler effect has been implemented so that the further away from civilians you are, the quieter their convos, with interiors even laced with an echoey feel.
The voice acting is great all around- you don’t need me to ring praise for Roger Craig Smith, Nolan North, or the other elites. Truly, more-so than the main performers, Ubisoft deserves credit for getting competent VAs for the myriad of civilians and their unique dialogues (more on that below). As Unity and Syndicate would later prove, sidebar convos can be VERY immersion-breaking when you pull some hack off the street to dole out the lines, and it’s saying something to Patrices’s dedication that everyone speaks with what I presume to be an Italian-esque accent.
Those of you who have made this far may be wondering where my opening statement originated from. How could I enjoy this game when I’ve chiefly outlined negatives? Well, it pertains to the fun and liveliness factors, arguably the most important pieces of a video game’s longevity. ACII’s parkour remains superb- I’d almost forgotten the amount of control you had over Ezio’s directional movement. While some environmental lock-on would have prevented the many unintentional bounds you’ll no doubt conduct, it cannot be understated just how precise everything remains. Coupled with the aforestated configuration of architecture that services the freerunning and you have a game that still puts to shame other open world titles in the navigatorial department.
ACII’s developers also knew the techniques for concocting a breathing world. The citizens of Italia weren’t stationary NPCs with limited radii of mobility like so many games to this day (cough cough, Horizon Zero Dawn): they walked around in groups, conversed amongst each other, and REACTED to the things you did. Seriously, I cannot put into words the sheer amount of small talk that was recorded for this game- climbing walls, bumping into someone, pickpocketing, killing, punching, dropping a dead guard, searching a body, throwing florins, breaking a carried object, emptying a treasure chest…I’m firm I’m missing more. Each of these actions yields several unique responses from the person who watches/is affected by them, and you don’t see that kind of dedication in modern video games (including later Assassin’s Creeds). One denizen may be apologetic, another upset, and another comment on your bad breath! Throw in cutpurses, Borgia messengers, corrupt politicians, heralds, and yes guards too and you get even MORE variance in the discussions that flood the game world. Seriously, where is that these days?
The ability to interact (read -- beat-up) civilians was a huge contributor to this vitality, though it could get annoying when Ezio would unintentionally double kill two civilians in the way, causing a desync.
Truly, though, the crux of ACII’s longevity arises from its leading man. If they’re not silent, video game protagonists tend to be either aspirational or relatable; you want to be like them because they have some quality you are bereft of, or you see them as kinfolk because you can empathize with their personalities. Ezio was a rare case of both takes converging into a single entity. We all wanted to be like him: he had a sexy character model, was charismatic, confident, charming with the ladies, and above all a badass. Yet he was also identifiable; we all felt as helpless when he watched his family die, as angry when Umberto and Vieri met their demise, and as confused when Minerva spoke through him. Even if Brotherhood and Revelations hadn’t come out, I standby the claim that Ezio would’ve remained a fan favorite in the series’ legacy.
But one man can only go so far. The cast surrounding Ezio was colorful, each given some memorable scene or dialogue that imparted them in my mind. From Paola declaring “I too know betrayal” to Antonio flustering over the death of a courtesan, Corey May and his cohorts knew how to turn minimal screen time into long-term everlasting fervor. And despite its grave subject matter, ACII had a lot of humorous moments that have aged like fine wine. Some of the more famous ones are easily recalled (Ezio inventing the latte, Uncle Mario’s “It’sa me, Mario!”), but how many remember Ezio refusing Bartolomeo’s kiss, Rosa cursing Antonio for removing the arrow, or, heck, the Pazzi deriding the Medicis? I laughed at each of these instances and more.
And finally there’s the fact that atmosphere goes a long way. ACII is far from consistent, but those moments where you’re simply gliding across rooftops or moving between crowds or even simply wandering amongst the breathing streets coalesce into some immersive moments that whisk me into another world. Combined with the Jesper's synth score beating in the back and superb cinematic direction from Patrice and you get a well-rounded package.
Exploring 15th century Italy was a true adventure, and one I’ll never forget.
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+Yes, I totally plagiarized Roger Ebert’s opening paragraph for The Color Purple when he added it to his Greatest Films List in 2004: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-the-color-purple-1985
++To be fair, the ending of the Bonfire of the Vanities DLC implies that Ezio stopped supporting Lorenzo as well.
Returning to Assassin’s Creed II after so long, I can see its flaws more easily than when I first experienced it all those years ago; however, I can also understand why it moved me so deeply, and why the quality of some games depends not on their perfection, but on their heart.+
There’s no way to conduct a deep analysis about ACII without going into plot specifics, so if you haven’t played it yet and don’t want to be spoiled, my short recommendation is to absolutely do so. Just keep in mind some mechanics and aspects of the narrative haven’t aged well and, consequently, prevent the title from living up to the legacy its word-of-mouth would suggest.
Prior to its temporary abandonment of the modern-day, Assassin’s Creed was unique in that it was the first franchise to combine cyberpunk undertones with historical gallopades. In the present, you were a group of rebels fighting against a malevolent corporation, uncovering clues in the past to help you gain an advantage. Desmond was a regular joe thrown into the middle of this conflict, and his naivety acted as a perfect medium for the player as they entered this society of ancient artifacts and knowledge. In the past, you were one of his ancestors embroiled in their own rendition of the everlasting war.
