Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League Platinum Trophy

Hello everyone. I recently platinummed the 2024 game Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League and wanted to talk about it. Spoilers ahead.

 

 

While I understand it now (kinda) I found this was a really confusing game to Platinum because there's essentially 2 games here and some conflicting information and I wasted a fair amount of time "doing the wrong thing and wondering why I wasn't progressing". 

 

There's "the main campaign and open world" that has its own set of trophies. And there's the postgame grind and live service content which has its own set of trophies some of which overlap and ended up affecting the former. As a result, some of the online guides I found had conflicting and unclear information. For example, take "Blaze of Glory - Achieve 39 Stars in Riddler AR Challenges". At one point this trophy seemed to have been bugged because Rocksteady added additional Riddler AR challenges as part of content updates and expansions and the trophy now required you to do all added challenges in addition to the base game ones. So many older guides from the time mention that this trophy is bugged and you need to do all Added Challenges. However, Rocksteady patched this and it is explicitly mentioned in their patch notes. You only need to do the base game ones.

 

The more confusing thing for me was how the endgame trophies worked due to a combination of bugs, patches, and the game's own descriptions being unclear,  how the game works now may not be reflected in how some guides write about it. But in order to explain my confusion, I need to first give a crash course on how the endgame works:

 

So the base game has 3 difficulty levels: Walk In The Park (Easy), Best Pay Attention (Normal), Sweating Bullets (Hard). These are the options the game gives you when you first boot up the campaign and can change at any point. The Higher Difficulties also increase EXP and Loot you earn.

 

Once you beat the main campaign, a sort of separate but still connected new difficulty system opens up called "Mastery Levels". So when you start up a postgame activity, the game asks you "what difficulty do you want?  Walk In The Park (Easy), Best Pay Attention (Normal), Sweating Bullets (Hard), Mastery 1 (harder than Sweating Bullets and unlocked by playing a hard activity on Sweating Bullets difficulty), Mastery 2 (harder than Mastery 1 and unlocked by playing a hard activity on Mastery 1 difficulty), Mastery 3 etc". All the way up to Mastery 60 or something. Later Mastery Level Difficulties are locked until you complete certain activities on the previous Mastery Level Difficulty.

 

You can apply these Mastery Difficulty options to content in the main open world as well as specific endgame activities and depending on the activity, the difficulties are "tracked separately".  This confused me when I first played the game because most guides said some variation of "difficulty doesn't matter for your playthrough.... difficulty matters for endgame so make sure you play on the highest difficulty possible". I was like "wait, so which one is it? Does Difficulty matter or doesn't it? Can't  I just grind for a few extra hours on the lowest difficulty and eventually get the Platinum?" The truth is that for the base game/campaign, difficulty doesn't matter. You can play on whatever. But for endgame, you have to play on the highest difficulty possible to unlock the next highest difficulty and keep progressing.

 

For the purposes of the Platinum Trophy, this matters for 3 specific trophies: "The Venom Connection - Equip 3 pieces of the Tier 1 Bane Infamy Set",  "All Sorts of Fun - Equip 3 pieces of the Tier 2 Bane Infamy Set", and " The Reaper - Equip 3 pieces of the Tier 3 Bane Infamy Set". I feel these are the hardest and most demanding trophies in the game. You get these and everything else is an easy clean up.

 

To get the platinum, you need to get at least 3 drops of Bane's Tier 1 set, 3 drops of Bane's Tier 2 Set and 3 drops of Bane's Tier 3 set. How do you do that? There's 2 parts to the equation that determines which loot gets dropped.

 

The first is that there's 3 specific missions that open up in the endgame called "Incursion Missions". These missions are  "World’s Un-Fair" (and tends to drop Bane Shields and Grenades as loot), "Sending a Signal" (Tends to Drop Bane Guns), and "Invasive Species" (tends to drop Bane Neck Bomb Mods and Lucky Charm Drops). These missions require a currency called Promethium (around 250-1000 per player per mission) to attempt.

 

The second part of the equation is something called "The Finite Crisis Rank". The rank is determined by adding up the Mastery Levels of highest completions of the 3 Incursion Missions. So for example, if I do "World's Un-Fair" at Mastery Rank 3,  "Sending a Signal" at Mastery Rank 2 and "Invasive Species" at Mastery Rank 1, my Finite Crisis Rank will be 3+2+1 = 6. Your Finite Crisis Rank will not decrease even if you decide to go back and do "World's Un-Fair" at Mastery Rank 1 or something.

 

Specific Tier Bane Gear will be added to the pool of rewards you can get based on what Mastery Level you complete an Incursion Mission at, and what your Finite Crisis Rank is. For example, Tier 3 Bane loot requires playing an Incursion Mission at Mastery Level 24 or higher while your Finite Crisis Rank is at least 6o.  The thresholds are about "Mastery Levels 1-9 and Finite Crisis Rank 1+" for Tier 1 Bane Gear, "Mastery Levels 10-24 and Finite Crisis Rank 30+" for Tier 2 Bane gear and "Mastery Levels 24+ and Finite Crisis Rank 60+" for Tier 3 Bane Gear.

 

This is where one of the first confusions I ran into.  Turns out, upon the game's release, these loot drops were bugged and ended up dropping at earlier levels than intended. Many guides used that info to say Tier 3 Loot dropped after Mastery Levels 20. When instead, they should have dropped after Mastery Level 24+ (and this is something Rocksteady's patch notes explicitly noted was an issue and has since been corrected). I wasted a lot of time grinding at Mastery Level 20 missions and was so confused because "my Finite Crisis Rank is 64 and I am doing a Mastery Level 20 mission. What gives? Where's my Tier 3 loot?". Even online, I can't find any guide that has the corrected info. The game technically does tell you the correct Mastery Levels required but it's easy to gloss over and it instead highlights the Finite Crisis rank requirement more so. So uh.... ooops on me.

 

Moreover, in earlier versions of the game, the game would sometimes "take away" these main 3 Incursion Missions and instead ask you to play another Incursion Mission (usually a Horde survival mode or a repeat of the final campaign mission at a higher difficulty) as a combination of "Break from the grinding" and "test to see if you're ready to continue grinding". Many guides and videos I watched do mention this. However, in the current patch, the game will only do this once or twice and then leave you free to grind the main 3 Incursion Missions as long or as many times as you want.

 

I will note this grind for Tier 3 Loot was challenging. By Mastery Level 15, I was getting Smacked around hard that I actually had to dig in and start sorta buildcrafting. Something I am terrible at in every RPG/Looter shooter/MMO I have ever played. My main approach was Deadshot and giving him Bane's Tier 1 and 2 gear I had collected. Bane's gear tends to synergize with a status condition called "Frenzy" which makes enemies temporarily ignore the player and start attacking each other at the cost of taking reduced damage from your own attacks and being harder to drain Shield/HP from. I also had a bug? I think where if enough enemies around me were frenzied, their models would disappear and be replaced by a giant green swirling cloud of light which it impossible to tell what that enemy was even if they weren't frenzied anymore. I ended up getting sucker punched a lot by that.

 

However, it was still worth it because the rest of my build synergized well with Frenzy. I got gear that increased my damage on Frenzied enemies, a sniper that could Frenzy enemies on Critical Hits (and eating 10% of my Shield when this happened), and a perk that made Frenzied Enemies do more damage to each other.  I also dumped Overflow points into "Doing 8% bonus damage to enemies while airbourne" and "Bonus 3% Shield Capacity". Both helped me because I needed to hover close to enemies as Deadshot. It was only barely enough to squeak by and I was sometimes failing Incursion Missions as my DPS wasn't enough and if enemies KO-ed me, I'd lose precious time on the clock. On one attempt, I literally ran out of time, the Timer went away and the game was doing the mission fail dialogue when I just barely killed the final enemy so the game awkwardly continued the next phase of the mission despite telling me I just failed. 

 

This is why I said these were hardest trophies in the game. The rising difficulty levels do not mess around and you may have to grind Overflow Levels just to stand a chance. Every victory I had made me feel worse because it meant I had a higher Difficulty Level to go through. When I reached Mastery Level 24 and started doing attempts, it felt so discouraging to not get a single Tier 3 Drop. I was begging the game "please, I just need 1 shield/grenade and any weapon. I don't even want to use it. I don't even care if the perks are trash. Just give me this so I can be done with this!". I felt the game mocked me when it dropped 2 Tier 3 Grenades I already had. When it finally dropped the Tier 3 Sniper Rifle, the high was greater than that of Walter White's finest meth.

 

Onto more mundane stuff, another example of a trophy I found whose guides were somewhat inaccurate now was " Number the Dead - Defeat 10 Raising Hell Hit Squads". Upon launch of the game, the way this works is that the game gives you 5 random challenges you can see on the map and have to do in the open world. These can range from "kill x enemies in y location" to "Afflict X enemies with a Status Condition" and everything in between. Completing these 5 challenges raises a notoriety level and sends a "Hit squad" after you of harder enemies. If you leave the immediate area, the Hit Squad also disappears and you need to do 5 more challenges to get another Hit Squad to Appear. Killing all the Hit Squad Members also ends their pursuit and you need to do 5 more challenges to get another Hit Squad after you. This trophy requires you to kill 10 Hit Squads.

 

However, this Hit Squad System has been updated. For one, it's 3 challenges now, not 5. Plus, there is an Incursion Mission called "Killing Time" that throws you into a survival mode where killing enemies raises your Mastery Level and gives you more time. The goal of this mission is to survive as long as possible and then extract safely without dying or running out of time in order to keep your loot. However, every few Mastery Levels, the game might spawn a Hit Squad even if you didn't do any Raising Hell Challenges. So I was able to do 6 of my 10 Hit Squads in this mission and the remaining 4 in the open world. This mission is a godsend and saved me so much time.

  

And that's mostly all for the trophy side. While I am here, I might as well review the game  itself.

 

As for the game itself, I am.... mixed on the game. Like I said earlier, there's 2 games here. The Story/Main Campaign/Open World side, and the post game grind side.

 

Starting with the postgame, it's.... fine. I am historically not a fan of live service type games. And the whole reason why I even I went for the platinum was because SSKTJL was free on PS+, and PSNProfiles said it was a brisk 50 hours total and a 4/10 difficulty to platinum the game. I had already finished the main story, saw there were no unmissable trophies and figured it wouldn't be too bad to go for the platinum. And it... wasn't too bad but I do feel it was kinda repetitive.  Grinding the same 3 missions over and over again for a few days, for loot I wasn't interested in, while the story froze and no longer progressed. I was listening to YouTube videos on the side which helped. And the combat wasn't mindless as the increased difficulty meant I was always under pressure to keep moving and performing to my best. I can't say the experience was 100% mindless but I will note that if the game was Mastery Level 25 or higher to unlock Tier 3 loot, I would probably have stopped playing. At Mastery Level 24, I often had a 70% success rate on my attempts. I was lucky the game showered me with Promethium so I never had to grind more. I think in total. I must have done at least 40-50 attempts total before getting 3 Tier 3s.

 

I suppose this is the norm for this Looter shooter/Live Service Endgames. Repeatedly doing the the same few missions to unlock harder runs for better gear.  I will comment that at least the way SSKTJL handles its loot is a lot less "arbitrary" in a sense. In something like Borderlands, a weapon drop's quality is in part dictated by the level you get it at. So a Level 20 version of a gun is going to be way stronger than a level 10 version of a gun and there's no way to bring up a Level 10 up to a 20 or reroll or tune its perks.

 

SSKTJL operates a bit differently. Loot is mostly static and disconnected from level. So a Notorious Drop you get in like chapter 3 of the main story is just as capable as an endgame drop. The exact perks may not line up but by and large, you're not forced to have to keep equipping newer and higher levelled gear. If you find a set or loadout you are happy with, the game lets that you roll with that. There are NPCs that can help reroll perks or upgrade status on the weapon to improve it slightly at least.

