The Hidden Blade Assassin's Creed in Depth

Welcome to a new forum update I will be posting called "FLAE's Top 5 of the Week!" This is a top 5 series which I plan to start that will document the top 5 of a random topic pertaining to Assassins Creed II. It's mainly intended for a laugh, but there's also truth in humor. So I hope you'll enjoy!

Now we all think that AC2 is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but let’s be honest here, there are some things we could have gone without. And while they may have increased appeal of the game, we could have easily gone without them. So here’s a list of the 5 most unnecessary things in Assassins Creed II:

#5: Hiding Spots

In AC1, hiding spots were vital because they were the only way you could return to the anonymous state without killing everyone. They returned in AC2, but now were a much less important part of fleeing the scene. Because of the GTA IV style “exposed” circle, getting away was as simple as just running as fast as you can to escape the circle. In addition, hiding spots were a sure-fire way of returning to an anonymous state in AC1, but now that guards constantly check them and there will almost always be another with them, even pulling the checking guard into the hiding spot and killing him will expose you, again. Sorry hiding spots, but your time has passed.

#4: Misagglias Armor

By the time the full set of Misagglias Armor finally becomes available, we already have the armor of Altair unlocked through the Assassin Tombs. Really bad planning by Ubisoft, as this armor seems to just fade out of the players vision, especially because the armor of Altair doesn’t need to be fixed, unlike with all the others. So because Misagglias Armor becomes fully available well after the final Assassin Tomb is unlocked during Carnivale, most players tend to ignore it. And what a waste, too, because it’s the best non-enhanced armor set in the game!

#3: Thieves

In all seriousness, thieves are more of a hassel than an investment. The appeal of Mercinaries is that they can battle guards for you so that you can assassinate while they deal with the dirty work (and they also carry giant axes). The appeal with Courtesans is that they simply distract the guards for a more stealthy approach, and they can also lead guards away entirely. There's also an achievement for spending enough money on them. The appeal of Thieves is that they're supposed to be able to follow you around on rooftops, but their parkour is so slow its almost ridiculous and more of an inconvenience than an advantage. Thieves will commonly end up bumping into each other and killing themselves on rooftops, especially in Venice where they seem to fall into the canals ALL THE TIME. And who honestly needs a band of thieves to take on one rooftop guard? Besides, if combat is the issue, mercs are definitely the better choice. Mercs also follow you around in the streets, even while you're on a rooftop, so it's not like the fact that thieves can follow you anywhere is an advantage over mercs, because the thieves will end up dying one way or another. As far as their part in the overall story goes, Antonio is a douche, and the attraction between Rosa and Ezio never really leads anywhere. The only thing we really need from them is climb-leap, and then we can go kill Emilo without having to rescue Antonio's boys, who will end up killing themselves with their sloppy parkour anyway.

#2: Anything that's not in the quick weapons wheel*.

If it's not the hidden blades, sword, fists, or medicine, it's pretty much useless in AC2. Sure, Ezio gets a lot of cool new toys in this game, and that's where a lot of AC2's appeal is placed. But here's the problem: we never really get a moment where these tools are the best option. In the glimpse of Florence Patrice gave us back before the game came out, we saw him poison a seeker in order to kill a target. If you try this in the game, not only will you need precise positioning, you will also need to be incredibly lucky. We never really need to use poison and, although a good idea, is still pretty useless. Moving right along, most of the people who saw the E3 trailer immediately remarked OMG ITS A GUN HOLY JIZZ A GUN!!! Well, we don't get the gun until way later in the game, and even when we do get it we don't have a good opportunity to use it (with the exception of the Jack the Ripper-esque mission). During the assassination of Marco, Rosa tells us that if we time our pistol shot right with the fire works, we'll walk out unnoticed. Yeah, definitely not the case. You shoot Marco, and you get a brute's axe in your face before you can say BOOM HEADSHOT. Next we have the short blade. Yes, some of the kill animations with it are sweet, but because it's not on the quick weapons wheel like in AC1, it's sort of lost it's purpose. We're lazy gamers, so we don't want to make the effort to take it out for a fight, sheath it, then take it out again manually with the weapons wheel. Throwing money is stupid. It just is. There's no point. We don't want to give the violinists 50 florins, we want to kick them square in the nuts and be on our way. Guards generally don't even get distracted by money when we throw it (at least when we want them to). Then there are smoke bombs, which are given to us during the Church Assassination in Tuscany. Again, because of how fast Ezio is, we generally just run outside of the notoriety circle instead of manually accessing the weapon wheel to use them, or we just kill all of them. Even when we do use them, the effect is too strong, and we just end up with an unfair advantage on the borderlines of cheating! No fun in that. So it's pretty clear that if it's not in the weapons wheel, it's not useful, and it's not necessary at all.
*This excludes throwing knives, but they're the exception, not the rule.

And #1...

MONEY:

Now look, Ubi did an awesome job with the economic system in AC2. Buying your own upgrades on your own time works great, and we have many ways to obtain florins. However, here's the main problem: After we finally finish upgrading Monterrigioni, there's simply too much of it. It doesn't stop, and after a certain point we're gaining so much money that we're making Lorenzo look like the poor man of Europe. We don't have any way of spending our 500,000 florins, and the money just keeps pouring in. What about upkeep of Monterrigioni? Sure, we're getting taxes, but don't we also need to spend money on keeping Monterrigioni from winding up like how we found it? And how about a place where we could potentially gamble our money? Yes, we run the risk of gaining even more, but at least there's a sense of accomplishment in getting a lot of money through gambling it. And even if we lose it, we can always make even more through assassination contracts, pickpocketing, Borgia carriers, etc. Right now, the money pours in fast and effortlessly, and there's nothing we can do about it. What's worse is that we get paid lavish amounts of money for literally everything we do. I recall a mission involving just talking to one of the faction leaders in Venice (the mercs one, I should know his name because he's my favorite character in the game). All we did is talk, it says "mission completed," and I get 3000 florins for that? Even in situations where it seems like WE should be paying money in missions (like when we bought that model for Leonardo upon entering Venice), we still end up making money! There's too much money in the game, MUCH more than is necessary.

So there's your top 5 for this week! Tune in next weekend for the Top 5 most beloved characters in Assassins Creed II

Hakunamatata,

FLAE