ACII made several significant upgrades from its predecessor that were innovative and influential at the time. Unfortunately, as a critic looking back at in 2022, I have to take into consideration the slew of advances propagated by not only its successors, but the library of video games that have been released since then, and ascertain whether or not this masterpiece of the late-2000s still holds up in this day and age.
The beginning is as good a place as any to start - we get a small recap of the first game’s modern-day before Lucy breaks Desmond out of Abstergo and escapes to an Assassin safehouse. Recurring characters Shawn and Rebecca are given apt introductions that instantly showcase their personalities, and Desmond’s willingness to join the team is justified given his past ordeals with Abstergo. While completing ACI is, of course, ideal to truly understanding and accepting these developments, there’s no doubt that, in less than 30 minutes, Ubisoft succeeded in both catching up newcomers and setting the rest of the events of the Animus in motion.
Ezio’s prologue, likewise, is well-constructed, and a pristine example of how to effortlessly combine gameplay and story proceedings. A street scuffle not only heralds the debut of our protagonist and other characters who will play a role in the story down-the-line (Federico, Vieri de’ Pazzi), but also serves to familiarize players with mechanics they will be utilizing as an assassin (h2h combat, looting, doctors/medicine, parkour, and of course the iconic Leap of Faith). From there, you get a series of brief missions that serve to acquaint gamers with the rest of Ezio’s family and friends, and it is here that I noticed ACII’s first real stumbling, which is that more could’ve been done to give the family greater dramatization.
Now I get it, as a writer, you don’t want to spend too much time restricting the player, but that argument doesn’t quite work here because gamers are given a decent-sized playpen to free roam in in Florence, as well as side activities to do like races, husband beat-ups, and those ever-beloved feather collections. Part of me suspects that the short-changing was actually done because of time-constraints, in which case an easy solution would’ve been to axe Petruccio and dedicate his screen-time to an extra mission with Federico. Seriously, he serves no purpose other than to commence the aforementioned feather hunts, which could’ve been transferred over to Federico or even Giovanni with a small script change. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still sad to see him executed (the animators even gave him distinct fear expressions there in comparison to Federico’s blank stare); however there’s no denying that that tragedy stems more from him being a little boy than from his persona.
On the topic of tragedies, it’s hard not to see Corey May borrow from Romeo & Juliet: the roadside brannigan calls to mind the opening brawl between the Capulets and Montagues, while Ezio’s ascension of Cristina’s apartment evokes the balcony serenade. Ezio himself is distinctly passionate, this initial portrayal meant to be a jumping-off point for an arc that culminates in him becoming a mature veteran. That being said, the writers do lean a bit too heavily into casanova stereotypes that seem anachronistic (seriously, what is with Renaissance Italy being portrayed as this bastion of sexual activity - The Borgias, Da Vinci’s Demons, ACII - surely this can’t be veridical to the era)?
But these are small potatoes. The bigger issues prevail following the Hanging, namely the following: Maria and Claudia being reduced to minor roles, Uncle Mario not even interacting with the girls in the Family to show his sympathy, and, worst of all, Leonardo not giving a sh*t about the calamity despite being described as close to the family. I mean seriously, it’s amazing how many times this franchise has tried to portray two males as BFFs only to completely skimp on the screen-time necessary for such a relationship to be believable (Edward & Adewale, Arno & Napoleon, Bayek and Hepzefa), and no matter what the nostalgihacks tell you, it’s just as bad here….perhaps even worse considering the dialogue blatantly tries to hammers it in ala Bond and Felix Lester’s contrived “brotherhood” in No Time to Die. The truth is Leonardo’s primary purpose is to be a skill tree for Ezio to learn new techniques, and because it’s all story-mandated anyway, he doesn’t have anything else going for him on the outside.
Rest assured, not everything is flawed. One of the best things ACII does is successfully disguise tutorials as story-driven missions. Blending and courtesan hiring from Paola is covered under her teaching Ezio techniques to get-in close to kill Uberto; assassinating and hiding bodies cloaked by protecting Leonardo; advanced swordsmanship from Mario tied to a training montage wherein Ezio learns the truth about his family’s heritage; throwing knives hidden beneath dispatching archers protecting the gates of San Gimignano. It’s fascinating to go back and see this all play-out under veteran gamer eyes.
There are two other benefits to returning to ACII after a prolonged period. First is a surreal occurrence wherein, because I replayed it a bunch, I can anticipate what’s going to happen/be said, yet not know the exact wordage. Mark Meer once described playing through the Mass Effect games as feeling like Dr. Manhattan because he had spent weeks recording/repeating all the dialogue, and I can relate to the same evocation here.
The second pertains to a bit of invigorating retroactive continuity that comes from having completed the many sequels. If you did so, one thing you’ll find upon revisiting ACII are the traditions, lore bits, and historical revisionisms (via the glyphs) that unintentionally cause you to think about the larger AC world due to it being expanded upon by its aforestated follow-ups. For example, the very first glyph contains portraits of Napoleon and George Washington carrying Apples, and you actually get to see these firsthand later-on in Unity and III respectively. Leonardo joking with Ezio about the need to cut off his ring finger for the Hidden Blade brings to mind Bayek’s own digit loss in Origins. These instances reminded me of a similar experience I had when I rewatched the first Iron Man in theaters: because the MCU has been significantly expanded in its subsequently released films, my head couldn’t help but make connections to actions that had occurred in those other flicks whenever they were (unintentionally, of course) referenced.
