Assassin's Creed II
Author: Sephiroth_BCR
Achievements Guide (X360)
Version 1.1
Email: lordseraph@gmail.com
Copyright 2009 to Ben Rosales


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Table of Contents

I. Version History [VHIS]
II. Introduction [INTR]
III. Achievement List [ACHL]
  A. Story-based Achievements [SBAL]
  B. Assassin's Tomb Achievements [ATAL]
  C. Collection Achievements [CLAL]
  D. Challenge Achievements [CHAL]
IV. Copyright [CPYR]
V. Credits [CRDT]

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I. Version History [VHIS]

-- 1.1: minor fixes in wording for the No-Hitter Achievement, adding version
   history.

-- 1.0: initial version

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II. Introduction [INTR]

Hello, this is an Achievements Guide for Assassin's Creed II detailing the
game's 50 achievements and strategies for obtaining them. If you have
any questions, concerns, or comments, feel free to email me at the address
listed above, although please try to read the guide before shooting questions
at me, and going through our well-informed board as well.

Also, although the Achievements/Trophies are the same between the X360 and
the PS3, I'll use X360 controls for the sake of this FAQ, although it
shouldn't be horribly difficult for you to find the corresponding PS3 
controls.

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III. Achievement List [ACHL]

For ease of reading, I will split the list into different classifications.
Refer to the table of contents to skip to any specific section.

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A. Story-based Achievements [SBAL]

The following are fairly elementary; finish the requisite storyline event or
memory sequence and the achievement will be unlocked. Note that there may be
minor spoilers in this section.

1. The Birth of an Assassin (20G)
-- View the opening sequence in the Animus.

2. Arrivederci Abstergo (20G)
-- Escape Abstergo with Lucy.

3. Welcome to the Animus 2.0 (20G)
-- Enter the Animus 2.0 in the Assassin hideout.

4. The Pain of Betrayal (30G)
-- Complete DNA Sequence 1.

5. Vengeance (30G)
-- Complete DNA Sequence 2.

6. Exit the Son (30G)
-- Complete DNA Sequence 3.

7. Undertaker (20G)
-- Find the Assassin's tomb in the Santa Maria Novella in Florence. You find
   this tomb over the course of Sequence 4, and it's impossible to miss.

8. Bloody Sunday (30G)
-- Complete DNA Sequence 4.

9. The Conspirators (30G)
-- Complete DNA Sequence 5.

10. The Unexpected Journey (30G)
-- Complete DNA Sequence 6.

11. Bleeding Effect (30G)
-- Finish the exercises in the Assassin hideout and view Desmond's dream.

12. The Merchant of Venice (30G)
-- Complete DNA Sequence 7.

13. The Impenetrable Palazzo (30G)
-- Complete DNA Sequence 8.

14. Masquerade (30G)
-- Complete DNA Sequence 9.

15. Bianca's Man (30G)
-- Complete DNA Sequence 10.

16. The Prophet (30G)
-- Complete DNA Sequence 11.

17. The Vault (30G)
-- Complete DNA Sequence 14.

18. An Old Friend Returns (100G)
-- Defend the Assassin hideout as Desmond.

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B. Assassin's Tomb Achievements [ATAL]

Most of the Assassin tombs are fairly straightforward unless you want to find
the secret areas, which often aren't worth it because the money prize you get
is trivial, especially for the ones later in the game. Note that not finding
the secret areas has no bearing whatsoever on acquiring the achievement. When
the tomb becomes available, a marker on the map will direct you towards the
tomb's entrance.

19. Choir Boy (20G)
-- Find the Assassin's Tomb in the Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence. First
   available in Sequence 4.

20. I can see your house from here! (20G)
-- Find the Assassin's Tomb near the Palazzo Comunale in San Gimignano. First
   available in Sequence 5.

21. Prison Escape (20G)
-- Find the Assassin's Tomb in the Rocca di Ravaldino fortress in Forli. First
   available in Sequence 6.

22. Hallowed be thy name (20G)
-- Find the Assassin's Tomb in the Basilica di San Marco in Venice. First
   available in Sequence 8.

23. Venetian Gladiator (20G)
-- Find the Assassin's Tomb in the Santa Maria della Visitazione in Venice.
   First available in Sequence 9.

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C. Collection Achievements [CLAL]

This section cover glyphs, feathers, and a few miscellaneous ones.

24. Tip of the Iceberg (10G)
-- Scan one of the 20 glyphs with Ezio's Eagle Vision. Very easy to stumble
   on one without actively looking for them.

25. A Piece of the Puzzle (10G)
-- Unlock a piece of "The Truth" video. Solve the puzzle given after scanning 
   your first glyph.

