Although you can play and enjoy it, AC2 is a direct sequel to AC1, so I'd suggest you play the first one to fully grasp the whole story.
The final part of the game is very entertaining and made it worth for me to play thorugh the repetitive parts.
AC3 will be the final part in the trilogy, completing it like one big game.
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If you don't want to invest that much time in AC1, I don't think you'd miss too much if you just read the plot summary on Wikipedia and watch the ending on YouTube .
AC2 was an improvement over the original in pretty much every aspect (particularly storytelling) and I don't think you'd be lost.
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I played AC2 without playing AC1, and I didn't feel like I was missing out on anything.
The main part of the game's story after all, is the section in the past, and the AC2 past sections take place in a different time period to those in AC1.
The "modern day" part does make a few back references, but these are mostly self explanatory.
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You can never go back.
AC1 is not a bad game on its own, but if you think you ever want to finish it in the future I implore you not to start the second one.
The second one, like others have mentioned, smoothed out the rough parts and made AC2 a much more enjoyable experience.
Unfortunately that makes it sound like AC1 is crud.
Of course it isn't, if it was AC2 never would have made it to market.
If you play AC2, if you even watch somebody else play AC2
your enjoyment of AC1 will be lessened and you will find playing it to be a slog through the slow parts.
If you are the type of person who likes playing a game through, don't do AC2 first.
If you're not, skip AC1.
There's also a DS game, which I understand is a prequel to AC1
but I've never played it.
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You have no reason to play a game you are not enjoying.
I played through both games and AC2
is a much improved sequel in every way.
That's not to say AC is bad, I really enjoyed it.
But if you are not enjoying it, don't play it.
Read a summary of the AC1 story, see the cinematics on YouTube and play Assassin's Creed 2.
gaming.stackexchange.com/users/4007/Wilerson
How much of the storyline carries over to the second version? I'm considering skipping to AC2 since I've heard its quite a bit more varied and generally a better game.  AC1 was fun in the beginning but now I get the feeling I'm just repeating the same things.
Is it worth finishing Assassin's Creed 1 before playing 2?
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<assassins-creed><assassins-creed-2>
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AC2 is a direct sequel but you wouldn't miss that much if you just skipped to it. It is important to play the first game to fully grasp the story. However many people also say that you can catch up on it pretty well from reading about it.
User suggests to play AC1 before AC2 User suggests to only watch the story parts of the game to catch up