Assassin’s Creed II (Remaster) for Xbox One Review

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The first Assassin’s Creed isn’t a horrible game by any means but it does lack variety and is repetitive. It’s not a game I desire to revisit and I don’t think it’s a great representation of the franchise. For it’s time, I think it showcased some neat ideas and there are elements that were impressive but in my opinion, everything about it has been improved in the sequels or at least the sequels that I have played. Assassin’s Creed is a series I struggled getting into way back when but I do remember enjoying the second game a hell of a lot more than the first and when I discovered it was remastered, that’s what gave me the motivation to give the series another shot. Developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft, Assassin’s Creed II was released for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in November, 2009, and PC in March, 2010. It was remastered and released as part of The Ezio Collection along with Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood and Assassin’s Creed: Revelations for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in November, 2016, and Switch in February, 2022. For this review, I played the remaster for Xbox One on a Series X.

Set after the events of the first game, Desmond Miles and undercover assassin Lucy Stillman escape Abstergo and head for a safehouse where Lucy has a team of people waiting. They have constructed a new Animus and instruct Desmond to use it to relive the memories of another ancestor, Ezio Auditore, during the Italian Renaissance. After Ezio’s father and brothers are framed for treason and killed, Ezio retrieve’s his father’s assassin equipment and he and the rest of his family flee their home in Florence to live with his uncle Mario in Monteriggioni. There Ezio learns of his family’s role as members of the Assassin Brotherhood and that his father was killed after uncovering a conspiracy involving the Templar Order, the Assassin’s sworn enemies. Ezio trains as an assassin and sets out on quest for vengeance against the Templars.

I did enjoy the plot here more than that of the last game and I think the story is presented much better as well. In my opinion, Ezio is a much more interesting character than Altaïr. For one thing, he has an actual personality and is more relatable to an extent. He’s very charismatic and much more likeable. I also enjoy how the plot shows him going from a regular guy to assassin. Assassin’s Creed II does present a lot more cinematic style cut scenes than the first game which I appreciated. The first game conveys a lot of information via character interactions. But most of it is conveyed in gameplay showing characters simply standing around talking, letting the player press buttons to change the camera angle. Assassin’s Creed II features more traditional cut scenes making exposition dumps more interesting to watch.

Assassin’s Creed II is technically a stealth game but like its predecessor, I think it leans more into action adventure. The game will take you to numerous cities and locations around Italy including Florence, Tuscany, and Venice among some others and while the plot is fictional, several characters are based on actual historical figures. Much like the previous game, Desmond’s role in the plot is important but when the game plucks you out of Ezio’s world so you can control him, that can be annoying. Thankfully, it doesn’t happen nearly as often as it did in the first game.

When I play a game for a review, I always take notes and when playing sequels like Assassin’s Creed II, I typically make a list of things I enjoyed more or felt were an improvement and another list of things I disliked or felt were disappointing when compared to its predecessors. For Assassin’s Creed II, I ended up with only one list and it was things I enjoyed more. In my opinion, this is a far better game than Assassin’s Creed and I’m going to list some of the reasons why. General movement, free-running, and climbing feel better and more fluid, combat feels better, exploration is rewarding, the game includes a lot more variety, side missions are more enjoyable, and the pacing is better. There are so many things that have been improved here that it just blows the first game away in almost in every respect.

All of the mechanics from the first game have been carried over to Assassin’s Creed II. Remaining anonymous is what stealth is all about here. You can pick up and carry bodies and blend in with any group of people you see walking around. Combat and evading enemies are still not that challenging in my experience but some of the changes and new additions and mechanics make combat and evasion more enjoyable. There’s more enemy types, more weapons, foes will check hiding spots, you can assassinate people in new ways, and there’s a Notoriety system in place. The notoriety icon on the HUD shows Ezio’s notoriety level. As you can probably guess, killing people, fighting enemies, and basically doing shit you shouldn’t be doing or doing socially unacceptable things results in a notoriety increase. The higher your notoriety, the easier it is for enemies to recognize Ezio as a threat. Ezio’s notoriety level can be reduced by removing wanted posters, bribing heralds, and assassinating officials.

Assassin’s Creed II features a lot more weapons and equipment and you can now pick up and use dropped weapons. You can get your hands on swords, axes, daggers, throwing knives, maces, and several two handed weapons and at a certain point, you’ll unlock a pistol. You can unlock two hidden blades and I still find assassinating people with the hidden blade to be immensely satisfying. The hidden blade can be upgraded to deliver poison and it’s fun watching enemies stagger around and swing their weapons wildly before dropping. You can also carry medicine to replenish health and use smoke bombs to disorient foes.