26. Myth Maker (5G)
-- Find the eight statuettes in Monteriggioni. Finding them shouldn't be
   overly difficult; you should nab a few simply by traversing the city. Once
   you have all of them, place them on the pedestals in the back of the villa
   for a 8000 florin prize, although you will unlock this achievement when
   you find the eighth statuette.

27. Art Connoisseur (10G)
-- Buy a painting from Florence and Venice. Paintings can be purchased from
   art merchants. Simply buy one from an art merchant in Florence and one in
   Venice, regardless of cost, and the achievement will unlock.

28. Handy Man (10G)
-- Upgrade a building in Monteriggioni. Talk to the architect and upgrade a
   building; it doesn't matter which.

29. Podesta of Monteriggioni (30G)
-- Acquire 80% of the villa's total value. The villa's value increases with
   the improvements you can purchase from the architect, acquiring weapons
   and armor, and finding various collectibles, including feathers, seals,
   and paintings.
   Getting to 80% is relatively easy as the story progresses, although you
   can reach this fairly quickly if you start early. First, collect all of the
   statuettes to give a slight bump to the villa's value and give you 8000
   florins of spending money. Proceed to open all of the closed stores (art
   merchant, bank, and tailor) to gain a bonus, and continue to spend money
   over the course of the story on renovations. When these are exhausted, work
   on purchasing all of the shop upgrades. Finally, buy armor in sets to
   unlock bonuses, which you should be doing anyways, and burn most of your
   available money on weapons and paintings. If you're dilligent, you can have
   this unlocked by Sequence 7.

30. Victory lies in preparation (10G)
-- Unlock all hidden blade upgrades, purchase all item pouches, and acquire
   all armor sets. The hidden blade upgrades will be provided over the course
   of the story; the final one will be the pistol unlocked in Sequence 9.
   Item pouches, including medicine, poison, and knife pouches, can be bought
   from tailors. For the armor sets, you will need to purchase all available
   armor sets in addition to unlocking the Armor of Altair by finishing all
   the Assassin's Tombs.

31. Vitruvian Man (20G)
-- Find all 20 glyphs and finish all of the corresponding puzzles to unlock
   "The Truth" video. The later puzzles can become fairly complicated; refer
   to IrvineTomoe's guide if you need aid.

32. In Memory of Petruccio (30G)
-- Find all 100 feathers. Noticeably easier than the mayhem that was the flag
   achievements in AC1, but still a bore nonetheless.

33. Show your Colors (10G)
-- Once you find all 100 feathers, you will unlock the Auditore cape, which
   puts you in a constant state of 100% notoriety. Visit all cities, including
   the mountain area between Florence and Romagna, while wearing it to unlock
   this achievement.

34. I like the view (10G)
-- Climb and synchronize 10 view points. Very simple and can be acquired 
   before the end of Sequence 2.


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D. Challenge Achievements [CHAL]

A melange of achievements that focuses on various feats ranging from running,
climbing, killing, and whatnot.

35. High Dive (10G)
-- Perform a Leap of Faith from Giotto's Campanile in Florence. Giotto's
   Campanile is the tallest building in the game and is located in the center
   of Florence. It's relatively easy to climb, although I would recommend
   scaling the adjacent church to make it easier.

36. Macho Man (10G)
-- Finish a Beat Up mission. Beat Up missions are signified by the fist marker
   and usually involve beating up some poor scrub for cheating on his wife.
   The early ones are very easy, so take the first available one and acquire
   the achievement.

37. Lightning Strike (10G)
-- Sprint for 100 meters. You will often unlock this naturally, especially in
   the aftermath of sequence-ending missions, but if you need to unlock this,
   find a stretch of countryside and start sprinting (RT + A) until the
   achievement unlocks.

38. Steal Home (10G)
-- Finish a Race mission. Race missions are signified by the checkered flag
   marker, and involve running through a set of waypoints in a limited amount
   of time. Again, the achievement only requires one mission, and the early
   races are easy.

39. Mailman (10G)
-- Intercept a Borgia courrier. The Borgia courriers are red-clothed runners
   with a marker above their head, and they will flee upon seeing you. To
   unlock this achievement, you need to chase them down and tackle them (B
   while running). It's not difficult to catch them; cut down the angles and
   try to take more direct routes. Note that killing a Borgia courrier will
   give you an immediate 50% notoriety increase.

40. Assassin For Hire (10G)
-- Finish an assassination mission. Assassination missions are signified by
   the scope marker, and although the content varies significantly, they all
   end with killing someone. The first ones available are, as usual, very
   easy.