 

I do wanna highlight some little things I liked about the game before moving onto the main campaign. I love the use of the Dualsense’s features. The R2 adaptive trigger being harder to use when melee-ing was a great way of reminding me I was overextending my characters. I loved the lights indicating my health, weapon and character. I love the use of the speakers for radio transmissions and wished more games (including the Arkham ones) did that. I love the extended database/codex complete with voice acted audiologs that can play in the background. Aesthetically and graphically, I felt the game and map looked cool

 

Now, as for the main story/campaign/open world, I may hurt my credibility with this review (as if I had any left) but I really enjoyed the first 80% of the campaign's story.

 

Like, I would have expected a Suicide Squad game to "play it safe" where Task Force X would have a "side mission" far from any actual heroes and certainly wouldn't kill any mainline Justice League members. But no. The game goes all in on its premise. It really does have the Squad kill off most of the Justice League. It doesn't "coddle" or "protect" the League. The end result for me at least is a way more interesting and novel story. I know this game is very controversial for its story but like, I felt it commits and does a great job with it.



I feel the story does a great job in characterizing the Squad. I flip flopped between "God! These are absoluty despicable heels" and "Golly gee, I feel kinda bad for these guys. Maybe they don't deserve this suffering. Maybe there is some humanity in them".



Like, when the Squad kills Flash, Boomerang prepares his whole speech. That's expected of him. He is an egotistical villain that gets off on hating Flash. But when he begins to desecrate Flash's corpse, at first Deadshot holds him and berates him like "Man, this is the Flash, what are you doing...." but when he sees Boomerang's junk, the whole squad turns around and praises him. It's this switch between "Hey maybe the Squad aren't bad people" to "God, these guys are monsters" that I find so interesting in the story.


I like the arc of the characters. They start out barely tolerating each other, forced to work together because of their internal bombs. And by Batman's mission when hit with fear toxin, they've worked together enough that they are able to pull through as a team and counter Batman despite the fear toxin really pull at the Squad's insecurities and pushing them to cut and run. Whereas Batman would have expected them to easily fall apart like any other group of disorganized and distrustful criminals.  

 

Moreover, I just love the dialogue and production value in the game. Between Batman's Radio Dialogue, the news broadcasts, the Squad's own quips, Brainiac's performance. It's legit good stuff.  

 

 I feel my biggest complaint is the fact this game is/was a live service game (Ironic given the first half of this post). It bleeds into the story. The game can't start with the squad truly hating each other and being dysfunctional like in other SS media because you need the 4 Squad Members kitted and functional by like Hour 2 for coop and Seasonal Events. The game can't have more handcrafted set piece like missions (like the past Arkham Games) because it needs to accommodate multiple players (potentially different characters depending on what players chose or even if there are multiple players).


For example, there's 2 missions in the game where the Squad are being hunted by Batman. They feel like they're from a horror game where you're on your own, using your flashlight to peek around while Batman leaves traps and occasionally ambushes you. It's really cool. But these sections have basic gameplay and don't go really far with how you respond against Batman.



Another casualty is the final 20% of the story. The squad kill Superman and are celebrating when Brainiac freezes them and brings teleports them on his ship. Brainiac has been built up this entire game. You don't hear or see him. And now here he is. He speaks in this eloquent way. He prepares his brainwashing machines while telling the Squad he will "give them everything they could ever want" and plays to their insecurities. Lex 2 Teleports the Squad last second off the ship and to Lexcorp. The squad try to catch their breath after what happens. And Boomerang even drops a rather funny "wait, I wanted to hear Brainiac out".


It feels like the game is shaping up for the final fight against Brainiac. Maybe the Squad could lose here or betray each other. Hell, you could even have a sequence where the character you were controlling when the mission starts eventually gets brainwashed by Brainiac and the remaining 3 Squad members have to kill him and then Brainiac to end the game in this bitersweet moment. Or hell, you could have a moment where the Squad embrace the end and let their neck bombs go off to save the world to end the game.



But the story has Lex 2 tell you "well actually, there are 13 Brainiacs across different dimensions/Elseworlds. You need to do some grinding to take on this one first". And now the story loses its momentum. It doesn't feel like I am preparing for a final battle against Brainiac. It feels like I am grinding to do a mission. And now I know the Squad will beat Brainiac and it devalues Brainiac because now the Squad will also have to challenge and beat the other 12 in post game live service updates.



I also feel it "devalues" the premise of the Squad and their accomplishments. What makes SS/Task Force X interesting, especially in this game, is the fact they're the longshots. The fact they've made it 30 minutes without failing or dying is a miracle. Every hero underestimates them. Waller even picks this group because "they are C-D tier villains. Nobody expects them to truly succeed so when they fail/die, it's no huge loss". The actual Justice League couldn't take down Brainiac. The fact the Squad are being sent in isn't because they actually are the substitutes but because they're the desperate "we got nothing to lose" option. 


But if the Squad are now grinding to take on Brainiac, and also are aware of the 12 other ones coming in live service updates. All of that changes. Braniac no longer feels like such an insurmountable task, but like, another villain and one the Squad doesn't have to worry too much on. It feels now like any group could have done this and devalues the fact that the Justice League failed to stop him. 

 

 The gameplay also suffers. I already mentioned some main missions were limited but also, a lot of missions are "kill x number of enemies an arbitrary number of times". The game has to do this rather than more specific scenarios since that would require scripting unique sequences and enforce structure on the player. But the game can't guarantee what squad member you are playing at, what gear they have, and what other players are active so it needs this more generic mission template to accommodate that.


Even the boss fights against the other JL members showcase this. How do you beat Flash? You wait for him to run around and begin one of his charging attacks. Then you "counter shoot him" with L2+R1. This opens him up to damage from your regular attacks. How do you beat Green Lantern? You shoot his green constructs, counter shoot him to render him vulnerable then shoot him with your regular attacks. How do you beat Superman? You wait for him to fly around and begin one of his charging attacks. Then you "counter shoot him" with L2+R1. This opens him up to damage from your regular attacks. The animations of the hero changes but not the "flow of the fight".


The only boss fight that is unique is Batman's because it can only be played solo and it dictates your character selection to some extent. So it can have a Horror game sequence beforehand where Batman douses the squad with Fear Toxin. And the Boss fight itself is against a Giant hallucination of a Demon Batman with custom attacks you have to jump over and shoot. It's still somewhat basic from gameplay but more unique compared to Flash, Supes and Hal. Even the Brainiac Boss fight has Brainiac turn himself into Flash and repeats the Flash boss fight but with more minions.

The open world also suffers here. Prior Arkham games also had relatively static open worlds to some extent (Arkham City and Knight took place across a single night after all). However,  in Arkham City, as you played through the main story, the progression of the turf war between Joker, Penguin and Two Face occasionally intersects with Batman's story in a way that's simultaneously in the background but also influencing the story in way that makes replays so much more interesting as you can see the puzzle pieces moving in real time.

For example, in Arkham City, the villains have established clear territories: Two-Face in Park Row (Solomon Wayne Courthouse), Joker in the Industrial District (Steel Mill), and Penguin in the Bowery (Museum).  Rumors spread that Joker is dying. This looming power vacuum motivates Penguin and Two-Face to plan their moves, while Joker's crew becomes increasingly desperate and divided. Penguin uses his influence to distract Joker's crew at the GCPD building while secretly holding Mr. Freeze in his museum. He further escalates the war by destroying bridges to isolate the Industrial District. Once Batman defeats Penguin, the Bowery falls into chaos. Two-Face capitalizes on this, seizing control of the Bowery and absorbing many of Penguin's men.

You can see the progression of this as you play with the thugs doing makeshift alterations to their uniforms, their dialogue and even where they are located. And they end up as obstacles to Batman not because Batman is directly involved in their turf war but because they happened to be in his way to his own separate objectives. Batman doesn't take out Penguin and Joker's men in the subway because he wants to disrupt their turf war but because they're on the way to Wonder City and as a result, learns more about their conflict. It makes the story and world feel so much richer.

SSKTJL can't really do this. The map is mostly static at the start of the game as it is by the end barring more destruction and surface level collateral. The early chapters had cutscenes showing Brainiac's forces capturing civilians and transforming them but they're not present during gameplay. Instead just wandering around or holding down territory. You don’t get side stories from other heroes or villains surviving the onslaught. Yo don’t see the progression of the war. It’s like time freezes when the game starts. Metropolis trapped in a perpetual live service limbo.


In another timeline, SSKTJL was a 8-10 hour singleplayer game that was able to make a more story focussed one and done game that didn't have to be completeable by different players and support years worth of live service content.  It may even help its legacy over time as a bold new and risky game. But instead, even though its servers are still up, even though it technically has an offline mode now, I worry this game wouldn't be around long enough for future players to appreciate any of its positives. 

Phineas and Ferb Day of Doofensmirtz Vita

 Hello everyone. I recently got all the trophies in the 2015 PS VITA exclusive game “Phineas and Ferb Day of Doofenshmirtz” and wanted to talk about it.

The game is one of the few Vita exclusives still trapped on the Vita so this is arguably the most “obscure” game I’ve ever reviewed lol. Anyway, the core/main gameplay is that of a twin stick shooter. The left stick moves the character. Right stick orients your character’s direction. You have no control over the camera. X is used to jump. O is used to interact with objects. L does a dodge/slide. R shoots. Left and Right switches between your 3 main weapon types. Up and down switches between Phineas Ferb. And Select lets you go into your inventory to switch your weapons’ alternate ammo types.

My first complaint was how sluggish and slow the base movement feels. I found myself mashing L just to speed through areas almost as much as I was mashing R to shoot at enemies. Ladders especially make you move so slow when climbing. Platforming was a mixed bag. The game offers what feels like a full 360 degrees of fine movement which would normally be great for a twin stick shooter. But it means the times the game asks you to do precise platforming are way more tricky because even though I feel like I’m pointing the left stick at the 3 o’ clock position, I could be pointing ever so slightly below that and my character is slowly falling off. I’ve had a few deaths from that. One challenging optional section requires you to traverse a series of launch pads back to back without a drop shadow telling you your position. It was a leap of faith for me on my second attempt holding right on the stick and hoping it would work. Perry’s platforming works a lot better because he has a double jump, letting him correct his jumps. Phineas/Ferb sadly have to make due with 1 jump each. But sadly you can’t choose to be Perry all the time.

The core combat/gunplay is functional if basic. Most enemies have simple patterns and only require you to circle strafe and shoot them. Later levels do throw more enemies with more health so combat can feel somewhat hectic. In addition, you don’t have many other abilities. No melee, parry, grenades, utility moves on square or triangle. The end result is that combat doesn’t really evolve much as you progress. Your guns change but not so much the encounters.

Speaking of guns, you have 3 main weapons. A Sports Gun that fires various sports balls and is also needed to hit certain targets in the environment. A fire gun that fires various fire themed shots and is needed to melt ice in the environment. And a water gun that fires various water themed shots and is needed to put out fires in the environment.

The basic starter ammo of the Sports Gun are slow and low damage tennis balls with infinite shots. However, later you can get a Frisbee ammo that ricochets between enemies and does decent damage at the expense of only having 25 shots. Or ping pong ammo that functions as a short range shotgun that absolutely melts enemies. Or a bowling ball ammo that can kill multiple enemies if you line it up. The Fire gun has options like flamethrower and AOE bombs for its later unlocks. The water gun’s starter ammo is a weak stream but later unlocks include homing icicles,  scattering snowballs, tornadoes etc with limited ammo.

