Assassin’s Creed 2 Day#12: Comprimi di fiorini

Day 12 of Assassin’s Creed 2 is a short one, but only in time. Dear Lord, you get rich quick in this game. I spend my time doing some clean up, and it is just ridiculous how much cash I have.  I also get a nice multipart mission as my one moment of plot. Spoilers within.

So I start with my quest to free the last set of prisoners. On the way, I get distracted by a codex I pass, and I take a quick break to kill the guards and claim it.  I then go on  to free the last set of prisoners in a similar drop in courtyard, kill guards, open cage, and run fashion. When I get back to the checkpoint (4 of 4 prisoners saved), the mission is done. I haven’t mentioned this before, but you get quite a bit of cash for completing missions. It’s not exactly narrative, but I guess it lets you heal and bribe heralds. I get a lot here — 2500.  Average mission was around 1000 in Firenze.

Anyway, now that I have my new jumping trick, I go back to Firenze to try to claim that last viewpoint I couldn’t get earlier. Unfortunately, it doesn’t help — that viewpoint is a sheer building I can’t see any way to climb, even with my new jump. I know there’s one more viewpoint I didn’t get, but I can’t remember where it is. I try Tuscana first; there are no viewpoints left there, but I do remember a glyph I didn’t get in the arena where I had to kill that last Templar. I stumble around the area in eagle vision until I find it. 16 talks some vague nonsense about something up there something abandoned long ago. There’s a picture of moon I have to find something in and the trick is (in white) you follow the sound of beeping to find a satellite. Once you find it, you get another circle rotation puzzle, this one quite hard because many of the layers are linked in a few different ways. The frame here is a JFK quote about the adversaries of freedom. When you solve that puzzle, there’s another picture puzzle with the same trick as before, and solving it reveals an eden piece on the photo. Passcode and more naked people running video captured.

When that, I go back to the fast transport area to head to Forli. Here’s the viewpoint I was looking for. When I approach it again, it turns out I actually didn’t need the extra jump. It was just a hard puzzle that I missed, and solving this one is quite fun. It’s got a great reward too, since the viewpoint itself isn’t a ledge like most of the others, but instead the top of cross at the tip of the building. It is a very cool shot.  I jump down, and now I can see the location of a final codex page here. I get it this time by throwing money to distract the guards, and then running for my life when I exit. Fun, fun, fun.

That done, I head back to my villa because another ungodly amount of florins have accumulated there again. It’s really ridiculous how much money you earn here. I even like the idea of upgrading my villa — I mean it’s another achievement system in a game with way too many, but it’s a fun one nonetheless.  But good lord, I’m earning like 10000 coins every 40 minutes for doing nothing– and that doesn’t count all the coins I get for completing missions, find treasure chest, catching random guys who run from me, etc. For reference, 10000 florin buys me something expensive, such as a major piece of armor or any game weapon I’ve seen so far. Anyway, I’ve got to do something with my crazy opulence, so I buy a bank which will make me even more money. Merchant scams, banking lords, styling up my villa for tourism — maybe this game should be called Capitalist’s Creed.

Done with my financing side-quest, I head back to Venezia for plot. First I drop off the new codices with Leonardo and get another health box for my trouble.  There’s a new plot with Hugo. The new thieves I rescued give us a team to help fight off the guards protecting my target, but now we have to steal guard outfits in order to sneak them in. There are three uniform locations, and then I have to get a boat to ferry them back to the HQ. The one steal goes well; the costumes are guarded in an alcove that opens to the river on the other side, so I sneak up from the river, grab the uniform (it’s in a typical treasure chest), and creep away. The other two are big fights as the guards are simply surrounding the box with no cover to hide in. I hire some thieves to help and make my way through the fights with one thief of four left. All uniforms claimed, I then steal boat in a very big fight. My thief dies, but I make it through.  I pilot the boat back to HQ, and end the mission back in the thieves’ guild to the tune of another four-digit reward.

When I get back, the leader of the thieves wants my advice. It turns out that some of his followers have been paid off to betrayed him. Ezio CS suggests killing them for working on the side of evil (note: the NOT-assassin side), and he agrees. I accept the mission to kill them, but I’m tired, so I decide to do this mission next time.