The Ezio Trilogy Part 1: This is much, much longer than I expected

All right, I had a chance to sink my teeth into Assassin's Creed 3 for a few hours last night and again this morning. In a nutshell, I love it. I have a few nitpicks, but honestly it is nothing compared to the simple joys of  dueling Brown Bess's with bayonets drawn. But now is not the time for me to gush over Assassin's Creed III, that part comes later.

"Spoiling details of Assassin's Creed III will be very painful... for you." ~Bane

Where were we again? Ah yes, the Ezio Trilogy!

Assassin's Creed II (2009)

Two years after the adventures of Altair, we once again returned to Future Desmond, casually loafing around the secret lair he's been imprisoned in. But mere moments into his introspective moaning, sassy blonde initially cold love interest, or "Lucy", bursts through the door and tells Desmond he'll actually have to do something this game. One quick trip to the Animus later (and a fairly clever sequence where we see Ezio be born), and Desmond actually breaks out into a light jog. A few fight tutorials later, he's absconded to the Good Guys hideout. You know its the Godd Guys hideout because the British computer guy is snarky instead of sinister (side note: all British men have to choose between being snarky, sinister, suave, or Scottish. It's the 4 S's of the British Isle). Also, the female lab assistant is allowed to have short hair and wear jeans and a t-shirt. Besides that, they're basically doing the exact same thing the bad guys were doing to you: making you relive the memories of your ancestors to help them achieve their goals. Fortunately, their goals in this game are to turn Future Desmond into a likable and competent character. To do that, they plan to use the creepy Bleeding Effect from the first game to bleed in memories from Ezio Auditore da Firenzie: Italian Renaissance Playboy and all-around hardcore dude. You begin Ezio's story at a pretty smart starting point: when he is a carefree teenager from Italian nobility and also apparently moonlighted as Flynn from Tangled.

Seriously, this can't be a coincidence. Flynn's hair is just slightly browner and they're both excellent thieves & climbers. And that flower that gave Rapunzel's hair magic powers? That could be a Piece of Eden and that would make the witch a Templar. Is Tangled just an alternate timeline for Assassin's Creed II?
Excuse me, I have to go write that fanfic.

Now, it's been a few years since I played Assassin's Creed II, so I'm just going to hit some of the highlights of what I remember from the plot. After all, if the story doesn't speak to me years later, do the specifics really matter? So the first hour or two of the game is Ezio going about doing teenager things and actually having a personality. He sneaks around to visit his girlfriend (who is Amerigo Vespucci's sister!!!!!! If that sentence doesn't make you smile, I feel sorry for you), he gets in a street fight with some jerk called Pazzi, he beats up some dude for harassing his little sister, he hangs out with the artist his family provides patronage to (Leonardo DaVinci), and all around feels like a human being I sympathize towards instead of a white-robed mannequin spouting off one liners. But pretty soon, all of that goes down the drain as that jerk Pazzi hangs Ezio's dad and brothers. So, with nowhere left to turn, Ezio follows his dad's last instructions and visits the secret study where he finds a hidden blade and a pimpin' Assassin's Cloak.

"Pulling... It... Off!"

After that, Ezio begins a whirlwind tour around Renaissance Italy, murdering his way to the truth of why his father and brothers were executed, and visiting Florence, Tuscany, and Venice. I'm glad he could multitask and enjoy the beautiful Italian countryside while avenging his family's tragic murder and uncovering the vast Pazzi conspiracy. The supporting characters are numerous and memorable such as his Uncle Mario (who teaches him how to be an Assassin and breaks the fourth wall by saying "Its-a me, Mario!"), Bartolomeo (who has one true love in his life- Claudia... his broadsword), the aforementioned Da Vinci (who is the best weapons vendor EVER) and many more. In addition to all this, you also were able to shape the world around you for the first time by upgrading your base (Monteriggioni) with merchants and buying shops around town. You were also given free reign to buy weapons and equipment as you see fit and even dye your clothes (Assassin's White is sooooooo 1191. Get with the 15th century, girl!).

But the crowning achievement of Assassin's Creed II is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the final boss fight. Sure, the final boss in Assassin's Creed was decent and had some cool effects, but ultimately you stabbed an old man in a courtyard no one had ever heard of. But Assassin's Creed II ups the ante. You fistfight the Pope in the Sistine Chapel!

I have nothing to add to that. It is literally the greatest fight anyone has ever conceived. Context would just ruin it. But fine, I guess I'll explain things as briefly as I can: Ezio's family was executed because his father uncovered evidence that a Templar pawn committed murder but it was all part of a grander scheme to overthrow the Medicis of Florence which was all part of an even grander scheme for the Grandmaster of the Templars to become Pope so that he could combine the Apple of Eden with another Piece of Eden, the Pope's Staff, but Ezio finds out about this and steals the Apple of Eden and then chills out for a few years and does a few DLC missions including the Bonfire of the Vanities and then he decides to break into the Sistine Chapel to uncover what the Staff and Apple would unlock, based off a secret message from the Codex that Altair wrote after the first game. That turned out to be a message from the Roman goddess Minerva (the Roman pantheon is the one true faith? I did not see that one coming) and that the entire game was a way to send a message to future Desmond about the 2012 apocalypse. Then Ezio utters the famous line "Wait? Who is Desmond?", which means even the main characters in Assassin's Creed don't care about Desmond!

"I'm just as confused as you are." ~Minerva

For all the praise I just heaped upon it, Assassin's Creed II still has a few issues. For all the time lavished on Ezio's family in the first hours of the game, they disappear for the rest of it. Ezio's mother (whose name I forget and will assume it's Mama Auditore) takes a vow of silence after her youngest son is hanged. And she remains silent until you find all 100 feathers spread over all the cities in the game (because her youngest son loved to collect feathers, just roll with it). Then there's his sister Claudia. I remember her name because every time you wanted to collect profits from your Villa you had to go to her. You would say "Claudia." and she would respond "Want to take a look at the books?". The problem is the game takes place of the course of approximately 16 years of Ezio's life. Cluadia goes from a 15 year old teen girl to a 31 year old woman. And in that span of her life, all she said was "Want to take a look at the books?". I feel like we missed major character development here. Also, the most unrealistic part of the game is that a 15 year old girl would be great at math! The punchline is sexism! Also, 16 years is a really long time to go without saying anything, especially while you still have two surviving children who need you. It's pretty selfish of Mama Aduitore to ignore Ezio and Claudia for 16 years. 16! That's twice as long as her youngest child was alive! You have people to live for, Mama Auditore!

Outside of that, it was pretty much spectacular. For the first time, Desmond wasn't completely useless and we got a glimpse of the broader world. Specifically, we found out that the Templars' Doom Satellite isn't actually the apocalypse. It turns out its some sort of Solar Anomaly and that's what wiped out Minerva's race thousands of years ago and only Desmond can stop it.

Okay, I lied. The whole alternate history thing gets detailed much more specifically and it's basically all ridiculously stupid and contradicts all manner of previously established facts. I'll need a whole separate post to discuss that.

This whole experiment is growing beyond my ability to control it. This could rival the Mass Effect series of blog posts in length. May God help us all.