The more interesting thing (though not for the better) is the way the game handles weapon unlocks. And just listen to how convoluted this system is:

To unlock and equip a new subweapon, you need to first go to the workshop (located in the main menu), then tap on your workbench (because buttons don’t work here), then tap on a shop icon there. This takes you to the shop where you can buy new weapon chips and batteries for tokens. To actually unlock subweapons, you need to back out of the shop, back out of the workbench, tap the computer to enter weapon crafting. The game then shows you the subweapon chips you have and how many batteries and scrap (currency earned for defeating enemies) you need to craft the weapon. You then need to drag the chip, the batteries and scrap to the center of the screen to finally craft and unlock the subweapon.

My question is…. Why? Why is unlocking new subweapons/ammo such a convoluted process? It’s not hard or confusing. You’ll have enough tokens and scrap to usually afford some of the newly available weapons after every story chapter (and only a couple minutes of extra grinding after 100%-ing the game to be able to unlock all weapons/ammo).

 

When I first played the game, I initially assumed the game was built around some kind of resource management or Roguelike loop where while you'd always have infinite starter ammo, crafted sub-weapons had ammo that had to be re-crafted as you played the game so you'd have to be careful with your choices to justify the convoluted setup. Maybe you'd choose a specific sub weapon chip because it was really economical with how many batteries and scrap it required or something. But no. By the 4th level, you learn the game restores your ammo in between levels and even within levels, you find restock points that fill you up entirely. 

 

My other conspiracy is that perhaps this game started life as a mobile title that Sony then picked up for whatever reason and that originally, these additional currencies would have acted as progression roadblocks and included as microtransactions or ad packs. That would explain the limited controls and touchscreen-only design of the menus.  But alas, I guess we will never know.

 

Back to the gameplay, the core gameplay is controlling Phineas/Ferb and Perry through the twin stick shooter levels. When playing a Phineas/Ferb Level, you can swap between them by pressing Up/Down or tapping their icon. Phineas is slightly faster but takes slightly more damage. Ferb is slightly slower but takes slightly less damage. I found myself maining Phineas in those levels due to that slight speed boost. Perry's levels only have him been controllable and his levels are way more fun. Like I said earlier, Perry can double jump which gives his platforming more to work with. I also found his levels to generally be longer with more open ended sections and even a few puzzles.

 

The boss fights in the game were usually more frustrating. You have very little health and sparse checkpoints so a few mistakes were enough to set back all your progress. Perry's were usually more fun. Shout out to the final boss of the game that Phineas/Ferb have to face. This giant robot creates so many electrical attacks and projectiles that the Vita drops down to 10-15 FPS and plays in slow motion which ends up making the fight easier and more fair.

 

In between the regular levels, you also have minigame/gimmick levels. Like a 2D bullet hell level with Perry's ship complete with a challenging bossfight that was easily the most fun in the game. A sort of "left brain/right brain" Warioware style minigame where you control Phineas with the Right Stick and Ferb with the Left to move goods on a conveyor belt system that I found myself really engaged in. And stuff like a static rail shooter level. These were fine as the odd change of paces.

 

In the main menu, you also have the "Arcade" Game mode. This throws you into a turrent defence minigame lasting 15 waves that costs 100-500 tokens per round to continue and can nab you up to 30k tokens. Later waves ended up requiring me to lock in and it was pretty fun. You do need to do all 15 waves to get a trophy.

The game is a mixed bag in terms of production value. There's no voice acting or vocals at all. Even the opening has a weird remixed instrumental version of the show's theme song. The story is told entirely through textboxes. But the visuals are really good. This is, no exaggeration, one of the most vibrant and colourful games I have ever played on the Vita. There's a level towards the end of the game where Phineas/Ferb are shrunk down and have to navigate toy store (and as a bonus, collectible tokens are also much larger now to reflect that). And the reds and greens are so striking. There's a level after that where Phineas/Ferb travel to an "evil" future "Across The 2nd Dimension" style that's more grey and washed out and it actually makes that contrast stand out far more.

 

The general graphics and art direction is just solid all around. If you ever read my past reviews, I criticized the original release of Spongebob Battle For Bikini Bottom and Nicktoons Games' artstyles for looking so washed out and desaturated compared to their 2D shows (and subsequently, how great the Rehydrated re-release looked). Phineas and Ferb Day of Doofensmirtz Vita fortunately avoids that. This game looks exactly how I'd want a 3D adaptation of Phineas and Ferb to look like. Huge Props to the game for that.

 

The game wasn't a huge challenge to 100%. The game essentially requires 2 run throughs. One to beat the game and collect teleporter pieces. And another to run through and use the teleporter pieces to access secret areas and collect enough Tokens to finish each level with at least an A rank. You are only ranked on how many Tokens, Secrets and Scrap you collected rather than time or damage taken. While some secrets and collectibles are sneakily hidden, there is a nice Guide on PSTrophies that highlights the important ones.  The only other notable trophy is that on the main menu, you can tap on flying enemies in the background to shoot them and destroying 50 gets you the trophy.

 

In closing, Phineas and Ferb Day of Doofensmirtz Vita is an..... well I'd call it a D Tier game on average. Graphically, it is cool but the slow paced gameplay and lack of engaging scenarios and limited production values make it an obscure novelty at best. 

 

Beating Assassin’s Creed 2 as a Pacifist

 The Assassins Creed says to never hurt an innocent person. But why? Why must an Assassin stay their blade from the flesh of an innocent? What makes someone innocent or guilty?

The Assassins believe that, fundamentally, humanity’s free will and ability to choose their path in life is a right so sacred and inalienable that one can kill to safeguard. But any death, no matter how justified or minor, is a tragedy. You sacrifice a person’s free will and future potential and memories. The world has lost an experience that cannot be replicated. To kill someone is not a decision that should be taken lightly. And should only be done if one can guarantee if doing so safeguards the potential freedoms of others. But even then, is it worth it?

Anyway, I’m doing a pacifist run of Assassin’s Creed 2. Here are the rules:

1. Avoid killing unless absolutely necessary. Killing in this case occurs when an NPC’s health gets reduced to zero or dies in a cutscene. I’m counting both to avoid washing my hands of the responsibility. I’m also counting knocking out as kills as I am still inflicting violence on my fellow man.

2. In the event I’m forced to kill, I must try to do so in a way that doesn’t “count” in the Animus. The Animus in AC2 has a stats page that tracks what you do. 2 stats are important here: “Enemies killed in a fight” and “Enemies killed with the hidden blade”. The former also increments if you stealth kill using the hidden blade. I must try to keep these as low as possible. However, I will still count these as “Unregistered KOs” or UKOs.

3. In the event I have to kill in a way that’s “Registered”, I will do so with my fists first. On the hope this doesn’t permanently damage them. If that is infeasible, only then may I use my hidden blade. If that is infeasible, I may use any means, such as knives and guns, to kill. Let’s hope it never comes to that.

4. Avoid pickpocketing and looting. I’ve already done enough sins.

5. Glitches and Exploits are allowed (but only if I can pull them off on the MacOS version).

With that out of the way, I started up AC2 and jumped into the perspective of Desmond Miles Prower (played by Jack Black) who gets broken out of Abstergo by Lucy Stillman (played by Emma Stone). Desmond and Lucy get attacked by Abstergo goons. Desmond refuses to fight them. Even though Abstergo might be a multibillion dollar corporation with more resources than God and secretly trying to mind control the planet, these goons are just people clocking in their 9-5. Who am I to judge them for their life’s choices? Lucy on the other hand, is bloodthirsty and solos close to 30 guys and bathes in their blood while Desmond lets her do all the work. Clearly she hasn’t learned the ways of an Assassin the way Desmond has.

Lucy takes Desmond to the Assassin safehouse in Hurricane Utah and she explains she wants to turn him into a killer like her by making him play violent video games. Desmond accepts. Not because he agrees with her but because he’s technically a homeless bum who has never paid taxes and feels this is a better use of his time than trying to improve his credit score. 

Desmond meets Shaun Hastings (played by David Hayther) who remarks how he watched the footage of Desmond and Lucy’s escape attempt and how Desmond “did nothing”. What Shaun doesn’t know is that Desmond was actually saving lives there. He also meets Rebecca Crane (played by Eliza Schneider) who tells Desmond she made a new better Animus than Abstergo (despite 1- plagiarizing Abstergo and -2- being outdone by Abstergo 2 years in the future). Desmond enters the Animus to learn from his Ancestor, Ezio Audiobook of Florence (played by Nolan North), how to be a cool Assassin.

Sequence 1: Ignorance is Fists

The first mission of the game, “Boys will be Boys” presented a problem. Ezio casually starts a gang war between the Ballas and Grove Street. Unfortunately, the mission requires at least 7 people to get knocked out. Ezio’s homies seem unable to deal damage to the Ballas so Desmond must pilot Ezio to “compromise to a permanent end” these fools. Thankfully, I have a solution.

If you just KO enemies in a fist fight, that counts as “Enemies killed in a fight”. Throwing enemies off buildings, into water and stalls also counts. However, if you keep throwing enemies into walls, it deals damage to them and once their health reaches zero, they “die” but it isn’t tracked in the stats. Is repeatedly throwing people headfirst into walls until the CTE takes them out really the most humane way to resolve a gang war? No but I cannot question the Animus. I count 7 UKOs plus some bad pear pressure from his older Brother encouraging Ezio to loot his enemies to pay for his healthcare out of pocket as his insurance as been declined.

Thankfully we can fast forward several missions to Sequence 1 Memory 6 as Ezio may be a slacker, adulterer,  thief and litterer but at least he hasn’t inflicted violence on anyone for 5 missions. Unfortunately, his sister, Claudia (played by Angela Galuppo), tells Ezio to go beat up her ex, Duccio (played by Johnny Sins) for breaking up with her because she hates his bionicle Collection. Normally, Ezio himself would personally side with Duccio about how cool his Makuta is but he’s too scared of Claudia to protest. I’m counting 8 UKOs so far as a result.

Sequence 2: Escape Clans.

The next several missions go swimmingly until Sequence 2 Mission 2: Ace up my Sleeve. In this mission, Ezio meets Leonardo Da Vinci (played by Danny De Vito) who agrees to take time out of his day procrastinating by helping him build the Hidden Blade. A guard shows up and starts beating on Leo. The game asks Ezio to use his hidden blade to kill this fool. I tried tackling, punching and throwing the guard but that counts as a Detection which Desynchs me. Left with no option, I have to use the Hidden Blade to get my first kill.

 

I am depressed. My first kill and it's not some tyrant subjugating their people or a corrupt businessman extorting innocents or a Clickbait YouTuber posting cringe but an innocent guard who likely genuinely believed the Auditores were traitors thanks to public misinformation. He could have held no ill will had he known the truth. He may even had people waiting for him like his wife, 2 kids and student loans that will never see him again. Leonardo says to bring in the body for his medical research to cure cancer but is Leo's cure really worth the death of a man? May this at least cover some of my heavy heart. +1 to Enemy Fight Kills and Hidden Blade Kills in the Animus Stats.

 

 The next mission, "Judge, Jury, Executioner" tasks Ezio to assassinate Uberto. Getting to Uberto isn't the challenge. His guards simp for women and the walls are easy to climb. The hard part is landing the blow. Like the last mission, getting spotted by Uberto will trigger a Desynch so I can't throw him into walls. Sadly, I have to use the Hidden Blade. I look into his eyes. Uberto killed Ezio's family not because he hates them but to save his own. Ezio is doing the same. In another life, I was Uberto. The only different right now between Ezio and Uberto is the order of their moves. Killing Uberto brings some justice as the guards and courts are in his pocket and Ezio has no evidence for an offical accusation. Still, even though the Animus doesn't count this as a kill (since this triggers a cutscene rather than an Assassination animation) so my stats don't increase, it doesn't feel any less demoralizing. I’m counting it as a cutscene kill. Let’s hope the road ahead is light. 