To return back to the story, AC games have generally fallen into one of two denominations: they’re either arc-based with loose connecting tissue or singularly-focused with compartmentalized sequences. Both ensure you’re proceeding through the game in chunks, but with the former the overall story is much more episodic, whereas the latter shapes it to be like a conventional video game. Neither option is superior to the other, and different games benefit from employing one strategy over the other.
In ACII’s case, it is definitively in the singular camp. While Ezio does use a list from his father to seek out his targets, the Templars are tied together as members of an Order that actually interact with each other. They're not isolated the way the antagonists in ACI or Origins were, and their part in the death of Ezio’s Family is explicitly clear. Interestingly, one of the biggest surprises I found in revisiting their conversations and data files was how grey a lot of them were. Talk to any casual AC fan and they'll tell you a setback of the Ezio Trilogy was turning the Templars into caricatures without the moral wavering that occupied the first game’s sect. I too was of this belief, but perhaps we all thought this because we were seeing things through the lens of Ezio- a young man who was so driven by blood he didn't give a second thought to what the other side had to say. ACII certainly wants to prioritize that point-of-view, but it still contains pieces of gray that hold it above more black-and-white titles like Origins and Odyssey, and that greyness is two-fold.
First up are the inclinations- what you’ll find is the majority of the Pazzi Templars are motivated by being economically eclipsed, or outright screwed over, by the Medici Dynasty: Umberto’s loved ones were evicted, the Pazzi’s banks were failing in competition with the Medici’s, Antonio Maffei witnessed Medici-hired mercs sack a city; and even little Vieri, the Italian iteration of Malfoy, became cruel from his father’s neglect.
I’m not saying there aren’t petty or evil initiates in the mix (Francesco Salviati) or that the above are fully justified in their actions; what I am saying is there is enough seasoning amidst the salt and pepper. And they’re bolstered by the flipside, which is Ezio’s allies lacking their own ethics. Lorenzo may be called “the Magnificent,” but he was far from it, being as much a hard leader who committed horrible acts.++ Caterina Sforza, though not prominent in ACII’s base game, is described as having murdered innocent women and children simply because they were related to her male enemies. And Anthony’s Thieves Guild in the second half is composed of, well, thieves, robbers who make their living stealing from the upper classes.
You may be wondering how all these facts fell under the eyes of AC fans - even if the game was deliberately structured to ride Ezio’s blindness, surely the sheer amount of counterevidence I laid out would offset the near-permanent labels that currently befall the rogues, like “cartoony” and “over-the-top”. Well, the problem is most of this info is shoved into data files (like Shaun’s well-made video bios) or optional letters that you have to take extra time to peruse; an action we know gamers are generally avoidant to do. Some of the short conversations in the Confessions hint at this ambiguity, but it is nowhere near worn on its sleeve as much as ACI and (later) ACIII do.
Unfortunately, going this route does have the downside of diminishing their uniqueness and memorability. While Rodrigo wanted Giovanni dead because he was an Assassin, his primary incentive to get the other fellows of the Rite on-board was to simply highlight Giovanni’s friendship and defense of Lorenzo, and consequent opposition to the House of Pazzi. Now, not every game needs a strong antagonist- many rest their appeal on the protagonist(s) and their fortitude in overcoming obstacles. And since ACII does, as I said before, prioritize a linear end-scheme, it doesn’t stumble the way Unity did because it’s treating the uncovering of the mystery as the objective, not these side tangents. However, those seeking more memorable malefactors will not find them in ACII.
Regarding Rodrigo, he’s another instance of memory serving me poorly. I had thought that he was akin to the Emperor from Return of the Jedi, primarily manifesting in the finale as a poorly-thought out grand baddie. Recrawling through the mud of ACII has revealed that to be a lie- this is a game whose first act warrants a second playthrough (or online watch) because your initial one is obscured by Ezio’s ignorance. Just like Desmond does for the modern-day, Ezio is an avatar for newbies unsure of the conspiracy afoot, but this has the side effect of making context clues oblivious the first time you witness them: the small talk Giovanni makes of the machinations occurring in Firenze, the thieves and whores he associates with, and, most importantly, the consistent presence of Rodrigo among almost every major Templar. From skulking in the abode of Uberto to headlining meetings, Rodrigo may be dressed like Palpatine, but he’s more in the style of Boingo from Hoodwinked; having a hand in every major part of the story as he builds-up to an ultimate aim.
I know I classified Assassin’s Creed II as linear, but one of the great things about doing a live review (that is, filling up this doc as I play the game rather than post-completion) is being able to see the blossoming picture and adjust my writing accordingly. Rodrigo’s constant prowling in almost every sequence maintains that original marque, however it should be noted that the game does feature acts. Acts are similar to Arcs in that they are set around a new threat, but differ in terms of not being standalone.
I’ll use ACII to illustrate what I mean. When you’re finished with the last of the Pazzi (Jacopo), Ezio sees another figure associating with Rodrigo, Emilio Barbarigo, leading the Florentine to travel to Venice and discover a new Templar wing, the Barbarigo Family. While they’re up to their own shenanigans, they’re still under Rodrigo’s command: as I said, a new threat, but not standalone from the Pazzi.
