Just finished it last night. I collected everything except the statues and the feathers. Spent around 20 hours with the game. PC Version all maxed settings and fully patched.
The Good
- The upgrades and loot. Very rewarding to upgrade Enzio with new armor and weapons.
- The movement animation, it looks very realistic and weighty when Enzio is climbing something.
- Chases, felt very fun and chaotic to run after your target with guards coming from everywhere to trying and block you.
-Larger scale than the first one, each city has a large outside area this time, and those in-between areas from the first game are gone thankfully.
The Neutral
- The side-quests. I'm talking the generic assassination contracts, beat up events, races, and others things that have no barring on the main story. There were a good thing to break up the pace, usually I would do one or two between my story missions. But they are really basic, just some generic characters that tell you to do something. I wish they went deeper.
- The gadgets. The gun just wasn't very useful, several times I questioned why you can't use they gun while hanging? or when peaking over a side. The poison blade I only used it once when they first gave it to me, why poison an enemy when you can easily kill them without it? The coins I used often and the throwing blades too, the hang-glider was bad bad bad and only used for one mission.
- The story...........very hard to follow. and honestly doesn't make me want to continue this series. The characters have no life or development to them and are largely simple, the only characters that left an impression on me besides Enzio was that Queen who had her husband killed.
The Bad
- Graphics, the incredibly low draw distance was terrible. Crap was popping up in right of front of me all the time. A completely flat window would suddenly become fully 3d as soon as I run up to it, but its completely flat if I am more than 30 feet away from it. This was really disappointing since there is an incredibly amount of detail when the draw distance isn't messing things up. Also par usual the post processing effects were messy and I turned them off. And don't get me started on the low character detail.
- The hand holding. While the platforming mechanics work, it makes it a complete bore to use them as there is ZERO skill involved. Hold the trigger button and go forward and your likely to reach your destination. Couple this with the fact that it takes a insanely high fall to kill you so even running and jumping off roofs is no problem.
- The combat, It is functional but so boring. Half the enemies can be quickly grabbed and killed, the others take about 3 hits and then can be grabbed and killed, and the big guys can be easily knocked over and stabbed. I NEVER died in combat, and this was due to the fact that any time I get into danger I could use a potion which is INSTANT. Why they made potions instant is beyond me but you can immediately be put out of danger thanks to it.
- The Stealth, lol at the stealth. No corner hugging? No hiding in shadows? No crawling under wood planks to sneak into a building?. The "stealth" in this game consisted of walking in crowds, sitting on benches, slowly walking behind your target to eavesdrop on them, and hanging off edges to "stealth kill" the guards..........I'm EXTREMELY disappointed that an assassination game could have such barebones stealth mechanics, they didn't even try. And once again there is hardly any need to be stealth except for the few missions that require it for some reason while others don't. I could just as easily run up to this archer on the roof and kill him rather than slowly moving along the edges to pull him off.
FINAL SCORE
6.0
Final Thoughts - I honestly can't say I understand anybody saying this is one of the best series this generation. The story and most of the characters are forgettable, the platforming mechanics are basic, easy and boring as anything, the combat is snore worthy. The only thing that kept me motivated was the upgrades and the chase missions. But this game is a huge improvement still over the original. For comparison I would have given the first game a 4/10. Still glad I picked this one up as the experience was still worth it despite the flaws.