Sequence 3: Requiescat in Pacifist.

We’re onto Sequence 3 Mission 1: Roadside assistance. Where Ezio, Claudia and Maria stop by their local Cluckin Bell to order 2 number 9s but get ambushed by some Ballas. 2 goons are dead set on killing Claudia and Maria but bless their hearts, they are so inspired by Ezio’s pacifism and refuse to fight back. Ezio is forced to do his patented “Throw people into walls and claim innocence trick” to get another 2 UKOs. Bringing us up to 10 UKOs, 1 cutscene kill and 1 hidden blade kill and 1 enemy killed in a fight total. However, since these guys ate a full meal, they require 20 throws into rocky walls before the concussions catch up to them.

The Ballas are dispersed by Uncle Mario (played by Doug Bowser) and his reinforcements. 2 Ballas are still 1000% focused on killing Maria and Claudia but Mario’s men can kill them all (provided Ezio steps in and throws them off the girls a few times).

Mario then pulls a Tom Nook and gives Ezio a village to manage and taxes to pay. As well as some combat training neither Ezio or Desmond will use. Mario plans a covert plan to attack Bowser to rescue Princess Peach and forces Ezio to join by promising to forgive some of his debts. Starting sequence 3 Mission 4: What goes around.

Even though Mario and his goons are killing some goombas, Ezio actually isn’t required to kill anyone. He does need to step in to distract some Goon so Mario’s Mercs can stay alive long enough to kill the Goombas. Saving Ezio any potential UKOs. Ezio is tasked to get to the castle and kill Bowser Jr a.k.a Vieri. And this where I messed up.

Vieri is the first character immune to grabs so he can’t be thrown into walls. He also takes no damage from having goombas thrown into him. I’m stuck. I do have an idea. If I can get Vieri to fall off the tower, it wouldn’t count as a kill. As I’m running around doing the tackle animation, I instinctively and accidentally press “Weapon Hand” and I guess that training with Mario accidentally turned Ezio into a sleeper agent because Ezio goes into autopilot, punches Vieri in the kidney, throws him to the ground and stomps on his face killing him instantly to my horror. And the Autosave prevents me from reloading the checkpoint. I look at my stats in horror and see the stat listing Enemies killed in a Fight now reading 2 😢.

To anyone reading this, here’s an easy spot to improve on my run.

Sequence 4: The Pacifist Conspiracy.

Mario shows up, learns the Princess is in another castle and we can fast forward to Sequence 4 Memory 1: Practice what you Preach. Here, Ezio visits Leonardo in order to get help with that day’s Wordle. In order to avoid Ezio disrupting him, Leo sets up 3 targets for Ezio to practice his Assassination techniques on. However, each move on each target counts as a kill in the Animus. Bumping me up to 5 Enemies killed in a Fight and 4 Enemies killed via Hidden Blade. This sounds absurd but makes sense. These may be dummies but Ezio’s practicing real moves and treating them like real people. Counting these dummies as actual kills is instrumental in making sure we don’t dehumanize or trivialize our sins.

 

 After Leo finishes tricking me into committing war crimes against three IKEA mannequins, We can skip ahead to Sequence 4 Memory 5: Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing. Here, Lorenzo de Medici (played by Tony Soprano) gets jumped by 12 assassins (not to be confused with Assassins). 4 of these manage to go down to a combination of friendly fire and Lorenzo's 2 guards doing some work before they get killed. So it's up to Ezio to step in. The remaining 8 got the classic “Animus doesn’t recognize head trauma if it’s administered via brick wall” treatment. That’s +8 UKOs. I’d like to imagine this is what the Creed meant by “work in the dark.” Specifically, the dark space between a man’s skull and the wall he keeps meeting at high speed. It's my only copium.

 

Sequence 4 Memory 6: Farewell Francesco:

 

Ezio has to finally assassinate Francesco de Pazi. I manage to get him to flee from his hideout and across the rooftops of Florence. Perfect. I can just get him to trip for an easy accidental death that's free on my consciousness. Even better is that Francesco is programmed to follow a really specific path. If that happens to be over a beam, he will keep attempting to cross that beam to matter what happens. I  casually trip him and he falls 4 stories..... only to get up, climb up 4 stories and attempt to cross the beam again. I trip him again. And he survives. We do this 10 times until I come to the sobering realization: Francesco is:

 Immune to grabs.

Immune to fall damage.

Immune to the concept of “being bullied into a non-lethal resolution.” 

 

The game's mechanics force my hand once again. I look into Francesco's eyes as I activate the hidden blade. He orchestrated the deaths of Ezio's family, yet in his final moments, he seems almost relieved. Perhaps he knew this day would come. Perhaps he wanted it to. The Animus registers this as both a hidden blade kill and an enemy killed in a fight, bringing those stats to 5 and 3 respectively.  My stats page weeps. I weep.

 

Sequence 5:  Loose Ends, Tighter Fists. 

 

 

 Sequence 5 Memory 4: Town Crier:

 Antonio Maffei has barricaded himself in a 200ft tower and is raining down RAID Shadow Legends Sponsorships on the helpless crowd below. Ezio is tasked with stopping him and his silver madness. I knew from my past playthroughs that if Maffei trips and falls, it doesn't count as a kill on my stats. I climb his tower and intentionally cause him and his 3 bodyguards to spot me. I drop down to the outside of the tower on its narrow walkway. One of Maffei's bodyguards slips and falls along the way. I grab one and position myself between Maffai and the 3rd. The 3rd bodyguard hits Ezio, causing everyone to stumble and for Ezio and Maffei to fall off the tower together. Maffei splats on the ground and triggers the confession and mission complete cutscenes to trigger and complete before the Desync Process finishes. I’m counting it as a victory for pacifism, albeit a suicidal one.

 

 Memory 5: Behind Closed Doors. 

 

Francesco Salviati is next. I disarmed him. I hired 5 Mercenaries and I Watched them wail on him with axes like they were tenderizing steak. He took no damage, because Ubisoft said no. Even better: I couldn’t even grab him until his HP got low. The game literally demands I punch him first to unlock the privilege of pacifism.

Left with no choice, I have to punch him first to soften him up, then throw him into walls until the brain damage catches up.  +1 UKO. We're at 19 already 😭️. At this point, the architecture of Italy has killed more people than the Plague.

 

 Sequence 5 Memory 6: Come Out and Play continues the theme. Mercenaries will fight. Mercenaries will shout. Mercenaries will swing weapons. But mercenaries will not finish the job. The target requires  the old faithful: Wall Therapy™. +1 UKO bringing us to 20. This sequence is not great for the spirit of pacifism.

 

Sequence 5 Memory 7: The Cowl Does Not Make the Monk has Ezio hunting down a corrupt priest in Bologna. Turns out he's immune to merc damage and will flee like a coward which will cause a Desync. More wall throws. The irony of a man of God being beaten against stone walls by someone trying to minimize violence is not lost on me. 21 UKOs total. 

 

 Sequence 5 Memory 8: With Friends Like These. This one gave me a rare gift: if you don’t do the QTE, Ezio actually spares the guards.

Which means, for a brief shining moment, I was playing a game where mercy is mechanically rewarded, and I felt the warmth of hope in my chest.

And then the mission remembered it’s Assassin’s Creed.

Because you still have to stab Jacobo.

It doesn’t count in the Animus stats, but it counts in my heart, and my heart is currently keeping a spreadsheet.

So I’m counting: +1 cutscene kill. We're at 2 so far. Along with 5 Enemies killed in Fights, 4 Enemies killed with the Hidden Blade and 21 UKOs.

Sequence 6: Rocky Road 

 

Sequence 6 Memory 2: Romagna Holiday.  

Carriage ride mission. Guards are jumping onto my carriage and subsequently falling off. Does a guard falling off a wagon at 100 Kph count as a kill? The Animus doesn't count them, possibly because the game itself isn't sure if they died or just ragdolled into another dimension.

 

If a tree falls in the woods and nobody updates the Animus stats, did it happen? I am choosing to believe they landed in soft bushes. +0. And as a bonus, the mission tells you to hold off enemies but you can just run to the marker to skip ahead. Finally, a mission that rewards cowardice over combat.

 

Sequence 7:  The Merchant of Menace

 

Sequence 7 Memory 2: That's Gonna Leave a Mark. 

Ezio finally arrives in Venice Beach California with my Animus stats barely clinging to single digits. The water is lovely, but it tastes like moral compromise. Ezio meets the entrepreneur/thief Rosa (played by Marisa Tomei) who injures her knee trying to perform a sick kickflip. Ezio has to accompany her to HANGER where she can find the SKATE Letters. She gets ambushed by the popo along the way. Unlike previous missions, Rosa and mercs you hire can actually kill the guards. My strat was jump in the way of the guards' attacks, do a disarm counterattack to steal their weapon, climb up or jump in the canal to "lose" their weapon and sit back and watch Rosa tear these fools apart with her 3 inch butter knife. 

 

The last part of this mission is an escort where Ezio must deal with the archers shooting at Rosa's boat. Fortunately, if you run into them, they will drop their bows and attempt to stab you with their swords. Which is fine by me because it means they can never shoot Rosa's boat. So after running around and enraging every guard in Venice on this one canal, I completed a whopping 3 missions in a row with 0 problems and Rosa teaches Ezio how to do the 5-0 Overturn Special Move when he has full meter back at the HANGER for his troubles.

 

 After learning the ways of the 950, we move to Sequence 7 Memory 6: Cleaning House and Memory 9: Everything Must Go.. 

  Antonio (played by Andy García) needs Ezio to deal with 3 defecting thieves who've been selling out the guild. The first target is chilling on a boat in the middle of the canal, living his best traitor life. I swim up to him, he spots me, and in his panic to pursue me, he falls into the canal and drowns. The Animus doesn't count drowning as a kill if they fall in themselves. It's their own poor life choices, really. Target 2 is on a rooftop. I let Antonio's loyal thieves handle him while I supervise from a safe distance like a pacifist project manager. I am merely a spectator to gang violence, not a participant. Target 3 is in a market square with his buddy. Again, the friendly thieves are surprisingly bloodthirsty and handle the wet work. +0 to my stats. My conscience remains marginally clean, which is more than I can say for the canal water.

 

But then comes Emilio.

Emilio is different.

Emilio has a timer. Emilio has a boat. Emilio has places to be. And the game makes it very clear you cannot just wait outside the palace and let him escape into the gig economy. If you take too long, he leaves. 

I tried everything. Disarms. Herding. General annoyance. Shilling For Ubisoft+. But eventually it came down to the only form of violence the Animus politely refuses to acknowledge:

Wall Therapy™.

I had to do it. I couldn’t leave the palace. Emilio couldn’t be allowed to leave the palace. Ubisoft decreed we would settle this the old way: repeated headfirst meetings with Venetian architecture.

+1 UKO.

 

Sequence 8: Gravity, Mother of Invention 

 

We skip ahead to Sequence 8 Memory 4: Well Begun is Half Done. Leonardo needs Ezio to clear out guards so the thieves can commit arson for the greater good. Ezio needs to take out heavily armoured brutes who are killing our vibes. But killing them “properly” would require a level of violence I’m not spiritually ready for. The game suggests stealth or combat.

 I suggest comedy.
It turns out that while Brutes are immune to many things, they are not immune to slipping on wet pavement. I spent the mission luring these armored tanks to the edge of the canals.
One by one, they lunged at me, missed, and tumbled into the water like heavy stones. Their armour being their tomb (ignoring the fact that Ezio is the only person that knows how to swim).
The best part? The Animus does not register drowning as a kill.
As I ran in circles, about 10 other regular guards decided to join the fun and also threw themselves into the Venice canals. It's not my fault there's no Wet Floor signs.