Sadly, this is the place where my reminiscence objectively fails as the beginning of this phase in Ezio’s life is full of storytelling defects. To start with, why doesn’t Ezio go after Rodrigo? The other Pazzis were directly involved in the death of his father and brothers, so I understand him prioritizing them. Now though? Rodrigo’s identity was long unveiled by Mario, and his status as a member of the elite Borgia Family doesn’t exactly make him elusive. If there was even a bit of dialogue that addressed this shortcoming, I would have no issue, but as it stands it makes absolutely no sense for Ezio to abandon the Spaniard in favor of helping out the citizenry of Venice.
By not having a direct connection to the scaffolding of Giovanni and co., the Barbarigo group is at a further disadvantage in terms of story impetus. They’re not personal to the protagonist, and therefore come off as a hit list. To compensate, the writers go for a darker tone, depicting them as less sympathetic than their Pazzi brethren by murdering rivals, gerrymandering elections, abusing merchants, poisoning politicians, and even rigging games. There are a few shades of silver here and there: Emilio’s iron grip on the mercantile district has rid it of crime; Silvio’s father was murdered by his power-hungry Uncle, and Dante was the victim of a foiled-assassination plot by Marco. But these are even more shoved into the background than the Pazzi’s, and I can’t blame anyone who missed them since they’re only told in Shaun’s video diaries.
Before even entering Venice, the transition in Sequence 6 from Firenze is laughably bad. At a short length of two memories, you spend the first escorting Leonardo, which is simple enough, but then the second has Ezio in need of a ticket to get on the boat. Sounds like the perfect set-up for some pickpocketing of patrons right? Well no, wouldn’t you behold, Caterina Sforza has been conveniently abandoned on an adjacent isle, and there’s a boat right nearby for you to take to her rescue!
Yeah, even as a kid, I found the set-up ridiculous, and this replay does it no favors. Just like with the failure to pursue Rodrigo, you aren’t given any kind of explanation as to how Sforza ended up there, and as far as I can tell, there isn’t any historical record supporting its inclusion.
Sequence 7, however, is where the pacing really takes a nosedive. It consists of fetch quest upon fetch quest as Ezio runs around committing errands for Antonio in order to help the Thieves Guild build back its strength to assault Emilio’s Palazzo. They’re boring, the missions depict the gameplay problems, and worst of all everything is slooooooooow. It’s not surprising to learn that it took Ezio four years to aid the Guild considering it feels that long.
Not helping things is the fact that Venice is the worst designed city in the game. To put things in perspective, I should delve into the gameplay. Assassin’s Creed has always been about three pillars: parkour, stealth, and combat. Parkour pertains not just to the actual movement systems, but to the environmental layout- as Origins and Odyssey would show, retaining the core AC freerunning doesn’t matter if you don’t have a flow from which to initiate your traversal. Buildings, poles, clothesline, mountainscapes, trees: the material is of little consequence as long as there is an assemblage that works in sync with the programming to give your steps ease.
ACII has aged incredibly well in this regard, and I can’t deny that it is an utter joy to be able to run from edifice to edifice nonstop. The sole problem I’ve ever had are the placement of those occasional signposts or gates that deliberately impede Ezio, forcing you to take a moment to pull yourself over to begin the next batch of jumps, but that’s slim pickings in the grand scheme of things.
I bring this up because Florence, Tuscany, and even Monteriggioni have been painstakingly crafted by Ubisoft’s artisans to be a playground for traceurs, making the ball-drop that is Venice all the more shocking. I get it- this is a city known for its waterways and curving roads, but it seems like the designers didn’t even bother trying to circumvent the issues that came with such obstacles. You’ll find yourself looking for bridges to cross the rivers because there is no connecting rope between divided buildings. For those wondering if you can ford the canals, the answer is no; you have to swim or use a gondola. Some have these metal buoys strung-up near their coasts, but they’re never planted in a straight line from shore-to-shore, and even if they were, for some reason Ezio is hit-or-miss when it comes to leaping between them, rendering them unreliable as parkour points. And don’t even get me started on trying to grab a hold of a fixed boat- it’s downright broken.
On top of this, the architecture is noticeably taller than its counterparts in the aforementioned towns, making ascents more time-consuming, and the curvatures I attributed to Venetian engineering don’t help with street traversal. Combine all this with the fact that you frequently have to go from one side of town to the other in your quests here, and you can see why this place frustrated me. If you could parkour from end-to-end without interruption like the three other Italian states, it’d be fine, but that you’re instead forced to come back down (or skydive into the waters from above), peregrinate to the other side, and then reorient yourself ad nauseam kills it.
As sluggish as Sequence 7 is, things are made with 8 and 9. While they don’t resolve the overarching issue of Ezio opting to stay in Venice for an extended period, Patrice and his team spice things up with pure innovation. Operating da Vinci’s famous Flying Machine to infiltrate a fortress and participating in the Carnevale are pristine examples as to why ACII’s mission structure garnered much more praise than ACI’s - it’s variety, it’s given story-context, and most importantly it’s fun.
