AC2: Gameplay vs. Setting

A typical traffic jam during the morning commute in Renaissance Italy.

There is an odd sense that the world of AC2 is aware that it is a sequel to an Assassin's Creed game.

Ezio starts off as an master free runner - as skilled as Altair - but there is never any mention of him training. There's a bit of lampshading ("I hear local youth have been climbing the rooftops for fun"), but that's a pathetic excuse for him being a parkour expert. I kept waiting for the moment when they revealed that Giovanni had trained his boys in the assassin arts, but that time never came.

But then it shouldn't seem strange, because in AC2, everyone can free run. Random messangers leap over the rooftops with ease. Soldiers run across tight ropes. Even dumpy merchants and well-dressed women will make impressive leaps over short walls if they find themselves trapped somewhere. It gives the setting a strange sense, where suddenly free running isn't special or unique. It's simply the way you get around in Italy.

Ezio gets an odd fixation with the hidden blade before going to murder his first target. He seems to feel incapable of killing without it. He is even willing to have his ring finger chopped off for its use. Now, I get that the hidden blade is a useful tool and has cultural significance to the Order, but Ezio doesn't know the Order exists yet. If I was in Ezio's shoes, I would walk to the market and buy a sword. I'd pick up a kitchen knife. Or I'd find a particularly sharp letter opener. Done. Problem solved. No digital loss or ancient technology required.

The same thing goes for his father's assassin's robes. He is told to go get some documents from a chest. There, he also finds some mysterious robes. They are very distinctive, and Ezio is on the run from the law. Also, he doesn't know what an assassin robe is. For all he knows, this could be an outfit Giovanni and Maria use for sex games. But he puts it on while a choir chants in the background, like this is some great scene of rebirth instead of a teenager rifling through his father's closet and putting on a hoodie. I kept waiting for someone to ask him why he was dressed like an idiot, but no one else noticed. Everyone ignored it, as if it is normal for Ezio to show up to serious events in a Halloween costume.

"Look what I found in Dad's stuff!"

Before I even hated Ezio, I was pulled out of the setting by these inexplicable events. They seemed to entirely serve the fact that the game's title had a 2 at the end, disregarding story, setting, and characters for it. The story itself? Ehn. I wasn't impressed, but I didn't hate it. But even if it had been great, none of it matters if the characters are unlikable and the world is flimsy.

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