This game was for many, the first introduction to AC franchise, myself included. For those who played first Assassin’s Creed, this game is a big step forward in right direction and it fixes some issues people had with first game. Now, lets dive deep and see what makes this game is, by many, a fan favorite in the series.

This time, game takes you to renaissance Italy, where you take the role of assassin Ezio Auditore. I handsome and womanizing adolescent and his journey to become an assassin. Of course, as previous game you also take in the role of Desmond Miles, a present-day assassin that can access Ezio’s memories.

Core gameplay is pretty much the same as the first game, but with quite a few new additions and improvements. First thing to notice is the world, its bigger than the first game, but as a first game its divided into several maps. Travelling to a different city or place will trigger loading screen. Even though there were completely open worlds at that time, its understandable. As you play, you will travel to different cities in renaissance Italy. You have Florence, Tuscan, Venice, and other smaller places. Unlike the first game, cities are a bit more diverse and have their own unique styles and architecture. Its still crowded and streets kinda look the same so its easy to get lost if you don’t follow the minimap, but that’s just my observation and something I notice when playing open world games. Each city is filled with famous historical landmarks and buildings on which you can learn more about using game's database system. This system brings world of assassin’s creed more to life. There you can find details about characters you encountered, your targets, landmarks, and secrets about templars and assassins. This is something that the first game lacked. A bigger focus on the story. Side characters are given life and personality. As you journey through the story, you will meet interesting new characters. Some of them are important historical figures like Leonardo Da Vinci who helps you create new weapons and gadgets. Your targets also have more background stories. You learn about their motives, personality and how each target is connected to each other.

Now lets talk about gameplay in more detail. As I’ve said, core gameplay is the same as in the first game with bunch of new additions. In the first game you had 4 weapons. Sequel includes new additions: hidden guns, smoke bombs, poison and more. This gives you, ofc, more ways to approach the enemy. You can get closer to your target because of guards? No problem, use a gun or a throwing knife. Have a problem with enemies using spears? Not anymore, you can take the spear from their hands and kill them with it. Simple and sometimes unchallenging combat from the first game has poured into second game with few additions . Counters aren’t always insta kills, depending on the enemy, so you have use them wisely when surrounded by bigger chunk of enemies. Spearmen are, for me, the trickiest ones. Yes, I know that armored enemies do a lot more damage, but spearmen can be quite tricky. They parry every attack so its quite difficult to land a combo on them. You have to counter their attacks to position yourself inside their space and start a combo from there. There are also enemies that are faster and agile as you. They are quick, use daggers and can be a annoyance. If you try to escape without using a distractions, they will catch up to you pretty quickly and land a hit. There is also a notoriety system that can make you a wanted man if you break the law enough times. You lower your notoriety by bribing public speakers and removing wanted posters which most of them are in hard to reach places. There are also different factions. You have thieves, mercenaries and courtesans. You can hire them and they will follow you around and you can use them to distract guards. And since we mentioned crowd blending, this is an improved mechanic. You can blend in into any crowd of three or more people. You no longer need to wait for a special group of people to go into secure areas. Crowds will sometimes stay still or not move where you want, so sometimes they cant be used effectively. Luckly, there are courtesans I mentioned before. They are a faction you can hire. 4 women will surround you and conceal you from enemies. And, they will follow you. Also, you can use them to distract guards.

Way you do missions has also changed. There is no more doing repetitive individual side missions that gives you information about every target. Now each mission has a story and background with cutscene at the beginning of every mission., which, frankly, gives more life to the game overall. Following Ezio’s path of revenge from being hotheaded young man to trained and skilled assassin is the very thing that gives this game meaning and advantage to its predecessor.

Other thing that is worth mentioning is side content. It got a huge update compared to the first game. There are still collectibles. Instead of flags, you collect feathers now. You have side missions that are more like jumping puzzles where if you complete all of them you get a cool armor. If you want to earn more cash, you can do contracts (brawls, assassination and deliveries). There is also a town management system, after several hours, you will gain access to managing your own town which grants you passive income. At first, income will be low. To increase it, you have to invest in building shops, businesses, brothels and so on.

We also need to mention weapons and gear. I mentioned that you can pick weapons from fallen enemies, but you can also buy better weapons and gear from merchants. Its not anything flashy. Its very simplistic, which is not bad of course. You don’t have to worry about what weapon to use against which enemy. I mean, you can if you want. Game offers maces and axes besides regular swords, but I find swords being overall better weapon. Same is for armor, nothing too complicated. You get access to better armor as you progress through the story.

Parkour stayed almost the same, but here it feels much smoother and faster. There are few additions with swinging across corners using a hanging lamp or lantern. Also, later in the game, you gain skill that lets you grab to the higher places you cant reach by normal jumping. Unfortunately, same problems persist in AC2. Sometimes, Ezio will not jump to place or ledge you are aiming for and instead he will jump to different ledge, not jump at all, or in the worst scenario, Ezio catapults himself off the wall you are climbing which can result in a bad day.

Missons itself can get repetitive after some time. Some missions can be really frustrating and copy-pasted. I’m talking about parts where you have to follow the target and not be seen. Targets move slowly, they can also stop for a moment and turn back to check if someone is following them. This mission can last longer than needed. Venice part for me felt the shortest, even though it’s a big city as Florence, you don’t spend much time there.

Even if repetition bothers you, which sadly persists in all AC games, Assassins Creed 2 is not too long. Its longer than its predecessor, even if you just follow the main story. If you focus on the story with a little side content, you can squeeze around 20 hours of gametime. Which is fine for an Ubisoft game.

AC2 nicely shows why its one of the fan favorites. Introduction to what will came to be "Ezio trilogy". Great character and story progression. Improvement to every way from its predecessor. This is a amazing example of how sequels should be done. Fixing the bad things and adding new features that don’t diverge from the core gameplay. And this is just beginning.

One of the worsest PC ports ever seen. The controls are ugly and a horror to configure. Its not "press shift" or "press space" - its "press head" "press feet" or "press empty hand". Refunded.

too epic