TL;DR It's like The House in Fata Morgana but worse in every aspect except the music.

I wish Steam allowed us to give games a rating instead of a binary yes/no, because even though I don't think it's a bad game, I can't recommend it. I loved The House in Fata Morgana which will be further referred to as "the first game", everything about it was great: the characters, the art, the soundtrack. A Requiem for Innocence is a prequel to it, so I can't help but compare the two, and this game loses out to the first one massively.

As I understand it, the main purpose of A Requiem for Innocence was to fill in the gaps of the existing story, which it did with mixed results. The story starts out strongly but quickly devolves into mediocrity and becomes a slog to read through after the first 1-2 hours, depending on your reading speed. It feels repetitive and stretched out, and despite multiple minor events taking place, none of them feel significant enough but make you wonder instead why they were included when they're so boring to read about. Pretty much the only parts of the story I found engaging were the very beginning and the very end. The part where Morgana lives in a cottage by the lake selling herbs was straight-up copy-pasted from the first game, and my question is... why? Why make us re-read something if you're not going to include any new information to go with it? Why not summarise it in a few sentences instead? As other reviewers noted, word choice in dialogues is often poor and breaks the immersion, as characters use modern slang despite the game events taking place during the Middle Ages.

Speaking of characters, the game introduced a few new characters all of which I found flat and boring compared to characters from the first game. I didn't feel any attachment to them, and I didn't feel like they added anything valuable to the story either. The only exception was a character from a bonus episode, which sucks, as they got the least screentime compared to the rest. With that said, characters from the first game shine brightly in this one as well, notably Maria, Jacopo, and Morgana.

The only things I liked about this game was the soundtrack, which is still excellent, and the bonus episodes, with Assento Dele being far better than the main game. I can't say I regret buying and playing through the game, but overall it was a "meh" experience, nothing close to the lasting impression the original The House in Fata Morgana left on me. I don't think you'd miss out on much if you skipped this one, to be honest.

This game is meant to be played by those who have completed (and liked) the original The House in Fata Morgana. That's why it makes me wonder why most of the main story is just a repetition of things told in the main game. We already know what happened and how it ended. There is no mystery in that. Of course, there are some additions to the story - a couple of additional characters and more detailed description of events taking place. However, it all feels like filler content. The two new characters are just dumb and feel out of the place. The new chapters are not inspiring and sometimes feel useless and unneeded. At least, this story ends with some new insight, which is satisfying. But to get to that, I needed to endure all the things before.

The original game was tragic, beautiful and poetic, and this one is mundane, straightforward and dull. Even the language is changed to the worse. Now it's too simplistic and slangy. I do understand that it's justified by the characters being the lower class and living in the slums, but it draws attention by being so much different from the original.

Aside from the main story, there are a few little episodes, featuring different characters from the main game. Those episodes feel definitely closer to the original. I think it could be the stories created for the original game, which were cut for some reason. One of them though (Happily Ever After) is different and adds the new events to the ending of the main game, however it's unneeded fillers once again. The longest among extra episodes is "Backstage". I didn't like it in the original, and this time it's extra huge, but still weird and even more boring.

It makes me sad to give this game a negative review, especially after taking liking to the original one. However, out of ~17 hours that I have logged in this game, only 2-3 were actually good: the very ending of the main story and maybe some of the sub episodes. Everything else is just repetition and fillers.

There's just some subject matter you can't make palatable, and a 21 year-old man's infatuation with an 11 year-old child is one of them. Characters in the story even condone this infatuation after a certain point, making matters worse. Even more so that the character is written almost as if he's ENTITLED to her. Even in her death, he entertains the idea that he should be the one by her side despite continuing the abuse and torture she endured prior to meeting him.

It feels as if the author, through the course of all of the game's writing, wants SO BADLY to push this character into her abuser's arms (so much so that there's a ridiculous final scene unlocked after all the main/sub episodes have been finished) that it almost feels an attempt at SHAMING the character into forgiveness.

The main character's story of a downfall did not for EVEN ONE SECOND need to entertain these ideas of having romantic feelings for a child only to then end up being her abuser at the end in order to be TRAGIC. And it's certainly not in ANY way romantic. This story exists plainly because someone wanted to write a story about being in love with a child, and honestly, after how well the original game pulled off touching on hard subject matter, for this story to be what it is is just hugely insulting and tarnishing to that game's legacy.