There is now a mass grave of about 12 men at the bottom of the lagoon.
Enemies Killed: 0.
Conscience: Clear. (Technically). 

 

Sequence 8 Memory 5: Infrequent Flier.

 

 Ezio is tasked by Antonio to stop Grimaldi from selling Doge Coin or something. IDK, I was distracted wondering why this mission was different from E32009 version. Ezio needs to fly in as a symbol of peace but Grimaldi's men shoot down his cool kite. Ezio confronts Grimaldi and the game demands I kill him. But Grimaldi is:

-immune to grabs.

-immune to being dropped.

-immune to being bullied into a non-lethal ending.

-immune to the concept of consequences.

So once again, the Animus corners me into the one option it knows I hate: the Hidden Blade.

+1 Hidden Blade Kill

+1 Enemies Killed in a Fight

And honestly? It feels extra cruel here, because the whole memory is about freedom and invention and soaring above the city… and it ends with me being reminded that Ubisoft’s true final boss is mandatory violence.

 This ends Sequence 9 with the following stats:

 

-22 UKOs (Unregistered KOs via wall-throwing)

 

-2 Cutscene Kills (Uberto, Jacopo)
 

-4 Enemies Killed in a Fight (Guard at Leonardo's workshop, Vieri, Francesco, Carlo)
 

-6 Hidden Blade Kills (Training dummies counted as 3, Guard at Leonardo's, Francesco, 

Carlo)

- Accidental Drownings I Take No Legal Responsibility For: ~12.

 

Sequence 9: Carn-evil.

 

Sequence 9: Memory 1: Knowledge is Power.

 

Ezio meets Leonardo who, after spending way too much time on r/CrackheadCraigslist and presents his newest invention: a glock. My Brother in Uni, did you forget what Challenge I am doing?

Leo sets up 3 training dummies for Ezio to practise. 

 I look at these dummies. They are made of straw and wood. They have no families. They feel no pain. They are not sentient.

The Animus counts them as kills anyway.

+3 Enemies Killed in a Fight. This time due to gun violence. My stats are now being ruined by carpentry. Ezio is so ashamed he demands Leo give him a mask he can wear as a reminder of his sin.

 Sequence 9 Memory 2: Damsels in Distress immediately tests my new gun and my pacifist principles. 

 Sister Teodora runs a local indoor fitness gym/church combo that doubles as an Assassin intelligence hub. A serial killer murders one of the courtesans and flees into the streets. The game wants me to use the Hidden Gun to shoot him from a distance.

 

But here's the thing: this killer is FAST. Like, really fast. And every few seconds he stops, grabs another courtesan as a hostage, and threatens to kill her if I get too close. The game is practically begging me to use the gun. The optimal strategy is to shoot him immediately before he can rack up a body count. He warns me he will murder people if I come any closer.

I don't shoot him.

Instead, I chase him through the streets of Venice. He kills the first courtesan. Then the second. Then the third. Three women dead because I refused to use the easy solution. But I'm playing a PACIFIST run, and that means I need to minimize MY kill count, even if the collateral damage is... substantial.

Eventually I get close enough to tackle him, grab him, and introduce his skull to several Venetian walls. +1 UKO. My stats remain clean. My conscience does not.

The math here is dark: 3 innocent deaths vs 1 guilty death. A utilitarian would say I made the wrong choice. A pacifist would say I stayed true to my principles. The Animus doesn't care about philosophy, only statistics. Those 3 courtesans don't count against me. The killer, had I shot him, would have.

Is this really pacifism? Or am I just gaming the system while innocent people die? I don't have an answer. I just know my stats page looks clean and my soul does not. 

 

Memory 7: Cheaters Never Prosper.

 

Ezio returns to Theodora and Antonio who roasts Ezio's drip. Telling him "maybe if you got rid of that old yee yee ass mask, you'd get some B____ on your d__k. Better yet, maybe Christina will call your Ass Ass when she done f__ing with that banker she f__ing with". Ezio now vows to enter Carnivale to win a new golden mask. The mission requires he win a fighting tournament.

The final challenge is a fistfight. Three enemies, bare-handed. The game says “beat them up,” and I say “that sounds like violence,” and the game says “yes.”

Here’s the twist: you can wall-throw them, but they take no damage from it. The game literally refuses to let me solve this the humane way.

So I have to do it the old-fashioned way: counters, punches, and the slow realization that the Animus counts a knockout as “killed in a fight” because it’s allergic to nuance. 

+3 enemies killed in a fight.

Dante shows up as the fourth, thankfully doesn’t count. Ubisoft, for once, gives me a crumb.

Then the three guys I just “mercifully” beat up come back with daggers, plus one extra, and suddenly it’s an armed brawl.

Good news: armed enemies can be introduced to walls again.

+4 UKOs. 

 

Despite winning the tournament fair and square, the judges give the golden mask to Dante anyway because Venice is more corrupt than the Animus's moral tracking system. We're now at 10 Enemies Killed in a Fight, 6 Hidden Blade Kills, and 26 UKOs.

 

Sequence 9 Memory 8: Having a Blast:

 

 In order to pick up girls at the party Theodora is going to, Ezio needs to get Dante's mask. He can't just sneak in because not paying for a ticket is a crime worse than murder. Ezio pickpockets the mask and gets in. Unfortunately, Dante and his guards are able to track Ezio by his overuse of Axe Body Spray (he thought it would help his Rizz). Dante's guards swarm the party, checking every guest. Looks like Ezio's cover is about to be blown.

 

But....

 

I decide to reach deep down inside myself and align the gaming chakras to unlock  an ancient, forbidden Assassin technique known as "The Superblend." By blending in a group of civilians, then walk into a ladder, I "carry" my blend onto the ladder and remain invisible. In theory, I can even throw knives and remain undetected. That's how powerful this ability is.  I stall for minutes until the new Doge shows up and sadly, Ezio is pear pressured into killing him. 

 

The mission objective is simple.

Shoot him.

There is no wall. There is no loophole. There is only gun. 

 

 I take aim. I fire.

 

+1 Enemies Killed in a Fight.

The crowd erupts in chaos. I escape in the confusion, my golden mask allowing me to slip away unnoticed. The Animus registers another mark against my record. I'm now at 11 Enemies Killed in a Fight, bringing my total registered kills to 17 (when you include the Hidden Blade kills).

But my UKO count? 26.

My cutscene kills? 2.

My accidental drownings that I take no legal responsibility for? Approximately 12-14, depending on how you count the guards who followed each other into the canals like lemmings.

My indirect deaths caused by refusing to use the optimal solution? 3 courtesans.
 

Current Sequence 9 Tally:

26 UKOs (Unregistered KOs via wall-throwing)

2 Cutscene Kills (Uberto, Jacopo)

11 Enemies Killed in a Fight (1 guard, Vieri, Francesco, Carlo, 3 training dummies, 3 gun dummies, 3 tournament fighters, Marco).

6 Hidden Blade Kills (3 training dummies, 1 guard, Francesco, Carlo).

Accidental Drownings: ~12-14.

Indirect Deaths Due to Pacifist Principles: 3.

Desmond exits the Animus and stares at the ceiling of the warehouse. Lucy asks if he's okay. He says he's fine. He's not fine. He's thinking about those 3 courtesans. He's thinking about how the Animus rewards him for letting others die as long as he doesn't personally do the killing.

Rebecca mentions that the stats page doesn't track civilian casualties. Only enemies. The game literally doesn't count innocent deaths in its moral calculus.

Shaun makes a sarcastic comment about how that's very convenient.
Desmond agrees. It is very convenient. Too convenient.

He wonders if Ezio thought the same thing. He wonders if, centuries ago, his ancestor lay awake at night calculating the mathematics of murder, trying to find the path of least blood while knowing that every choice costs someone their life.

Or maybe Ezio just threw people into walls and moved on with his day.

The Animus doesn't record thoughts. Only actions. Only kills. Only the statistics that fit neatly into a spreadsheet.

And somewhere in the background of Desmond's mind, a question forms: If the Animus doesn't count it, did it really happen?

He decides he doesn't want to know the answer. 

 

Sequence 10:  Forced to Murder.

 We fast forward through several missions where Ezio helps Bartolomeo d'Alviano (played by Henry Cavil) reclaim his military district from Silvio Barbarigo. Bartolomeo starts yelling things that would get him banned from every Twitch chat instantly,. Most of these missions are surprisingly pacifist-friendly. I can let the mercenaries do the heavy lifting while I provide tactical support from a safe emotional distance. I’m just trying to keep my “Enemies killed in a fight” number from becoming a phone number.

 

After setting the stage and firing the flare like I’m calling in an airstrike on my own conscience, Bartolomeo gets into it with Dante and the whole district becomes a Renaissance mosh pit. Dante flees to the docks where Silvio is waiting with a ship. They're trying to escape to Cyprus, but their ride left without them. Tragic. Not as tragic as what I'm about to do to them, though.

Here's where the mission gets interesting from a pacifist perspective: Silvio and Dante board their backup escape ship. The game wants me to assassinate both of them before the ship leaves. I have 3 minutes.

But here's the beautiful part: if they (and like 7 of their goons) "accidentally" fall off the ship during our confrontation, well, the Animus doesn't know. The Animus doesn't care.

 +0 to my stats. The drowning counter, however, continues to climb into numbers I've stopped tracking because acknowledging them would require moral accountability.

 

Sequence 11: Altered Stats.

Memory 1: All Things Come to He Who Waits

Rosa finds Ezio sitting on a bench having an existential crisis because it is his birthday.

Which is a bold writing choice by Ubisoft, because nothing says “Happy birthday” like being forced to stalk a courier for five minutes and then commit a perfect, undetected murder within ninety seconds. 

 

I follow the courier for what feels like an eternity through Venice's streets. He eventually enters a restricted area guarded by soldiers. I have 90 seconds to assassinate him undetected.

Undetected.

That's the keyword. The mission requires an undetected assassination. I can't throw him into walls because that would alert the guards. I can't drown him because there's no water nearby. I can't let my allies handle it because I don't have any here.
 

I have to use the Hidden Blade.
 

I climb the nearby ladder to the rooftops, position myself above him, and drop down for the assassination.
 

+1 Hidden Blade Kill.
 

+1 Enemies Killed in a Fight.
 

We're now at 12 Enemies Killed in a Fight and 7 Hidden Blade Kills. The stats are climbing. The journey is taking its toll. Every forced kill feels heavier than the last.

The Animus is pleased. I am not. 

 

Sequence 11: Mission 2: Play Along.  

 

Ezio steals the courier’s outfit and becomes a completely convincing Borgia guard despite his giant Assassin bracer logo being exposed like a watermark.

The mission wants you to walk in formation, carry the chest, and then do the “kill the escort to introduce yourself” moment.

Last time, I got away with refusing a QTE and letting guards live.

This time, the Animus says: “Cute. Press the button.” you have to do the QTE. You can’t stall it out. You can’t refuse. You can’t “let Ezio spare him” by doing nothing.

The cutscene demands blood for the cutscene god.


+1 cutscene kill. 

 

I watch the cutscene play out. The other guards in the scene casually ignore their dead comrade lying on the ground. Rodrigo told them to leave, so they leave. They step over their friend's corpse like it's a pothole in the street.
 

The Animus doesn't count this guard in my stats because it was a cutscene death. But I'm counting it. That's 3 cutscene kills now: Uberto, Jacopo, and this nameless guard who died because Rodrigo needed a dramatic moment.