Ezio will learn new moves as you progress through the story and the finishing moves are still satisfying and cool to watch and I feel this is because of the great animations. But like the last game, I feel the combat does lack in challenge. If you simply counter attack, you can win most fights fairly easily and if you’re fighting alongside allies, you can literally stab foes not focused on you in the back, instantly killing them. Even tough foes like Brutes aren’t that hard to take down. In fact, I found they are easily defeated with the disarm move. Ezio can disarm enemies and use their weapons against them to perform cool finishing moves or executions, and I found this to be the easiest method for defeating heavily armored foes like Brutes. Despite the combat lacking in challenge, I do find it fun and as indicated earlier, the animations make every kill or execution look awesome but one complaint I have is that some fights can drag on. The more enemies you’re up against, the longer the fights go on. Because of the counter attack method, fights become waiting games. Waiting for enemies to attack so you can counter. This is assuming you want to fight it out and not run away and evade them.

Florin is the game’s form of currency but I’ll just refer to it as money. Money plays a big role in Assassin’s Creed II. You earn money for completing missions and can acquire it from chests in the environments, by looting bodies and by tackling messengers. You can also pickpocket people by simply walking into them while pressing the appropriate button. This along with being able to blend in with any group of people you see walking around makes the pedestrians quite useful. You can throw money on the ground to distract people including enemies and spend it at shops or vendors on different things. Doctors will heal you and sell apothecary supplies like medicine and poison. You can repair armor and purchase new armor, weapons and ammunition at Blacksmiths. You can change the colors of your outfit and purchase upgraded ammunition pouches at Tailors. And Art Merchants sell paintings and treasure maps.

The paintings you buy will be on display at the Villa in Monteriggioni which is like a safehouse or base you might say. When you purchase things, you increase the value of the city and in turn increase your income. Yes, you’ll receive regular income that you have to collect at the Villa. Money can also be spent to unlock and upgrade things around the city, including shops and upgrading shops comes with discounted prices. You can freely explore the city and Villa and the Villa is where you can view your paintings and view and equip any armor and weapons you’ve purchased or unlocked. It’s also where you can deposit any feathers you’ve collected. They are a form of collectible and depositing them at the Villa increases the city’s value. Buying and upgrading things can be addictive and I think I purchased and upgraded every shop and location in the city somewhere around the halfway point. Money isn’t hard to come by.

One thing I’ve noticed about open world Ubisoft games or at least the one’s I’ve played is that discovery is rare. There’s not a lot to discover in Assassin’s Creed II. What does that mean you ask? Well like many other Ubisoft titles, Assassin’s Creed II is a game with a lot of blips and icons on the maps. As a result, there’s very little to actually discover. I think it’s just the Feathers and Glyphs that will require you to actually look around. Although, when you’re near a Glyph the game gives you a hint. Glyphs are hidden around the environments and can be deciphered by solving puzzles to reveal historical details. But for the most part, everything is revealed to you. If you find an Assassin’s Tomb or Templar Lair or Codex Page, it’s most likely because their locations are revealed on the map. Chests seem to be everywhere which is certainly evident after purchasing the Treasure Maps from Art Merchants. A treasure map reveals the locations of all the chests in a specific region of the city. Interestingly enough, I found exploration to still be enjoyable just because there’s something to see or find almost everywhere you go. Exploration often feels rewarding. But to say I discovered anything is usually not accurate. There’s very little sense of discovery here. Almost everything is revealed to you or is simply obvious.

Just like the previous game, Prince of Persia’s DNA is very much felt in Assassin’s Creed II and not just in the free running and climbing. It’s also felt in the Assassin’s Tombs and Templar Lairs. Most of these involve platforming challenges to complete. They typically consist of multiple areas or rooms and you’ll need to figure out what to climb and jump to to exit them. Assassin’s Tombs lead you to seals and once you’ve collected them all, you can unlock special armor. Templar Lairs contain Templar treasure or in other words, money. But by the end of the game, the amount of money I was taking from these felt like chump change when compared to my income. I finished the game with over two hundred thousand Florins, most of which certainly did not come from raiding Templar Lairs. Nevertheless, the Tombs and Lairs can be fun to get through if you enjoy Assassin’s Creed II’s brand of free running and climbing. While I think it feels better than that of the first game, there were times I would jump way off the mark despite being certain I was pushing the stick in the right direction and because of the how the controls are, it can be easy to inadvertently grab onto things while sprinting which can be annoying when you’re chasing someone.

One of the best things about Assassin’s Creed II when compared to its predecessor is variety. There’s a lot more variety in this game. Story missions feature a variety of objectives. You’ll have to assassinate people, steal things, escort and protect people, and follow or tail people. Not only that, some objectives will actually require you to be stealthy. For example, you’ll have to assassinate certain people without being detected. I do think the developers could have toned down the walking objectives. Sometimes you’ll have to walk with someone from A to B and since many times this is just for exposition, I felt these interactions could of have just as easily been conveyed through cut scenes. In addition to these are several objectives that require you to follow people and the destination can be quite a distance but there’s usually not much challenge in this so it ends up becoming boring fast.