I’ve spent a lot of time focusing on the narrative that I’ve been ignoring the deciding factor for most players, which is the gameplay. Next to parkour is the combat pillar, and it is admittedly the one section I was dreading the most to reexperience. You have to understand that even the most ardent purist will forfeit defending the combat, and sadly our recollections were correct. Fighting is atrocious. Prior to Syndicate, AC games employed a technique called pair animations. You can read it more in-depth here (https://critpoints.net/2020/03/24/what-the-fuck-is-paired-animation/) but in short, it consists of enemies having reactive animations whenever you strike them: they either block it, take the hit, dodge, or counter. Likewise, you have similar options when said enemies go on the offensive. Regardless of what happens, you have to wait for both characters’ animations to complete before you can begin a new one.
Perusing that article shows that acclaimed titles like the Arkham series and Dark Souls implemented similar schema, so why does it fail for Assassin’s Creed II? It comes down to many differences. One, you’re effectively restricted to a single goon at a time; Arkham’s freeflow enabled Batman to dance from one henchman to the next as soon as his attack was done, automatically getting to the next guy regardless of distance, whereas Ezio has to clumsily retarget, and that too only if someone is within range. Two, Batman is quick, reducing the realignment delay of animations, whereas Ezio swings much slower, exposing the interlude. Three, only certain thugs were able to counter the Dark Knight, and even they had methods of circumvention; in ACII, every single guard besides archers has the capacity to block or dodge you, drawing out the length of 1v1s tremendously. There are also no nonlethal takedowns, either groundbased or airborne. If you want to be merciful, you’ll have to waste time engaging mano y mano.
Tl;dr, it’s not fun. It’s also no secret that the Hidden Blade is broken in terms of providing insta-counterkills, meaning the majority of gamers will probably just use it whenever they get into scraps, which is a shame because a lot of amazing kill animations were programmed for all the armaments that still look sick to this day.
The enemy AI is also a joke. There may be a sundry of guard classes, but the only difference between them is their speed and HP. All can be taken out the exact same way and all will opt to let their brethren face Ezio one-at-a-time instead of attacking simultaneously. The few times one breaks from the ranks to sneak a surprise slice, you can easily parry them. And in the event that you are subject to a barrage of strikes, magic healing potions procurable from doctors will restore your constitution immediately.
The combat honestly would be tolerable if there wasn’t so much mandatory fighting. If there’s one thing I can praise the Barbarigo Act for above the Pazzi one, it’s that it significantly reduces such encounters, instead opting for parkour and stealth. Unfortunately, as I ranted about before, Venice diminishes the former significantly, leaving the stealth, which deserves its own talk.
ACII’s stealth is, without a doubt, the most disappointing aspect of the game. The expanded social stealth was novel in whilom, and really played to the assassin fantasy of being a blade in the crowd, but the problem is that that’s all ACII has going for it here; it lacks basic options available in other titles with subterfuge, namely the ability to manipulate enemy movement. When you’re on the ground and there are no crowds, your non-combat choice is to find one of three adjacent groups (prostitutes, thieves, mercenaries), spend money hiring them, and then sic them on the guards who are in your way. There are slight variations amongst the trifecta, but their general purpose remains the same of creating a distraction for you to slip by.
Unfortunately, even this strategy is hampered by these factions not always being within a reasonable distance, forcing you to go significantly out of your way to find one and drag them back, or to simply say screw it and engage in a fisticuff with the soldiers. Later on, during the Pazzi Act, you are given smoke bombs, but these are ternary in quantity (with no upgradeable pouches) and their effects are short-lived; if you’re doing anything more than darting past, such as robbing a bank or killing a target, you’ll find yourself in the middle of a quarrel the second you get out. Another expedient is the ability to throw money (10 florins), which attracts a mob of working-class citizens that flock around guards, but it has its own drawbacks that discourage it: the NPCs impede you as much as the sentinels, the paralysis is about the same length as the smoke bombs, and, unlike in Unity, Ezio is unable to blend with this new group, making it useless for a stealthy getaway. Those who suggest poison will be forced to stand for an extended period as the venom takes hold, and attempting to dope all guardians kicks off their alertness.
Regardless, both of these are entirely unfeasible in restricted zones where every enemy is vigilant and arranged in a way to guarantee detection from someone. As I said, here you can’t do anything to change their behavior: relying on the faction tactic is impractical because there are multiple sets of guards in the vicinity, you can’t throw something/whistle to move them away, you can’t shoot your poison from a distance, and the only environmental stealth are stationary hay carts that are few and far between. You do have throwing knives, however they aren’t synced to noise creation the way they were in ACC: China, and, in any event, you can’t free aim them. No, it would appear your sole recourse is to step into the limelight, trigger the enemy alert, and then sidle away as they follow you. Thing is, even this doesn’t work all the time, as guards are just as prone to returning to their original position as they are to dogging you.
To be fair, the lion’s share of story missions do throw in some proximate coterie you can recruit to aid, but it doesn’t absolve the general flaw, which is that 90% of the stealth mechanics are not fun to engage with, intrinsically discouraging them.
As for the social stealth, listen, when you’re in an area that has been designed around it, it’s amazing. I can’t put into words just how much of a bad-ass you feel like, hiding in plain sight, gawking at your target like they’re prey ready to be snapped! The only slight annoyance is when you’re trying to catch-up with a pack who are ambling quicker than you - the button for fast walk is the same as pickpocketing, and so, if you’re not careful, you can break-up the blend by way of thievery; to avoid this, you have to tap the sprint key, which runs the risk (no pun intended) of alerting guards faster.