 

 After that, everything escalates into chaos: Rodrigo fights, guards pile in, and then like  the Avengers Endgame portal scene but with more hoods, your entire friend group (and Antonio) shows up to help and reveals they were Assassins all along and Ezio was the unpaid intern. Rodrigo escapes.

 The Assassins take Ezio to a tower and officially induct him into the Brotherhood. They brand his ring finger with the Assassin symbol. It hurts, but Antonio says "This only hurts for a while, brother. Like so many things."

He's not just talking about the brand.
 

Machiavelli (played by Stanley Tucci) welcomes Ezio: "Benvenuto. You are one of us now."
They all perform a Leap of Faith from the tower. Ezio follows. They need to take the Apple to Forli.

 

Current Sequence 11 Tally:

26 UKOs (Unregistered KOs via wall-throwing).

3 Cutscene Kills (Uberto, Jacopo, Rodrigo's guard).

12 Enemies Killed in a Fight (1 guard at Leo's, Vieri, Francesco, Carlo, 3 training dummies, 3 gun dummies, 3 tournament fighters, Marco, courier).

7 Hidden Blade Kills (3 training dummies, 1 guard, Francesco, Carlo, courier).

Accidental Drownings: ~14-16 (Silvio and Dante joined the canal club).

Indirect Deaths Due to Pacifist Principles: 3 courtesans.

 

Desmond exits the Animus again. The Bleeding Effect is getting stronger. He can see Eagle Vision without trying now. He sees glowing symbols on the walls of the warehouse. Rebecca says it's normal. Shaun says it's concerning. Lucy says they need to keep going.
Desmond thinks about that guard. The one who walked away during the QTE. The one who lived because Desmond chose not to press a button. Then he thinks about the guard who died seconds later in the cutscene. How one random input determined who lived and who died.

He thinks about Silvio and Dante drowning in the canal. About the courier he assassinated to steal his uniform. About every wall-throw victim whose skull met Venetian architecture at high speed.
 

The numbers are climbing. The justifications are getting thinner. The line between "pacifist" and "guy gaming the stats system while people die anyway" is getting blurrier.
 

Shaun makes another sarcastic comment. Rebecca adjusts the Animus. Lucy encourages him to continue.
 

Desmond closes his eyes and goes back in.
 

Because the Apple needs to reach Forlì. Because the Templars need to be stopped. 

Because the mission isn't over.

And because maybe, just maybe, if he can keep the registered stats low enough, he can pretend the rest didn't count. 

 

 Sequence 12: Forlì Under Apathy

 Desmond re-enters the Animus with a heaviness he can't quite shake. The numbers are climbing. The moral gymnastics are getting exhausting. But the Apple needs to reach Forlì. The mission continues. Rebecca mentions something about corrupted data. Shaun explains that there were supposed to be optional DLC sequences here, Sequences 12 and 13, that many players never saw. Most people went straight from Sequence 11 to Sequence 14.

I am not most people.

See, I pirated a version of AC2 specifically to avoid these sequences. I know from my past playthroughs that they added extra mandatory kills. I thought I could skip them entirely and keep my stats clean. Preserve what little moral high ground I have left. But here's the thing about the Mac/PC version: Ubisoft, in a rare moment of consumer-friendliness, pre-loaded the DLC into the base game. No skipping allowed. No escape hatch.

I got screwed over by Ubisoft being helpful for once.

The irony is not lost on me.

Sequence 12 Memory 1: A Warm Welcome, 2: Bodyguard, 3: Holding the Fort.

Ezio travels to Forlì with Caterina Sforza (played by Monica Bellucci) and Machiavelli. They're ambushed by the Orsi brothers, who've been sent by Rodrigo to steal the Apple. We fight our way to Forlì's gates. The city is under siege.

The mission wants me to fight alongside Caterina And Machiaveli. They have no armor. They're vulnerable. The game mechanics are clear: if they die, I desynchronize. (Their other bodyguards are disposable on the other hand).

 

So I do what I've been doing for dozens of hours now: I become a human shield. I intercept attacks meant for them. I disarm guards.  It works. We reach the gates. No additions to my stats.  I'm like a manager who shows up to meetings but contributes nothing of value. Except instead of wasting time in a conference room, I'm wasting time in Renaissance Italy while people die around me.
 

But here's the thing: not even war can stop capitalism. In the middle of this siege, I can break off from combat to visit blacksmiths and refill my smoke bombs. The shops are still open. Business is booming. The image is absurd: arrows flying, allies shouting, and Ezio slipping into a shop to politely purchase more tools for disappearing.

 
I’m not proud of how relieving it feels to have a “plan” again. Even if that plan is just: throw money at fear until it becomes fog.

+0 to everything.

+1 to the Military Industrial Complex.

Sequence 12 Memory 4: Godfather.

 The Orsi brothers have kidnapped Caterina’s children.

I tracked down Ludovico Orsi at a lighthouse.

He was monologuing, threatening a child.

I climbed up. I grabbed him.

Just like Antonio Maffei on the tower in Tuscany all those hours ago, I "threw" him off.

He fell. He hit the ground. He died.

The Animus didn't register it. It doesn't count gravity as a weapon.

+0 Enemies Killed.

It’s getting easier to trick the machine. I’m not sure how I feel about that. It feels like getting away with something in court because the judge was tired.

 

Sequence 12 Memory 5: Checcomate

Checco runs.

Of course he runs.

They always run, right when I start to think I’m getting the hang of this. Right when I start to believe I can make it to the end without the numbers climbing higher.

He runs toward water, like Venice taught every villain that canals are either an escape route or a moral loophole.

Ezio even calls him out for the bloodshed. For the waste. For the way greed turns people into debris.

And then Checco has an “accident.”

I don’t add anything to the stats. Not a kill. Not a KO. Not even an “oops.” On paper, it’s perfect.

But the victory doesn’t land. 

 

Because the moment I finally get my hands on the Apple again, Checco stabs Ezio, and before I can even process it, a black-robed monk with a missing finger picks up the Apple and walks away with it.

I can’t even hate him properly. I’m too tired.

I’m so close to the end, and somehow the end keeps moving.  In a pacifist run, purpose starts to feel like a debt collector. The closer I get to the end, the heavier my hands feel. Like the Animus is reminding me: even if you don’t want to hurt people, history already decided you did.

Sequence 12: Memory 6: Far From the Tree.

Wounded, dizzy, and chasing the shadow of a man I barely saw, Ezio stumbles into an abbey looking for answers.

Instead he finds two guards roughing up a monk, and for a second it almost feels smaller. Human. Petty cruelty instead of grand conspiracy. Like the world has shrunk back down to the scale of a fist and a boot.

Then the mechanics do what they always do.

Two of the guards are immune to wall damage.

No Wall Therapy™. No loophole. No architecture-assisted mercy.

Just fists.

So I beat them.

The Animus logs it as “Enemies killed in a fight,” because it can’t imagine a universe where a man gets knocked out and still matters.

And I feel that weight settle in again, the one I’ve been trying to laugh off for eleven sequences. The quiet understanding that even when I avoid “kills,” I’m still leaving a trail of broken people behind me. Even when the numbers don’t move, something in me does.

+2 Enemies killed in a fight.

And that’s the moment the melancholy really sets in: not because the number went up… but because I can see the end of the journey now, and the closer I get, the more it feels like the Animus is saying:

You can resist the story, but you can’t escape it.
You can soften the violence, but you can’t erase it.
And you will carry every compromise with you to the final memory.

Current Total Despair-o-Meter:

    Enemies Killed in Fight: 13

    Hidden Blade Kills: 6

    Cutscene Kills: 3

    UKOs: 27

    "Accidents" involving Gravity/Water: ~16

    DLC Chapters Forced Upon Me: 1 (so far).

 Sequence 13: Bonfire of My Patience

 

Sequence 13 Memory 1: Florentine Fiasco
The mission starts with Ezio needing to sneak into Florence, which is now under Savonarola's control. The city is crawling with guards. Fighting is everywhere. But the objective is simple: reach Machiavelli without being detected.

I blend with monks. I avoid patrols. I use the chaos of street battles as cover. For once, the mission doesn't demand blood. Just patience.
 

I reach Machiavelli. He explains the situation. Savonarola has used the Apple to control Florence's leaders. They're oppressing the citizens on his behalf. To stop him, we need to eliminate his nine lieutenants.
 

Nine forced kills.
 

The number settles in my stomach like lead. 

 

Memory 2: Still Life

The first lieutenant is an artist, preaching that art is corruption and beauty is temptation and everything should burn.

It’s the most Florence sentence imaginable, and it makes me feel sick.

The mechanics don’t care how I feel. The mechanics want an assassination, and so they get one. Hidden blade. Quiet. Efficient.

The confession is worse than the kill. He admits he wasn’t forced. He believed. His self-doubt did the rest.

+1 Hidden Blade kill.
+1 Enemy killed in a fight. 

 

Memory 3: Climbing the Ranks

This mission is basically “run.” Guards everywhere, archers everywhere, and the target is above you like Ubisoft is trying to remind you that even righteousness still has a vertical difficulty curve.

You can finish it without a direct kill if you’re lucky and fast enough, which is maybe the cruelest part: the sequence keeps showing me tiny doors out of violence, and then locking the next nine in my face.

+0 to everything. 

 

Memory 5: Last Rites

A priest on the Duomo, praying for deliverance while the city rots beneath him.

It’s hard not to hear the irony in the Latin. Harder not to hear the exhaustion in Ezio’s “Requiescat in pace.”

He’s older now. So am I, in a way. Not in years, but in the number of times I’ve had to tell myself, “This is necessary,” and pretend that makes it lighter.

Hidden blade. Another notch. Another name.

+1 Hidden Blade kill.
+1 Enemy killed in a fight.
 

 

 Memory 6: Port Authority

This is the one that weaponizes my anxiety. If anyone sees you, you desync. The game doesn’t want you to fail because you were violent. It wants you to fail because you were noticed.

I successfully used the "Superblend" glitch here. I clung to the ship like a barnacle, invisible to the guards' eyes despite being three feet away from them.
I felt clever. I felt like a master of the system.

And then I reach the merchant, who is calmly explaining how starving people is a good way to make them obedient.

The Apple didn’t invent that idea. It just made it easier to say out loud.

Hidden blade. Quick. No spectacle.

+1 Hidden Blade kill.
+1 Enemy killed in a fight.

 

Memory 8: Hitting the Hay

A farmer is hoarding hay like it’s a moral crusade. He talks about resources, about economy, about “simple” work being vital.

I almost respect the honesty of it. Oppression doesn’t always wear armor. Sometimes it wears practical boots and tells you it’s for your own good.

Hidden blade again. And again the confession doesn’t absolve him. He wanted respect. He wanted to be seen. He got power instead, and used it to tighten the noose.

+1 Hidden Blade kill.
+1 Enemy killed in a fight. 

 

Memory 10: Doomsday

The preacher is the worst one because he’s loud.

He screams about famine and disease and corruption like he’s auditioning for a modern comment section. The crowd listens because fear is convincing, and because it’s easier to follow someone who promises certainty than it is to admit you don’t know what comes next.

When Ezio kills him, he says the quiet part out loud:

He didn’t need deception. He already believed.

There’s no Apple to blame. No mind control to point at. Just a man who chose this, and a city that let him.

Hidden blade. Another prayer. Another “this is not easy.”

+1 Hidden Blade kill.
+1 Enemy killed in a fight.
 

 

Sequence 13: Memory 11: Power to the People.

Savonarola drops the Apple. A generic Agile guard picks it up.
"Surely," I thought, "I can just tackle him."

I chased him. I tackled him. He stood up.

I punched him. He shrugged it off.

I threw smoke bombs. He coughed, then ran away.
 

This nameless NPC is immune to everything in the known universe except a sharp piece of metal in the gut.