Assassin’s Creed II does contain side missions which are all optional. Most of them are the same across each location but at least this time most of them are enjoyable. In addition to the Tombs and Lairs, you’ll have to beat people up, usually husbands slinging dick all around town, act as a courier and deliver messages, and complete checkpoint races. My favorite side mission is easily the Assassination Contracts which require you to kill specific people in different parts of the cities.

The game does feature multiple cities as mentioned earlier, complete with viewpoints to synchronize to reveal portions of the map just like in the last game, because Ubisoft loves their towers, and while some aspects feel copied and pasted, I do think each city feels different to an extent. Some are smaller than others and are surrounded by a countryside with small towns and locations to visit. You can get around on-foot, swim, and by row boat and you can once again ride horses and it’s the countryside areas that make the horses feel useful. There will be objectives to complete, viewpoints to synchronize, and chest to find in these areas and you can get around them quickly via horse. You can also fast travel to different cities for a fee although not to locations within the city you’re currently in which I find a bit odd. Throughout the city are different NPCs or factions that will assist you including Courtesans, Thieves and Mercenaries. You can hire them to follow you and order them to distract guards.

Circling back to a lot of things being obvious is how to acquire certain things like Codex Pages. Scattered throughout the cities are Codex Pages. Collecting them all is required to unlock the final memory and deciphering enough will increase your maximum health. These Pages are housed in buildings, usually a short distance from the entrances that are guarded by foes. This is where the obvious comes in. There’s usually faction NPCs conveniently nearby that you can hire to distract the guards so you can simply stroll in, collect the Page, and leave. Yes, you can always fight the enemies but why risk losing health and raising notoriety when there’s an easier and faster way to do it? Not only that, this kind of thing is everywhere. A lot of chests are guarded by foes that can easily be distracted like this. My point is it’s so obvious what the game wants you to do in these situations and I just don’t understand why the developers felt the need to copy and paste this exact obstacle for each Codex Page and numerous chests. I felt like the game rarely made me work for anything. And again, no sense of discovery. I never felt like had to figure anything out like how to acquire the Codex Pages or get to the chests. The answer is often shoved in your face. Not that everything must be a puzzle to solve but, at the very least, each obstacle should be different.

Visually, Assassin’s Creed II does look better than it’s predecessor. As for this remaster, it does support HDR and it certainly looks like an older game touched up but it’s more colorful than the original and I think some of the textures look really good. Pop-in can be rampant and I do think some of the blood looks a bit cartoony but other than that, I prefer the more colorful presentation to that of the original. I feel it’s a very pleasing game on the eyes. As for the audio, the sound work is good, slashes and stabs sound satisfying, and the game is backed by a great soundtrack composed by Jesper Kyd. Songs range from dramatic to intense and not only fit the theme of the game but also the cinematic style. On the technical side, The Ezio Collection does feature an FPS boost on the Series consoles and it ran really smooth for the most part. Unfortunately, the game did crash on me several times but, luckily, checkpoints are frequent so I never lost much progress.

I had a great time with Assassin’s Creed II even though I do question some of the design decisions made here. Despite a lot of things being obvious and some of the copy and pasted situations, it’s a fun game to actually play. For a game that offers freedom and encourages exploration, it does lack a sense of discovery by revealing too much in my opinion but at least there’s plenty to see and do. There is a sense of adventure and things to work towards and unlock and it can become addictive. Not only that, the gameplay here offers more variety than that of the previous game. I really liked the renovation and upgrade stuff and enjoyed the idea of expanding my home city and turning the Villa into a cool assassin hideout of sorts. But I do wish all of this was fleshed out more. Maybe more customization options of some kind. Money isn’t hard to come by and I bought and upgraded everything in Monteriggioni somewhere around the half way point and towards the end of the game I was able to afford most new items in the shops the moment they became available. Nevertheless, it’s a cool concept that compliments the action nicely. Assassin’s Creed II opens things up more and gives the player not just more variety but also more freedom and options when it comes to how to accomplish things. Ultimately, it’s a lot of fun and a far more enjoyable experience than its predecessor.

I would absolutely recommend Assassin’s Creed II. Out of all the game’s I’ve played in this series, I think this is one of the best and is a much better representation of the franchise than the first game. In fact, I would recommend newcomers jump in here rather than the previous game. The only downside to this would be missing out on a part of Desmond’s story. But from a gameplay perspective, Assassin’s Creed II is undoubtedly the better game by a longshot. Definitely check it out.