41. Man of the People (10G)
-- Toss 300 florins on the ground. You have to use the throw money technique
   to disperse money on the ground, 10 florins at a time. You will probably
   unlock this naturally, as harassers are a constant presence and throw money
   is a useful distraction tool. That said, you can speed up the process by
   hammering on the X button with throw money selected, as 300 florins is a
   fairly trivial sum.

42. Kleptomaniac (10G)
-- Pickpocket 1000 florins. Wait until you acquire the Medici cape in the
   opening part of Sequence 6, as you can pickpocket without the corresponding
   notoriety increase. Simply walk around crowds in Florence while holding
   down the A button, and you will hit 1000 florins fairly quickly.

43. Perfect Harmony (10G)
-- Purchase the Wetland Ebony and Wetland Ivory dyes. You can purchase these
   from the tailor in Forli.

44. Street Cleaner (10G)
-- Hide five bodies in a bale of hay. Easiest to do this in the Palazzo
   della Signoria in Florence, which has plenty of patrols and hay carts
   available. Kill the patrols in the square, pick up their bodies, and throw
   five of them into the same bale of hay.

45. Red Light Addict (10G)
-- Spend 5000 florins on Courtesans. This amounts to 34 transactions, and
   although you can unlock this over the course of the story by making
   judicious use of courtesans to distract the guards, you can speed this up
   by purchasing a set of courtesans, telling them to distract some guards,
   quickly moving onto another set of courtesans, and repeating.

46. Doctor (20G)
-- Perform an Air Assassination after poisoning a NPC. First, use the poison
   blade on a guard, and then start scaling a nearby building. Target the 
   guard, switch to the hidden blades, and press X for the Air Assassination.

47. Messer Sandman (10G)
-- Stun four guards at once by throwing sand at their face. Throwing sand is
   the charged attack done while using fists. The easiest way is to go to
   San Marco Square in Venice, get a group of guards to chase you by walking
   in the restricted area or punching one of them, run by more guards to
   enlarge the group, and throw a smoke bomb once the group reaches a suitable
   (say 8+) size. Switch to fists, charge up the throw smoke attack, ensure
   you've targeted at least four guards, and proceed. It is possible to do
   this during the course of regular combat, but chances are that you will be
   interrupted while charging the attack.

48. No-hitter (20G)
-- Kill 10 enemies while remaining in combat without being hit. Again, the
   easiest way is to go to San Marco Square, follow the same method in #47
   to get a large group of guards behind you (this time, you probably want as
   many as humanly possible though), and throw a smoke bomb. Switch to the
   hidden blades, and start performing low profile assassinations while the
   guards are paralyzed. Throw another smoke bomb when the first dissapates,
   and you should get 10 kills before you exhaust your supply of smoke bombs.
   You can make the process easier by positioning yourself to kill two
   guards at once with the hidden blades.
   Unlocking this without using smoke bombs is possible, but complicated by
   the fact that the stragglers in most groups will flee once you kill enough
   guards and force you to exit combat. To solve this, get a Brute (the big
   guards with the axes) in a group of ten to raise their overall morale, as
   the Brute will never retreat; make sure you kill the Brute last, however.
   Alternatively, you can complete the sixth assassination mission in
   Florence, which involves fighting against 10 Brutes, and continuously
   perform low-profile assassinations while having a group of mercanaries
   occupy the Brutes' attention.

49. Sweeper (10G)
-- Sweep five guards at once using a long weapon. Conveniently, there is a
   seeker (guard with a halberd/spear the searches hiding places) near the
   water on the southern side of San Marco Square. Engage his group, use
   the counter technique to disarm the seeker to get his spear, and start
   fleeing (press only RT; pressing A will cause you to drop the spear)
   and collecting more guards as described in #47. Once enough are following
   you, turn and charge a sweep attack. You can also drop a smoke bomb and
   pick up the spear, but the sweep attack is noticeably less prone to being
   interrupted than the throw sand technique.

******IMPORTANT NOTICE******

50. Fly Swatter (5G)
-- Kick a guard while using the flying machine. Note that this is the ONLY 
   missable achievement. If you do not get this in the closing part of 
   Sequence 8, you will have to start a new game. While using the flying
   machine, target a guard and fly over him to kick him.

******IMPORTANT NOTICE******

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IV. Copyright


This may be not be reproduced under any circumstances except for personal, 
private use. It may not be placed on any web site or otherwise distributed 
publicly without advance written permission. Use of this guide on any other 
web site or as a part of any public display is strictly prohibited, and a 
violation of copyright.

Legal jargon aside, please don't copy this and pass this off as your own; I 
am more than happy to entertain requests to host this on other websites with 
proper attribution given. 

Cheers.

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V. Credits

To Ubisoft, who deserves major props for improving on AC1 in practically
every way imaginable, and to GameFAQs, for hosting this guide.