Eske Esquire wrote:
idiggory, King of Bards wrote:
ACII is WAY different than the first game though. It actually has a story, and character development, and plot arcs, etc.
The original had all of those things.
The largest difference between the two games was in mission variety.
Well, that and swimming.
I don't agree. It had them in the barest form possible. Altair's character barely developed (and it was limited to like 3-5 conversations), there was one real antagonist for most of the game, and like 2 other random characters that would needle you every so often. That's about it. I can only think of one other character (Malak) that developed at all.
There was just the main plot line. Go to a city, investigate the Templar, assassinate him, return, repeat. Those characters were never important outside of that mission, and you rarely heard about them again after the fact. They weren't even plot arcs, not really, it was just who Altair happened to be assassinating.
I enjoyed the game in general, but the story was very bare-bones.
In AC2, they added a bunch of characters that actually developed over time (in both Ezio's time and in Desmond's). It wasn't just about assassinating a target, it was as much about Ezio finding his place in the world. And half the time it was less about being told what to do, and more about him doing it for his own reasons. You stopped to help other groups, and you carried on your own investigations where you saw fit. This isn't just mission variety, it's a significant deviation in the plot line from the previous game. In ACB, there are actually sub-plots and additional arcs. The whole game is about combating the Templars established in Rome, but the player can help other groups if they wish, they can explore other plot lines in the form of <whatsername> from the last game, you deal with intrigue and such within the Assassin group, and deal with the dynamics of the leaders. Etc.
First game's entire plot can be summed up in a linear list of bullet-points. You never need to create a branch in the tree, or stop to explain underlying events. That's not the case in AC2/B.