Contrary to what the purists will tell you, social stealth was not harnessed well by the series prior to its removal in Origins/Odyssey. Assuming my remembrances are accurate, ACII, Brotherhood, and Syndicate are the only games that do such a fascinating idea justice, and I wished ACII had dedicated the same effort to its other areas of surreptitiousness.
Back to the story, well, there isn’t much to tell because it’s almost over!...at least from the vanilla version’s perspective. See, if you’re playing ACII via the Ezio Collection remaster (which I am doing for this review), you are given access to all the post-release content. Sounds great right? Well, the only problem is the two DLC sequences (12 and 13) are interwoven into the main game and now made mandatory for completion. My write-ups for them are published on their respective Backloggd pages (https://www.backloggd.com/u/RedBackLoggd/review/513830/ and https://www.backloggd.com/u/RedBackLoggd/review/513832/), but know that they absolutely kill the pacing of the main game. 12, or The Battle of Forlí, is tolerable since it at least begins instantly after the end of 10 and is relatively short (about an hour). The same cannot be said for Lucky Number 13, which drags out processions and ruins the otherwise fair cadence of the game. It is for this reason alone that I recommend prospective players use the OG version and simply watch playthroughs of the add-ons should they wish to see the events that transpire in them.
But what about the graphical upticks provided by the remaster? Look, there definitely is a visual improvement from the seventh generation, however I wouldn’t call it so significant that it overcomes the dead pacing. ACII, in general, has aged quite well. Yes, you do have your infamous NPCs with their jarring countenances and lazy eyes, but they are the minority. A good amount of the models are well-animated, and, most importantly, all of the architectonics are gorgeously-textured. Individual bricks can be made out, ascendable building materials distinguishable, cloth physics on-point, and the baked lightning absolutely rivals Unity (side-note, day/night cycles are not dynamic, instead influenced by mission selection and travel). Things I took for granted like the polished red paneling of banks, the reconstruction of Renaissance art, and the bending of sunlight around objects were recognized on this playthrough.
Anyway, that aside, after slaying the last of the Barbarigos, Ezio finds out that the crime family was yet another tool used by Rodrigo to acquire a Piece of Eden. Thanks to Rosa, he acquires the location of the shipping drop-off and infiltrates it in order to get close to the Spaniard. In the course of their grand battle, all of Ezio’s allies convene on the location, and the Borgia patriarch is forced to retreat.
I have a lot of issues with the way this whole penultimate sequence plays out. One is how contrived the transition is from the Barbarigos to the “Chosen One” plot. Up until now, we were meant to believe that Rodrigo was manipulating these families for the sake of acquiring control over Italy, but now that was all just a cover for retrieving the Apple? At least show hints throughout the main narrative indicating that he was up to something else as he chastised his underlings. On that note, how did any of the Templars even know that the Apple was in Cyprus and needed to be retrieved? The game doesn’t bother explaining a crucial part of this shift, instead presenting a new MacGuffin out of thin air, a MacGuffin that the Assassins don’t even bother trying to track down for two years. There is a small attempt at connecting it to prior events by having Leonardo expand on the Prophecy Mario got from the Codex, but that has nothing to do with the historical occurrences and feels painfully coincidental: that Leonardo translated the final piece of the riddle right before the ship from Cyprus returned.
Worst still is Rodrigo’s escape when the rest of the Brotherhood shows-up. Now I get it, programming limitations (particularly for the original Anvil Engine) meant there was only so much you could show in cutscenes back in the day. However the way he flees really comes off as Scooby-Dooish. There is some partial reasoning divulged via dialogue that the Assassins got the PoE and therefore aren’t as worried about Rodrigo absconding, but that makes things even more ridiculous. You mean to tell me these people have 0 concerns over the Grandmaster of the Templars being alive to wreak havoc at a later date? And what of Mario and Ezio: why are they fine that the man who ordered the murder of their family members was passively let go? As evocative as it is to see all these past friends unveiled as members of a single Brotherhood, and Ezio inducted alongside them, the whole enterprise preluding it is a little silly when you think about it.
To take a break before discussing the finale, I’ll return to the gameplay. I reported most of the important facets revolving around the parkour, stealth, and combat, but there’s one section that blends all three into a negative hodgepodge, and that’s the slate archers. I have no clue what Patrice was going for here with these irascibilities, but they make rooftop maneuvers a complete chore for no logical reason. Guards on the ground will see you scale to a top with few comments, yet these toxophilites have a problem? There is no sense to it. Besides that, they are tiresome to deal with. Their meters fill up relatively quickly due to roofs being unmarked restricted zones; they’re coded with their own parkour, enabling them to give chase; and poorest of all, you have even less stealth options to deal with them than their counterparts on the ground, which is particularly aggravating when you need to avoid detection for a mission.
Look, it’s pretty much known that AC was the only stealth-associated series without a crouch prompt, but the absence of one isn’t a particular problem for the most part on account of walking automatically being low-profile (i.e., enemies won’t detect you sneaking up on them so long as you’re strolling over jogging). Unfortunately, without the ability to alter enemy locomotions, without crowds to hide in, and without guilds to commission from (thieves are the lone figures able to clamber-up alongside you, but can only be sent to fight instead of distract and are noticeably slower than you) squatting behind chimneys would have actually gone a long way towards allowing you to be more clandestine. Alas, you just got to hope that the goon doesn’t turn around as you’re slowly sauntering over to him.