+1 Hidden Blade Kill.
+1 Enemy Killed in a Fight. 

 Sequence 13: Memory 12: Mob Justice

Savonarola is tied to a stake.

He’s screaming. He’s praying. He’s terrified.

Ezio says, out loud, that no one deserves to die in such pain.

And I agree. Completely.

So I end it quickly.

It’s mercy and it’s murder at the same time, and I don’t know which word feels heavier anymore.

+1 cutscene kill.

 

Only three memories in this whole sequence let me keep my hands clean: Florentine Fiasco, Climbing the Ranks, and Arch Nemesis.

Everything else is the same compromise in different lighting.

 

Ezio delivers a speech the audience. Painting himself as a vengeance absorbed madman to give the people something to hate and unite. It's easy to channel my bitterness to raise others. The irony is more toxic. Ezio preaches how we as humans are free to choose while the Animus has spent 13 Sequences proving I can't. One more sequence to go.

 Current Total Despair-o-Meter:

    Enemies Killed in Fight: 20 (The dam has broken) 

    Hidden Blade Kills: 13 

    Cutscene Kills: 4 (Savonarola joins the club) 

    UKOs: 27.

 

 

Sequence 14: Veni, Vidi, Volui 

 

Desmond enters the Animus one last time.

The Bleeding Effect is so strong now that he's not sure where Ezio ends and he begins. He sees the world in layers. The warehouse in Utah, the Villa Auditore in Monteriggioni, the space between memory and reality where nothing feels solid anymore.

Rebecca says something reassuring. Shaun makes a sarcastic comment. Lucy says they're almost done.

Desmond doesn't respond. He just closes his eyes and lets the Animus pull him under. 

 

We're in the Endgame now. 

 

Sequence 14 Memory 1: X Marks the Spot.

 

Ezio is tasked with finding the last remaining Holographic Charizard Cards Scattered Across Italy.  I scour the ends of the Earth. I did it the pacifist way, of course. Smoke bombs to avoid fights. Courtesans and thieves to “solve problems” without touching anyone. And a lot of quiet jogging through places where I’ve already left too many people bruised, broken, or “unregistered”.

I collected the pages passively, gently, like I was trying to apologize to the game for everything I did in Sequences 12 and 13.

 

Then we return to the Villa. Everyone is there. Mario. Machiavelli. Teodora. Paola. Antonio. Bartolomeo. The whole Assassin Avengers lineup, standing around the Pokemon wall like this is a group project presentation and I’m about to explain why my section is late.

Ezio places the pages into the wall, and suddenly all of this, all of it, turns into a map. Light beams. Coordinates. Unsettling prophecies. Lands that “don’t exist” yet. The implication that the world is bigger than Ezio’s grief and bigger than my stats screen.  

 

And then the punchline lands:

The Vault is in Rome. 

We finally understand Rodrigo Borgia’s master plan.

He isn’t just a Templar. He is the CEO of Epic Games.
 

He wants to enter the Vault to replace the currency of the world with V-Bucks so he can  take a 30% cut of all global transactions.
 

Ezio, a staunch defender of the Currency of the People, COD Points, is appalled. He knows he must stop this monetization of the human soul.
 

The map points to Rome. It ends today.

 

Sequence 14: Memory 2:  In Bocca Al Lupo

I travel to the Vatican.

And whether we wanted it or not, we've stepped into a war with the Templars in Rome.
So let's get to taking out their command, one by one.

 Mario drops Ezio off at the docks near Castel Sant'Angelo. From here, Ezio must infiltrate the Vatican, navigate its defenses, and reach Rodrigo Borgia in the Sistine Chapel.
The mission is long. Exhausting. Wave after wave of guards, walls to climb, gates to open, restricted areas to sneak through. My hands bleed from all the climbing.
But here's the thing: most of it can be done without killing.
I use coins. Not to bribe guards or distract them in the traditional sense, but because if you throw coins from their side, not in front of them, it makes them turn around just long enough to slip past and open gates.
I blend with monks. I wait in haystacks. I take my time.
The "undetected" sections are tough. But I've learned patience. I've learned to read patrol patterns. I've learned that sometimes the longest route is the safest route.
I make it through most of the Vatican without registering a single kill.

 

And there he is. The Pope. The Spaniard. The CEO.

He is giving a TED Talk. The game prompts me to strike.

This is it. The moment of revenge.

I climb the scaffolding. I lock on. I leap.

I air assassinate the Pope.

 

Ezio lands the blow. The Hidden Blade connects.
But Rodrigo has the Staff of Eden. He doesn't die. He just stumbles, laughs, and blasts me with magic.
However, I check the Animus stats page.
The game registered the input.
+1 Hidden Blade Kill.
+1 Enemy Killed in a Fight.

 

It didn’t kill him, but it killed my streak.

Ezio tried to murder him. The intent was there.

In the eyes of the Animus, I am a killer, even if I failed at the job.

Maybe the Animus counts it because intent matters. Because even if you fail, even if the target survives, the choice to kill is what leaves the mark. 

 

 

 
And I’m sitting there thinking: is this what I’ve been doing the whole time?
Not “stopping tyrants,” not “saving free will,” just repeatedly trying to make the numbers behave.

Rodrigo survives and turns the room into a nightmare. The staff drains the life from everyone else, and suddenly it’s only Ezio standing, because the Apple is in his pocket like a shield and a curse at the same time.

The boss fight is almost poetic in a sick way.

Rodrigo uses the staff like an executioner’s spear.
Ezio uses the Apple to create copies of himself.

And I realize the pattern hasn’t changed at all.

Even at the end, even in the Sistine Chapel, I’m still outsourcing violence.

Only now I’m outsourcing it to hallucinations.

 

Rodrigo stabs Ezio with a knife.  Then Rodrigo runs. Of course he runs.

Ezio follows him down into a place that doesn’t look like Italy anymore. Blue lights, strange walls, architecture that feels like the future trying to haunt the past.

And here, the game does something almost kind:

 It makes Ezio drop his weapons.

No blades. No gadgets. No tricks.
Just fists.

Just anger.

Just the raw, exhausted question at the center of this whole run: *what do you do when someone deserves to be hurt?*

I beat him.

I win.

Rodrigo begs me to finish it.

And Ezio… doesn’t.

He steps back.

He says killing won’t bring his family back. He says he’s done.

And I don’t know if I’m supposed to feel catharsis or grief, because it’s the one time the story aligns with my stupid little challenge.
The one time the character chooses restraint on his own.

After thirteen sequences of trying to force mercy through loopholes, the game hands me the only mercy that matters: the one you choose when you could have done worse.

The Vault opens anyway.

Because the story was never about Rodrigo.

Ezio walks into the chamber and meets Minerva:a “goddess” that laughs at being called a goddess.
She speaks to Ezio like he’s a tool. A messenger. A mouthpiece.

And then she turns her head.

Not to him.

Past him.

Through him.

To Desmond.

The twist lands like a brick: Ezio was never the audience. He was the medium. The last thirteen sequences were a letter addressed to someone else.

Ezio stands there, bleeding and confused, and the hologram tells him to be silent so she can speak through him.

And I think about how many people I’ve thrown into walls to get here.
How many I justified.
How many I didn’t even count because the Animus wouldn’t.

And the only reward is: you were a conduit.

Epilogue: Leaving the Hideout

The credits roll, and for a brief moment I’m tempted to stop. To end here. To let the story freeze on Ezio’s confusion and let my last memory be restraint.

But Assassin’s Creed II has one final joke.

Desmond wakes up. The warehouse is being raided.
Lucy shoves a hidden blade into his hand.

And Desmond’s story comes full circle.

At the beginning of the game, he refused to fight, and Lucy slaughtered Abstergo goons like she was speedrunning a different genre.
Now Desmond has the skills. Now Desmond has the blade. But Lucy goes on a rampage, slaughtering the Abstergo team.
I stand in the corner, keeping my hands clean, watching the cycle of violence continue exactly as it always has.

Because the Animus doesn’t count this.

The Animus stops counting the moment it matters.

You can take your time. Unlimited health. A pile of guards between you and escape.
Vidic stands in the back like a man who knows you can’t touch him yet.

 

I look at the guards. They are just private security. They are just doing a job.
I refused to fight in the beginning of the game.
I refuse to fight now.
Desmond’s story comes full circle.
He started the game as a useless bartender letting Lucy kill everyone while he watched.
He ends the game as a Master Assassin... letting Lucy kill everyone while he watches.

And Vidic leaves anyway.

Temporary victory. Permanent weight.

They pack up the Animus and drive off into the night, and Desmond climbs into another machine like it’s a coffin with better lighting.

I started this run trying to stay my blade from the innocent.
I ended it watching the story demand blood from everyone I pilot, in every era, in every room.

And I don’t know what to do with that, except write it down.

Because if the Animus doesn’t record thoughts, only action, then this is the only place the guilt gets to exist. 
Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.
Even pacifism. Even in a game called Assassin's Creed.

 Final Stats:

-27 UKOs (Unregistered KOs via wall-throwing).

-4 Cutscene Kills (Uberto, Jacopo, Rodrigo's guard, Savonarola).

-21 Enemies Killed in a Fight (1 guard at Leo's, Vieri, Francesco, Carlo, 3 training 

dummies, 3 gun dummies, 3 tournament fighters, Marco, courier, 2 abbey guards, 7 lieutenants, Rodrigo assassination attempt).

-14 Hidden Blade Kills (3 training dummies, 1 guard, Francesco, Carlo, courier, 7 lieutenants, Rodrigo assassination attempt).

-Accidental Drownings: ~16-17.

-Indirect Deaths: 3 courtesans.

 

Ben 10 Galactic Racing Vita Platinum

 Hello everyone. I recently platinummed Ben 10 Galactic Racing on the Vita and wish to talk about it.

 

 

Overall, a somewhat tedious if easy Platinum. The only reason I felt like I could do this one is that it's the only Vita game I've encountered that has a built in Trophy Tracker that counts individual things you need to do and how much you've already done. Seriously, why don't other games do this?

 

A quick word on the gameplay: This plays like your standard Kart Racer. The only difference are the game's offensive and defensive powers. When going off ramps, you can flick the Right Stick to do tricks/stunts and this charges your Offensive Power. When the meter is full, Press Square and your character will send a powerful shockwave ahead that will spinout racers ahead of you. When doing drifts, you charge your Defensive Power. When this Meter is full, press O and you will get a shield that blocks you from almost every stage and player hazard. Including other Offensive Powers.

 

I will comment that this is probably the only racing game I've played where you can't reverse or brake. Likely because every button on the Vita is taken. R Aceelerates. L iniates Drift. X uses items. Square for Offensive Power. O for Defensive Power. Triangle for Look Back. Left Stick and Dpad for Steering. Right Stick for Stunts/Tricks. The Touch Screen and Rear Touch pad are unused. Fortunatly, the game seems to account for this and crashing into walls will usually knock and turn you back a fair bit to compensate. So not a complaint but something I found a bit funny.

 

The most tedious trophies in the game are "Not Even a Scratch - Block/avoid 100 attacks using your Defensive Power in Single Player mode." and "Outta My Way!!!!!
Successfully bump 100 karts in Single Player mode." When I completed the game's main content, I had done about 25/100 Defensive Power Blocks and 5/100 Bumps. Defensive Power Blocks are tedious to farm because it only counts attacks from other Karts, not Stage Hazards. The game does notify you if an opponent is launching an item at you with a Flashing Red Exclamation Mark but not when an opponent has launched their Offensive Power. I missed so many Offensive Attacks I could have blocked had I been  notified. I found myself using Triangle to look behind me during races to see if someone was doing their Offensive Power which helped block about 10 more. I feel this trophy would be a lot less tedious if it was 50 Max and also counted both Stage Hazards and using Items to block attacks. Like throwing the equivalent of a Green Shell Behind you to block an opponent's Red Shell. Now the player has multiple ways of naturally getting this as they play the game and only a bit more to farm if they missed it.

