This sequel realized and improved on its predecessors merits, while introducing its own.
The plot revolves around a similar theme as the first game. Ezio Auditore is on a mission of revenge after someone close to him had been murdered by an ally he had thought he could trust. He becomes an assassin, despite not having much training in it beforehand, and sets off to set things right. In the present day, Desmond Miles teams up with his allies to fight against the Templars who still threaten the assassin's, even after so much time had past.
Like the first, this game introduces many characters to the point where it becomes a hassle to remember them all. Introducing so many characters into the game causes confusion, even though the character biographies is rich in information detailing every interactive character that you meet. It's like one giant world cut up into dozens of smaller pieces and you can not really form any type of bonds when it comes to characters that are hardly featured. The characters are different, but it gets difficult to tell the difference when you are dealing with them on a much grander scale. The fact that you barely spend any time with the majority of them makes them even more unmemorable and you often end up learning more about these people from the biographies rather than from the available plot. Those that do stick out end up becoming rather prominent characters in the story anyways. Not much is expanded on a good amount of these characters, but it's very satisfying that Ubisoft put as much effort into writing well fleshed up character biographies for nearly ever influential character in the game. It's a lot of fun to read up on some of these characters and, due to some of these characters being based on actual people, more research can be done on them and you can fill in the blanks by yourself, making for a very satisfying list of unique and interesting people.
The story is played out by a series of small missions that put your assassin skills to the test by employing a variety of requirements which can be anywhere from killing someone without being seen or by following or by eavesdropping on a conversation without being seen. The best part of this is that the plot is constantly in motion and introducing new scenarios for our amusement, delivering solid and well designed game play mechanics.
An economy has also been added, allowing players to upgrade Ezio's equipment. While this is a nice concept, it tends to have little overall effect due to the little amount of items that can be purchased. Armor increases Ezio's health and provides resistance, but ends up not being very useful and not worth it for some of the higher end pieces of armors and weapons when compared to powerful equipment you get later in the game. Other shops other than the blacksmith also end up becoming useful only to those who are willing to collect paintings and such for their base. Despite this, it's still an interesting feature and adds more rewards to those who are willing to save up their Florins.
One of the greatest tools of an assassin is being a sneaky and discreet. However, being up front and aggressive to those who foil your attempts to hide is just as important. Fighting is done by selecting your weapon, at which point you can choose to either attack an enemy or wait until they attack you, at which point you may counter them, often instantly killing them. Combat has numerous ways that it could end, each of them very entertaining and satisfying, but this is often counteracted by how easy combat is. When you get into the swing of things, almost no enemy really poses that much of a threat to the seasoned assassin. Targeting ends up becoming tedious when you are faced with multiple targets, often locking on to a target that you did not mean to target. This also gets irritating that you can't get into a battle stance until you target an enemy, often resulting in Ezio getting hit multiple times before you can properly deflect their attacks. A lack of unique opponents also makes combat more dull than it needs to be - you will often face off against guards for most of the game, and fighting somebody else who poses an actual threat only happen a couple of times in the game.
Much like Altair, Ezio is a very talented gymnast. He is capable of climbing up the sides of buildings and swiftly run across the tops of rooftops. Free running is more fluid than it was in the first. It's automated, but enables the player to control Ezio in a manner that does not feel limited or restraining. Free running is easy to do, but players can test their skills and their endurance by entering the difficult Assassin's Tombs, an intricately designed free running challenge. There are a few issues with this, such as when it locks onto a handhold that is quite close to the one you want to jump to, but it's quite an open ended game mechanic that is very well developed and players will find free running a very satisfying and beautiful experience.
You need to be more sneaky than you had been in the first, though. The notoriety system is now much more advanced than its previous version. Doing socially unacceptable actions, such as killing guards, will increase your notoriety level and make you more noticeable to the guards, at which point you would have to kill town officials, remove wanted posters or bribe town heralds. This system makes a lot more sense and can make your actions have deadly consequences. The notoriety system does test your ability to be stealthy, however, pushing you to use your surroundings - groups of people, objects, etc - to escape the detection of the guards, making you feel like a true assassin.
There are also a ton of optional content that you may partake in when the main storyline gets a little dull. While a few of this content is only for the most hardcore gamers, there is still a whole lot of stuff that you can complete for various rewards. For example, I found purchasing treasure maps and then going out to find the treasure a fun little sidequest that earned me a good amount of money early on in the game. Unfortunately, some of this content ends up simply not being worth completing, which is just too bad because a lot of these concepts were quite good, if a bit underdeveloped.
Assassin's Creed I was a beautiful game and Assassin's Creed II expands on that. Every single building, landscape and character has had immense amount of effort into them to look that way. Every part of this game is absolutely beautiful, but the real stunning pieces of work are the landmarks and the assassin's tombs, each receiving an extra amount of polishing.
The sound is also of very high quality. The voice actors speak their Italian accent with skill, adding in a few Italian words every now and again for added effect. The soundtrack has some beautiful pieces that can easily win people over and get them totally into their task at hand, such as the "chase theme". While some of the Civilians' lines do tend to repeat the same lines over and over, it's not really all that consistent of a problem.
Assassin's Creed II is exactly what you should expect from a sequel. A much more realized world than the first, the second installment of the Assassin's Creed series puts in the effort to fix and expand on nearly every fault of the first, while adding in many unique and creative ideas of their own.