As I mentioned before, throwing knives are a tool, but their range isn’t the best and require a lock-on before they can be flung, giving the enemy ample time to spin around. Still, they do do a decent job, up until you enter Venice, wherein guards now take two shanks instead of one to die- knives become about as efficacious at remaining undetected as the crossbow from the original Deus Ex. Around the middle of the Barbarigo Saga, you get the famous wrist gun that was heavily marketed at the time, which has a slightly longer range and one-hit KO function (I suspect the knives were diminished in power purely to give the firearm purpose), yet it has the liability of a longer lock-on time and creating a bang that flags neighboring bowmen.
For those hoping that a surprise attack would provide a remedy, you’d be mistaken. Running up to one of them is a high-profile movement, and even if you manage to deal the killing blow right as they’ve pivoted full circle, ACII doesn’t have a reactionary delay the way almost every other title does: it’s registered as identification and you’re desynchronized for getting caught.
When you’re just breezing over rooftops, the archers are not an issue at all- your speed easily exceeds theirs, and if you want to assassinate them, it’s a simple matter (though watch out if you’re on a corpse near the eaves, as it’ll pull you down with it!). I’m referring specifically to the many story memories and side missions that necessitate stealth- it’s a nuisance through and through to navigate by rooftop because of them.
Rants aside, we need to wrap-up the grand finale. Ezio travels to Rome to find the Vault spoken of in the Prophecy. The opening infiltration is evidently designed to fill-up your notoriety as there’s little wiggle room for sneaking around- enemies are arranged in patterns enabling easy assassination, and I doubt anyone will ignore such opportunities given their ease of access.
Circumventing to the interiors of the Papal Palace and air jumping Rodrigo (now known as Alexander VI) jumpstarts the endgame, and it is here that we get an example of something that seemed cool as a child, but as an adult lacks viscerality. Fighting the Pope and using the Apple to create clones may have been evocative when we were kids, but the poor fighting mechanics downplay it significantly. Alexander throws punches not like a man in his 60s but like one of the many young, healthy guards you encounter over Ezio’s life, and it’s sad that they couldn’t program something slightly different. Even the Al Mualim boss in ACI stands leagues above this skirmish. The only positive I’ll say here is the banter between the two is pretty interesting, concerning religious doctrine and its relationship to the Isu.
Narrative discrepancies also come into the picture, such as how Ezio knew how to create doppelgangers and how he survived the stab Rodrigo gave him. But perhaps the thing fans will remember the most is his nonsensical decision to spare Alexander’s life. This has been ragged on since 2009, so I won’t add to the dogpile outside of saying it’s made worse by Ezio literally minutes before claiming that he is NOT above killing Rodrigo and attempting to complete the assassination. Yeah, no one turns the other cheek in that small a timeframe.
The ending with Ezio and Minerva remains good to this day, and I know I’m not alone in remembering how much of a mindfuck it was to hear her directly address Desmond. In the present, the gang packs-up and abandons ship for another hideout, setting-up the events for Brotherhood.
Besides the main campaign, what side content is there? Fans will no doubt clamor about the Tombs, but I’ll be honest with you guys- even as a kid I never thought the world of these. They are INCREDIBLY built, do not get me wrong, with some of the most marvelous interiors you will ever find in a video game. However, they aren’t anything more than linear pathways. Those who tell you these are parkour puzzles are either lying or using a very lax definition of “puzzle” as there’s nothing to solve here. You’re simply traversing a route from the beginning to a midpoint where you have to initiate a switch and then repeat the process. And because the developers thought EVEN THAT might be too hard for gamers, the intros to every course open with a nice (unskippable) camera pan along the route you must take, followed by birds marking your designated landing spot. Overall, the crypts are a nice break from the narrative, but don’t go in thinking they’re some Tomb Raider-level environmental conundrum (note- the Ezio Collection throws in a few extra mausoleums called Templar lairs that are smaller-scale versions of the main game’s).
Then there are cheating husband sock’ems that are forgettable, and races/deliveries, which actually go a lot further than the previously-described undercrofts in terms of being actual parkour puzzles: you have to steer through courses that take you in a myriad of directions whilst hitting earmarked locations. Quite fun, and a great way to test your traceur skills.
Lastly, you got glyphs: pieces of code left-behind by the mysterious Subject 16. These are enigmas that must be cracked, taking one of four forms that, while repetitive, are offset by the conspiracies unveiled and information disclosed. Cam Clarke does a phenomenal job as 16, conveying a man literally going insane as he is overtaken by the Bleeding Effect.
Besides the gameplay, there are a number of quality-of-life issues that infringe the quality of ACII. Renovating Monteriggioni is a major source of income, but you can only make investments and collect residuals from the Villa Auditore- why not arrange banks or hubs in every state to prevent unnecessary travel? And on that topic, the fast travel system sucks. You can only do it from predesignated caravan spots, and they don’t even let you teleport to other stations within the city itself.
Weapons can only be equipped/swapped out at the Villa, instead of making it easy and allowing you to do so at blacksmith stalls; you can’t ride horses inside villages; codex pages are mandatory for the penultimate mission, hurting pacing; and, lastly, there is no map for those delightful feathers.