I like the depth this game gave to some characters and most importantly to Jacopo and Morganas story but honestly I couldn't focus too much on it since their age difference makes me so uncomfortable. The way where some conversations and topics were going, were just too much for me. Worst part is how everyone else completely encouraged his behaviour, even leading it to sexual topics.
Completely ignoring this, the story between them really is amazing and heartfelt but adding a few years to her age or making Jacopo younger really wouldn't hurt.....
The bonus chapters and after storys were 50/50. I loved some, disliked others.

I'm really not sure if I recommend this game, feels wrong to me. I feel like the first game is much better and completely enough without unnessecary perverted details.

The sub stories were nice, but I don't have anything good to say about the main game. It was a huge downgrade from the main game, both in terms of writing and content. (Other reviews talk about this in more depth, but characters in a medieval setting saying things like "totes" and "bestie" just constantly took me out of the story.) And in my opinion, it tarnished what the main game was. I don't know why they decided to write a "love story" between an adult man and a literal child but it was disgusting and extremely uncomfortable to read. The other characters joking and encouraging it while admitting it's pedophilia was even worse. The last bonus story pushing Morgana into the arms of her abuser as a would be "happy ending" was the final nail in the coffin of an awful addition to what was a beautiful game that handled so many topics so kindly. I would have returned this game if I'd been within the two month period, I really regret buying this. Save your enjoyment of the first game and skip this addition.

I think a game that goes out of its way to justify a relationship between an adult man and a child and make it seem really sweet and cute is actually really gross and bad

don't waste your time. the first game was amazing, but this one is unreadable. i kept opening it, reading little drops and closing it again half an hour later. useless to expand on the original story that was already told from all possible angles in the previous game (Jacopo and Morgana). the narrative is watery like the soup Morgana makes at the brothel, and i hate Ceren. she reads like a Phoenix Wright character. don't get me wrong, I love PW, but it makes her stand out like a sore thumb among the other charcters that (at least in the first game) were reasonable and real. but whatever, if fanfiction is your cup of tea and you'll read anything, you'll probably like this. not even the side stories with other characters have managed to hold me for too long before i simply held space bar to skip all text and get to the end. btw, you can get all achievements like that. the few choices in between don't affect anything at all.

Stopped playing when I realised the 21 year old main character was in love with an 11 year old child. I'm not playing that dodgy ♥♥♥♥.

The House of Fata Morgana might be the best VN I've ever read. I've read other VN's which hit just as hard, but Fata Morgana largely kept that pace up for over 30 hours which is astonishing.

But Requiem for Innocence is written differently. In the original, there wasn't anyone introduced to the story who didn't seem realistic and able to catch your emotion. You got attached to everyone fast. And while people didn't speak in period-appropriate English, you still got a sense of the time you were supposed to be in.

In 'Requiem for Innocence' anyone who isn't a main character seems shallow and buffoonish, and even the main characters, with the exception of Maria, aren't what they were. The characters use modern slang when they speak. In fact it was one such statement where Jacopo was saying something 'sucks' which jarred me out of the setting for the last time and caused me to refund it. When these people talk, you don't get the impression that you're in France in around 900 AD or so. You get the impression that you're in a modern Japanese high school.

And without spoiling anything significant, some of the motivations to me don't make sense, as well as Jacopo's mannerisms. Like in one part it's said Jacopo doesn't sound like he comes from the slums because he wants people to think of him as a gentleman and he desires to be able to move in those higher circles without attracting attention. I know there needs to be a backstory for that in order to make the plot make sense, but for a peasant from the Early Middle Ages to just pass as someone from the upper class because they choose to - that's not ever going to happen. I'm not expecting dead on historical accuracy but if you're writing a story that is set in a certain time period then you have to at least somewhat play by that periods rules.

My belief is that this was written for a different audience than the original VN was - certainly a different audience than me. Either a younger audience or a more female audience or something like that. The tone is just very different. Even the artwork is a little different, overall more like 'romance novel cover' than what you're used to from the first story. You'll pick up on it quick.

I don't know why the reviews for this are so high. Perhaps people picked this up after time away from Fata Morgana whereas I came to this the day after finishing the original, so the excellent writing style and plot of the original were still fresh in my mind and the deficiencies here were obvious. Or maybe people gave Requiem for Innocence far more slack because the original was so good. Me, I gave this FEWER chances because of its pedigree, not more. My experience of the first novel was so good that I don't want that memory to be tarnished by a mediocre follow up. As such I wouldn't recommend this at any price.

I enjoyed the first Fata Morgana, and there were some good things about this prequel. it provides some backstories or additional fleshing out of some of the characters from the original. I found some of this interesting and some of it less interesting, but there wasn't enough to push this over the "recommend" threshold.