A Requiem for Innocence acts as a prologue to The House in Fata Morgana. You will want to have played The House in Fata Morgana first to get the most out of A Requiem for Innocence.
The story delves into Morgana's past, explaining how she came to be revered as a saint with miraculous healing powers before falling into the hands of the Lord. We get to see how she suffered and degraded in the Lords care until Jacopo rescued her. Morgana and Jacopo's strange relationship is explored in detail as both grow as people. Of course it doesn't last. Jacopo unintentionally becomes the very person he saved Morgana from. Morgana in turn, unintentionally changes from a revered saint to a maligned witch.
We already got to see a good chunk of Morgana's past in the previous game, so I really enjoyed the insight into Jacopo’s past. He seemed like such an irredeemable jerk in The House in Fata Morgana, and to some extent he sorta is, but A Requiem for Innocence helped to showcase his better qualities and what led to his eventual self-destructive, downward spiral. How his desire to make things better for the poor, mixed with a few mistakes, set him on a path of no return. It was sometimes painful to watch Jacopo go from being the best person in Morgana's life to the worst. However, it does help the reader to understand his character better.
There are few short side stories that come with the game:
- Assento Dele is a snippet of Michel's life in the mansion before Giselle.
- Tales Wasted in Obscurity consists of three short, text-only adventures that further expand upon the first game’s characters.
- Happily Ever ~After~ is a slice of what happened after the ending of The House in Fata Morgana.
The game is broken up into two parts. The first part focuses largely on Morgana's past and her eventual meeting with Jacopo. The second part focuses on Jacopo's struggles after the brothel raid and his eventual change. There is a lot of reading - approximately 12 hours worth, with one or two choice options. It is also impossible to make a "wrong choice" that results in a game over screen. For convenience there is a skip button that lets you fast-forward through text you have already read. The fast-forward option will stop automatically at new dialogue or choice options.
There was a lot of backstory that wasn't conveyed in the original game and Requiem for Innocence does an amazing job of expanding specific characters. It actually made me feel bad for the biggest jerk from the original game. There isn't as much punch as there was in The House in Fata Morgana, but its still emotionally impactful and worth a look.
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