Let’s briefly chat about the sound. Much has been made about the score, and I can’t add anything more. This and Brotherhood were Jesper Kyd’s magnum opus, and they stand the test of time. His synthesizers and integration of vocals would have a lasting impact on the general music direction of the franchise (not to mention the integration of Ezio’s Family as the series theme). My only complaint has to do with the interlacing of his compositions into cutscenes. I don’t know if this was the result of poor mixing or a sound bug, but often you’d just have atmospheric music continue on from the free roam onto the scene, and it didn’t always fit. The iconic scenes that fans remember like Ezio putting on the Assassin robes for the first time or the opening titles are remembered because they had specific tunes synchronized to them, and that just isn’t the case for the majority of the game.
Sound effects are unfortunately a poor area. Because of the paired animations, there is no din linked to hitting inanimate environs, all weapon classes are copypasted amongst themselves, and guards (regardless of armor quality) yield the exact same slice and dice sonority. Also, can someone please explain to me why a dog starts barking every time you shoot the wrist gun? I will say that a doppler effect has been implemented so that the further away from civilians you are, the quieter their convos, with interiors even laced with an echoey feel.
The voice acting is great all around- you don’t need me to ring praise for Roger Craig Smith, Nolan North, or the other elites. Truly, more-so than the main performers, Ubisoft deserves credit for getting competent VAs for the myriad of civilians and their unique dialogues (more on that below). As Unity and Syndicate would later prove, sidebar convos can be VERY immersion-breaking when you pull some hack off the street to dole out the lines, and it’s saying something to Patrices’s dedication that everyone speaks with what I presume to be an Italian-esque accent.
Those of you who have made this far may be wondering where my opening statement originated from. How could I enjoy this game when I’ve chiefly outlined negatives? Well, it pertains to the fun and liveliness factors, arguably the most important pieces of a video game’s longevity. ACII’s parkour remains superb- I’d almost forgotten the amount of control you had over Ezio’s directional movement. While some environmental lock-on would have prevented the many unintentional bounds you’ll no doubt conduct, it cannot be understated just how precise everything remains. Coupled with the aforestated configuration of architecture that services the freerunning and you have a game that still puts to shame other open world titles in the navigatorial department.
ACII’s developers also knew the techniques for concocting a breathing world. The citizens of Italia weren’t stationary NPCs with limited radii of mobility like so many games to this day (cough cough, Horizon Zero Dawn): they walked around in groups, conversed amongst each other, and REACTED to the things you did. Seriously, I cannot put into words the sheer amount of small talk that was recorded for this game- climbing walls, bumping into someone, pickpocketing, killing, punching, dropping a dead guard, searching a body, throwing florins, breaking a carried object, emptying a treasure chest…I’m firm I’m missing more. Each of these actions yields several unique responses from the person who watches/is affected by them, and you don’t see that kind of dedication in modern video games (including later Assassin’s Creeds). One denizen may be apologetic, another upset, and another comment on your bad breath! Throw in cutpurses, Borgia messengers, corrupt politicians, heralds, and yes guards too and you get even MORE variance in the discussions that flood the game world. Seriously, where is that these days?
The ability to interact (read -- beat-up) civilians was a huge contributor to this vitality, though it could get annoying when Ezio would unintentionally double kill two civilians in the way, causing a desync.
Truly, though, the crux of ACII’s longevity arises from its leading man. If they’re not silent, video game protagonists tend to be either aspirational or relatable; you want to be like them because they have some quality you are bereft of, or you see them as kinfolk because you can empathize with their personalities. Ezio was a rare case of both takes converging into a single entity. We all wanted to be like him: he had a sexy character model, was charismatic, confident, charming with the ladies, and above all a badass. Yet he was also identifiable; we all felt as helpless when he watched his family die, as angry when Umberto and Vieri met their demise, and as confused when Minerva spoke through him. Even if Brotherhood and Revelations hadn’t come out, I standby the claim that Ezio would’ve remained a fan favorite in the series’ legacy.
But one man can only go so far. The cast surrounding Ezio was colorful, each given some memorable scene or dialogue that imparted them in my mind. From Paola declaring “I too know betrayal” to Antonio flustering over the death of a courtesan, Corey May and his cohorts knew how to turn minimal screen time into long-term everlasting fervor. And despite its grave subject matter, ACII had a lot of humorous moments that have aged like fine wine. Some of the more famous ones are easily recalled (Ezio inventing the latte, Uncle Mario’s “It’sa me, Mario!”), but how many remember Ezio refusing Bartolomeo’s kiss, Rosa cursing Antonio for removing the arrow, or, heck, the Pazzi deriding the Medicis? I laughed at each of these instances and more.
And finally there’s the fact that atmosphere goes a long way. ACII is far from consistent, but those moments where you’re simply gliding across rooftops or moving between crowds or even simply wandering amongst the breathing streets coalesce into some immersive moments that whisk me into another world. Combined with the Jesper's synth score beating in the back and superb cinematic direction from Patrice and you get a well-rounded package.
Exploring 15th century Italy was a true adventure, and one I’ll never forget.
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+Yes, I totally plagiarized Roger Ebert’s opening paragraph for The Color Purple when he added it to his Greatest Films List in 2004: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-the-color-purple-1985
++To be fair, the ending of the Bonfire of the Vanities DLC implies that Ezio stopped supporting Lorenzo as well.