 

Bumping Karts is a bit misleading. I assumed this meant "crashing your kart into another kart". But no, it means "physically crashing your kart into another that causes them to spin-out".  There's a few ways to do these. You can land on top of another kart, use the game's equivalant to the Bullet-Bill Powerup to and smack people in your way, or use your Defensive Power. The main issue here is that these are rare events. I think I landed on another kart like, 2 times total. The Bullet Bill, even when I tried using it to farm Bumps, would often "miss" as the CPUs weren't perfectly lined up. I usually saved my Defensive Power for actually blocking Kart and Stage Hazards. I feel this should have been 50 Max. Both this and "Not Even a Scratch" required me to keep replaying the final Track in the game, Azmuth's Forge, over and over again since it took an average of 5 minutes to clear and gave around 3-6 counts for either Trophy.

 

Another Tedious Trophy was  "Shattered - Destroy 10 Shard Mines using the EMP power-up in Single Player mode." I did 1/10 in my entire main campaign run. The best way to farm this is to load up the game's Battle Mode, set the timer to 9 minutes and just keep running through item boxes until you get the EMP Power up. For some reason, this was crazy rare. I'd get like 1-2 per game!

 "Omni-Node Master - Pick up 8 different Omni-Node types in each of 10 different races in Single Player mode" requires intentionally dropping back to different positions and hope the RNG gives you different items. 

 

"Tag! We're It! - Win 10 Team Omni-Tag showdowns in Single Player mode." and "Tag! I'm It! - Win 10 individual Omni-Tag showdowns in Single Player mode." require you to grind 20 Battle Modes at 1 minute each on the smallest map. Not too bad but I was constantly checking the clock. 5 is probably better.

"Omni-Trickster - Complete 10 4X stunt combos while racing in Single Player mode.", "Triple Threat - Complete 10 3X stunt combos while racing in Single Player mode." and "Double Trouble - Complete 10 2X stunt combos while racing in Single Player mode." require grinding the same track, Highway Havoc because Air tricks don't stack and Highway is the only track with a jump large enough to barely do 4x tricks and one for 3x. I got 2x naturally while playing but had to spend several runs grinding this out.

 

"Kart Collector - Unlock all karts in the game." was interesting. There's like 6 extra unlockable Karts that require you to beat the time trial times on 6 tracks. Which means that by beating the Grand Prix Cups and these 6 Time Trials, you essentially get 100% completion according to your save file lol.

 

The trophies I enjoyed getting were "Prime Drifter - Execute a 750-meter drift in a race in Single Player mode" (it was fun finding a track with a circular ring and just lapping it while drifting. Ended it with a 3000m drift lol), "Got Skillz - Beat the Track Best time in a Time Trial on any track by 10 seconds or more." (Galvan Gorge was a fun track to repeat to get that ace time), "Kineceleration - Execute a continuous boost of 8 seconds or more in a race in Single Player mode." (had to switch to Fourarms for this one due to his top speed and replay Codon Coldera's opening in Time Trials to hit the Boost Pads with my Drift and Boost Item) and "Unstoppable! - Win a race by tumbling or spinning over the finish line in Single Player mode." (just do a trick that messes up over the finish line).

 

Overall, I feel this game's platinum list is a bit of a missed opportunity. Rather than wasting time farming the same repetitive actions, I'd have preferred more mini-challenges in races, or just more Time Trial Trophies. Again, technically, of the 25 tracks in this game, only 6-7 require doing a corresponding Time Trial for a trophy. I'd have gladly traded several of the more grindy/farming trophies in exchange.

 

Moving on from the trophies and talking about the game itself, it's .... fine? Like, it's a solid C tier game. Maybe B- if I am feeling extra generous. The actual racing and driving is solid. The graphics are really good for a Vita Racer. I like the offensive/defensive power system. The side modes are fun. But everything around the game is questionable.

 

Galactic Racing doesn't have CCs like in Mario Kart, instead having a difficulty toggle in the Main Menu. It says "easy and hard" but really it should be "hard and extra hard". Almost every race, I was fighting and clawing for first place even on Easy. The CPU Drivers are crazy fast, recover quickly and if someone gets to pull ahead, it's almost impossible to reign them in. I've had a few Grand Prix Tournaments where I breathed a sigh of relief when one of my rivals got hit and finished in 3rd or 4th because it gave me more of a fighting chance.

 

My advice is to go with SpiderMonkey and his Light Kart or  unlock the Kinecelerator Kart as that will give you the best shot but you still need to put in the work. While I enjoyed the challenge, Kart Racers like this are typically made to also accommodate younger or newer players. Mario Kart is successful because less experienced players can start out in 50CC and work their way up. Ben 10 Galactic Racing asks you to start at 150CC.

The bigger issue is that, if you're not a Ben 10 fan, this game will do very little to sway you. It doesn't really put its best foot forward. Like, say what you will about Sonic and Sega All Stars Racing (also on the Vita), but that game went all out with spectacle and stages and highlighting the characters so that even if you weren't a Sega fan, it was hard not to be like "hey, this character or thing is pretty cool/interesting".

 

For example, take the tracks. Galactic Racing has 25 tracks across 5 Planets. But those 25 tracks aren't unique. Tracks set on the same planet share a lot of the same assets, textures and some even share the same set pieces and sections. I got Deja Vu racing on new tracks in later Grand Prix cups because they reused so much from previous tracks.

 

Moreover, very few tracks feel novel or have any spectacle or represent what's cool about Ben 10. Some tracks shift on the final lap and change how you proceed. But like, ok.  One of the 5 Planets is Kylmyys. It's covered entirely in ice and snow and is the home to the Necrofriggians. The lore says this planet is so incredibly cold that nothing corporeal can even live on it. Which is why the Necrofriggians evolved their Ghost powers. This planet never shows up in any Ben 10 show ever. Ben 10 Ultimate Alien instead showcased the planet Mikd'lty. This planet is tidally locked so one half is a fireball and one half is frozen solid. There's "a twilight zone" in between them, aurora boreialis in the sky, a temple which Pligrms visit with Death Traps etc. Some Necrofriggians also live here because they're the only Alien Species that can survive such extreme temperatures.

 

Galactic Racing opts to choose the Planet that's 100% Ice with no cool structures or lore over the one in the show with far more interesting topography or structures. Kylmyys visually looks no different to any Ice Worlds in any other Video Game. So it's disappointing for both Ben 10 fans (since the cool stuff from the show isn't there) and for newbies (since the scenery won't impress them into checking out Ben 10).

 

It's a similar case for the planet Piscciss. This one actually showed up in an episode once and is 99% water. This planet isn't the most notable or important in the show but has 5 tracks dedicated to it in the game. While some of the tracks do look cool, the game does little to make it stand out. There's no section where you drive underwater and see more of the sealife. You don't even see the main species, Piscciss Volanns, on the tracks.

 

The planet Vulpin ..... is an interesting choice. The lore describes it "a pitch black planet on the edge of the galaxy whose ecosystem has been poisoned by the hazardous materials that have been dumped on the planet. Living in the dark caves beneath the surface, Vulpimancers have no need for eyes and use their amazing sense of smell to "see"... Part penal colony, part toxic waste dump, Vulpin has long served as a dumping ground for hazardous materials far too dangerous for other worlds. The little that was once natural here long ago became corrupted by dangerous outside influences....Whatever life does manage to survive among Vulpin's subzero temperatures and the poisoned forests must learn to adapt to the harshest of climates".

That actually sounds cool but the game gives it 5 tracks set in garbage processing and industrial areas that all blend together. You're not going to come away thinking this is an interesting planet.

 

The 2 remaining planets, The Null Void (which isn't a planet but a separate dimension) and Primus are the most novel choices. Null Void in the lore is this alternate dimension used as a pocket prison dimension filled with dangerous monsters, penal facilities, sub-planets and debris etc. Some inhabitants have established permanent living areas in this place. The game does a .... passable job representing this setting. It feels treacherous, like an "evil Rainbow Road". But little representation of the culture. Like, this is the bare minimum I'd want for every track in the game.

 

Primus is a giant organic machine that looks like a jungle-like planet full of vegetation and various fauna. The main creatures on Primus are Volaticus Biopsis, mosquito/wasp-like robots created to scour the universe to collect DNA samples to the Codon Stream. A river/ocean/liquid database containing the DNA of of 1,000,910. Primus/The Codon Stream also "powers" the Omnitrix/Ultimatrix Ben uses in the show.  Think of The Codon Stream as like, Spotify and Ben's Omnitrix/Ultimatrix as your phone you use to stream a handful of songs/aliens. The game does a decent job in representing Primus but a new player is unlikely to get why this place is a big deal and would probably see it as another planet. 

 

There are so many potentially interesting and unique track settings for a Ben 10 Kart Racer. I already mentioned Mykdl'dy but others could be a circus themed track around Zombozo from the Classic Series,  A track based on Los Soledad where you race through some warehouses that then transform into a portal or is mid-HighBreed Invasion so you're racing through a fantasy Alien warzone. A track based on the Forge of Creation as you're racing across a nebula while giant Celestialsapiens ominously look down on you. A Track based on the Peraheadron. A giant planet sized cube maze/labyrinth with shifting rooms and death traps. And that's just some examples from the shows. The game can even choose planets and settings we haven't seen.

Galactic Racing as a whole does very little to showcase Ben 10 lore either directly or as unlockables. You don't get Profiles/Bios on the Aliens or Locations. You don't get alternate costumes or kart customization. This is a shame. Like, one of the racers is Ultimate Cannonbolt with his dull Grey design. You can't unlock an alternate skin of him with his regular white and gold design. Big Chill is represented as just Big Chill. No option to unlock his Red Ultimate Design. Fourarms is limited to just his Ultimate Alien design with no option for his Classic Version. Imagine how cool it would be to like, do races as Big Chill, you get an unlockable telling you facts about him or his species and you unlock his Ultimate Skin. 

 

The character selection in this game is....a bit questionable. A lot of the popular Ben 10 characters and aliens are here like  Ben, Kevin, Vilgax, Ghostfreak, Ultimate Humungousaur, Rath , Heatblast, Big Chill, Ultimate Cannonbolt, Ultimate Echo Echo, Fasttrack (who was created specifically for this game and then showed up in the show), Spidermonkey, Swampfire, Ampfibian and Fourarms. But no Gwen or Max? Imagine a Mario Kart without Luigi or Sonic Racer without Tails. At least the Alien selection is solid.

I think that's my biggest complaint against Galactic Racing as a Ben 10 fan. In theory, you could reskin this game to work for any other IP and it would "work" because the game doesn't incorporate a lot of Ben 10 specifics. You can't really "reskin Mario Kart DS" because a lot of the tracks pull directly from previous Mario games. 

 

The Game does seem to use the same voice actors from the show. So all the Aliens and characters sound legit. The game has the Vreedle Brothers on commentary and.... I find some of their track introductions a bit humorous but find their race commentary grating.  Aside from getting repetitive very quickly, Octagon's mannerisms (e.g "What you might call...") got especially annoying for me. These guys are fine in the show because they have relatively minor roles. But in the game, they have the most lines and dialogue. The story as a whole is silly, nonsensical and non-canon so I am not docking any marks for that. 

In closing, Ben 10 Galactic Racing is a fine kart racer and an easy but tedious platinum. There are better Kart Racers on Vita (only just Sonic). As a Ben 10 game, this doesn't do the best job in celebrating and showcasing what's cool about Ben 10.