Assassin's Creed 2: Battle of Forli Review

Fracas of Forli would have sounded cooler

A short while ago I wrote an article praising Ubisoft’s new achievement based DLC system UPlay. It’s unique and promising way of allowing a player to earn extra content really impressed me. So imagine my disappointment when I downloaded the new DLC chapter for Assassin’s Creed 2 this week, only to find it short, shallow and devoid of charm.

For those who’ve played Assassin’s Creed 2 (and by now, most of you really should have), you’ll recognise Battle of Forli as DNA Memory Sequence 12 (I guess Battle of Forli was a punchier name) which was originally missing from Ezio’s memory. To hear Ubisoft’s Patrice Desilets tell it in a recent interview with Kotaku, both Battle of Forli and next month’s Bonfire of the Vanities were cut from the original release due to time constraints and were marked as future DLC.

To put it bluntly, it shows. Upon booting up Assassin’s Creed 2 with the new DLC, you’re treated to a little Rebecca and Shaun banter telling you that Sequence 12 has been restored. You’re then transported to Forli and, after a short cut-scene, tasked with hiding the recently acquired Apple of Eden. To this end, you have to meet up with Niccolo Machiavelli, who you may remember from Ezio’s initiation, and Caterina Sforza, who you’ll no doubt remember for being inexplicably trapped on a rock in the middle of a lake.

Sforza’s problems have grown far worse than lake strandings since last time you saw her.  While she’s happy to help Ezio conceal the Apple, it’s not long before you discover that Forli itself has been overrun and her family is now in danger.

Just for the record, the above scene never happens

Battle of Forli offers six new memories (some provided back to back) that chronicle an attempt to recover the Apple and a Codex map by Templar agents. Ezio must stop the mercenary Orsi brothers from capturing the city, while attempting to keep the Apple of Eden safe.

The term “battle” is a little misleading. While the dev team have obviously tried to instill Forli with an urban battlefield feel, and keep the environment constant by bookending the majority of the missions, it doesn’t really work. Packs of Orsi’s men roam the streets in red, fighting with green-clad supporters of Sforza, but in amongst it are all the city’s usual denizens. Packs of mercenaries loiter around for you to hire, and heralds waffle on to the pitched battle warning them against assassins.  It’s not so much a battle as it is a scuffle or ruckus.  Maybe even a fracas.

This situational mismatching, coupled with the a storyline that demonstrates why this chapter was originally cut, makes it a little difficult to take anything about Battle for Forli seriously.  There is also a distinct lack of actual assassinating, as Battle focuses more on large scale street combat.  And the open combat itself becomes quite irritating when the only real challenge is to stop Caterina Sforza from leaping onto the spear of your enemies.

Niccolo Machiavelli, both genius and boring henchman

Niccolo Machiavelli, who history regards as a political genius and master manipulator, displays almost no character at all and gets used as little more than another sword to assist you in fights.  It seems in this respect that Ubisoft just wanted to add another major name of the Renaissance to the list of people who were secretly from the Assassin order.  And if you’re not up on your history, don’t expect Battle of Forli to fill you in.  It’s perfectly happy for you to keep on thinking Machiavelli was the guy in the dark cape who tied women to train tracks.

I couldn’t help but feel that both Sforza and Machiavelli really just needed an opportunity to show their personality, but the insanely short play time of this DLC doesn’t offer the opportunity.  The new episode only took me 30 minutes to complete. Now while Ubisoft offers Battle of Forli for the rather reasonable price of 320 points Itchy and Scratchy Dollars, if you can clear the episode before you’ve even remembered at what point in the main story it occured in, something is seriously wrong.

So by the time you’ve gathered your thoughts, recalled all the tricks of combat, Battle of Forli comes to a close and you’re informed that the data has corrupted again.  That is of course, until they figure out how to recover it when Bonfire of the Vanities is released next month.  Then it’s back to exploration mode, that’s really all this episode has to offer.  On top of it all, Assassin’s Creed 2 still hasn’t unlocked the ability to replay previous memories (isn’t that all the fucking Animus does? Come on!) which means when you’re done, you’ll have to play through an entirely new game if you want to play through Battle again. It does throw in a bonus “special memory” that unlocks the ability to fly Leonardo’s flying machine over Forli, although there are no missons that require it’s use.  This will probably actually be welcome news to the people who initially missed the achievement that requires you to kick someone while gliding.

Which brings me to another point.  Battle for Forli doesn’t even come with any extra achievements to lure in the gamerscore boosters.  I don’t even get any achievement whoring to soften the disappointment this episode brings.  It could have at least opened up the pre-order exclusive tombs for us to enjoy on the side.  If they had of done that, I would have probably been prepared to pay more than the asking price.

Sorry Ubisoft, but I’m left with the impression that not only did you cut these chapters deservingly from the original game, but that Forli and Vanities should really only be one DLC package.  If Vanities is twice as long as Forli, it will still be too short to make up for a collective ~700 points Moon Money purchase.

The Verdict:

Pros: Mucking around on DaVinci’s hang-glider. Hearing Sforza’s rather entertaining strings of curse words (trust me, switch the captions on).

Cons: Short playtime, unremarkable story.  Wastes the opportunity to make use of characters like Machiavelli.  Battle atmosphere doesn’t appear to bother civilians, shopkeepers, etc.

Overall: Once Bonfire of the Vanities is released, I could probably argue that this would be a welcome addition for anybody playing through the game as a whole, kind of like Pinnacle Station only for Assassin’s Creed.  But as it stands, incomplete and eye-blinkingly short, I couldn’t recommend downloading Battle for Forli to anyone.  Seriously.  Buy some Assassin’s Creed avatar clothes if you love the game so much, even that’s a more worthwhile purchase.  1.5 out of 5, credited to some creative swearing and a relatively low purchase price.