I played Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood first and ended up getting quite confused over certain parts of the story. Now that I have finished Assassin's Creed II, things just made much more sense (although certain parts are still vague) so I definitely recommend playing in order (although I still can't make myself to go get the first game... after all the stories of repetitiveness, that, and there's no trophies either which is a bummer). Anyway, I was very surprised to find that Brotherhood didn't end up adding too much in terms of game play, coz Assassin's Creed II still had all the clever game play elements I enjoyed in Brotherhood (such as notoriety, hiring factions and the different free-running techniques). This game is huge, so let's start with the environments first. The environmental graphics are great, but things still appear fairly blocky and flat. They've dulled the coloring in a few cities, particularly Monteriggioni, the in-game world needs to be a lot more vibrant and colorful. Character models could also be better, especially their faces. There is just something about their faces that seems wrong, maybe it's lacking some defining curves or it just looks too plasticky. Certain character animations also seem stiff (this is less noticeable in the latter parts of the game, by that time, you're used to it). Yet the animations during combat and free-running are amazing, the variety is impressive too.
I really loved the character designs and all of Ezio's outfits (the cover art is also one of the coolest I've seen). It's amazing when you think of all the buildings that were included, that they were all designed to be climbable in many different ways. The free roam element is fun, you're left alone to run around and explore. Although after exploring Brotherhood in which it was one huge map, Assassin's Creed II's smaller, separate cities (which require loading screens when travelling between cities) just isn't as satisfying. It can get annoying when you need to fast travel to your villa every so often to collect money and then travel back to whatever it was you were doing. The controls in general are very complex (the learning curve is high if you haven't already played one of these games before), with a lot of your actions changing depending on the context. It takes a while to get used to but once you get the hang of it, it's amazing and super fun. The battle system needs a bit more work though as it's not that satisfying. It's feels clunky and not fast paced enough, although I guess it requires more skill than just plain button mashing, and the game focuses more on stealth than combat anyway. That said, the slow progress of of unlocking moves can be a pain, and you even have to use in-game currency and spend a few minutes to learn the remaining moves (granted, they're optional).
I would have preferred if they let you learn them faster or give you the ability to use them already but you can spend time to do the tutorial if you wish. The slow progression does make sense in the context of the story (since you're learning to become an assassin) but it takes up to chapter 3 of the game before you can even do stealth kills (arguably one of the defining moves of the game). Other neat things include your own hub, in which you can invest in your own city and gain money in the progress (money is harder to come by in the beginning but after you invest to around 50%, you don't have as much a pressing need for it anymore, the game becomes a lot more easier in this aspect). Assassin's Creed II has so much content in addition to the main storyline (which takes around 15 to 18 hours without getting sidetracked too much). There are various different types of side quests (assassinations, races, beat ups), in addition to a ton of collectibles (which isn't as great as it sounds, as there is a magic number of collectibles where it's not too much such that it gets bland or boring searchign for it all and not too less where it leaves you craving for more). It's so easy to get sidetracked in this world doing the various sidequests (even though they don't add to the story) before getting back to the main story missions.
Onto the story, it starts off as being fairly bland, the first sequence felt a bit boring as you're pretty much waiting until Ezio dons on his assassin outfit and learn the skills that you'd expect. Thus, all the things that preceded the final act in the first sequence (which was quite good, not to mention crucial to understanding the rest of the game) felt too normal and uninteresting. While the story is interesting, like with all open-world games, once you start getting sidetracked, the story gets a bit more muddled up and hard to keep track of. By the time it was the middle of the game, you can sometimes forget who is who, why you're assassinating that guy, why you're helping the other and why Ezio is travelling all over the place. It doesn't help that the story mainly involves assassinating various bad guys in a faction/society. In summary, the story is fairly normal in the beginning, ramps up a bit until it flattens again in the middle of the game, and intensifies at the end. The mission variety was good and there are no sections that frustrate you, maybe it'll annoy you a little bit (the flying machine section comes to mind, it's just isn't as fun as you would hope it would be) but overall, it was well designed. There is a section near the end of the game (the DLC portion, Battle of the Vanites), where it feels that the creators are dragging out the game. You have to assassinate nine people, and it was somewhat annoying since there wasn't any real good reason to kill so many (most of the time, the missions only require you to assassinate at most three people, or repeat the same thing three times).
This was also one of the only places that the game forces you to use stealth, which was actually more annoying that it's worth. However, the cutscene for the story progression at the end was great, and the speech made by Ezio was pretty moving (comparatively). Speaking of DLC, the two story DLC's are must-haves, since they form an essential part of the story (pretty evil to leave them out of the game in the first place and tease it by calling them "corrupted" sequences in the game). While most of the music in the game wasn't that memorable (they don't stick around in your mind, but you just notice them playing in the background), some tracks were good, especially the ones that played during a sad scene or when Ezio is performing a rousing speech. The ending was intriguing, as more about the artifact (which the whole game was based upon the retrieval of one) was revealed. More fantasy elements come into play, and I wished that we managed to get more explanations as it was very tantalizing on what was said. I like how it's a new take on well-established mythologies. Overall, this game provides an amazing experience. It was crazy fun, and while you might wrestle with the controls at times when you're platforming, it's easily overlooked and shadowed by all the other positive elements this game has going for it.
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