It took me a little bit to warm up to this game.

I wasn't surprised. I was pretty much expecting it. The O.G. Fata Morgana was so utterly perfect that it being a tough act to follow was an understatement. And Requiem for Innocence starts right out the gate being so... straightforward and action-heavy. I didn't blame it, but it was like... okay, so you know the Last Supper? Okay, imagine the apostles having lunch together, like, the Wednesday after that. It's just not going to measure up - and not just because the main stars aren't really present this time around.

But Requiem picks up fast, and before long I was getting those same Fata Morgana feelings. This game nails what it set out to do, which was expand upon some of the least touched-on characters in the first game: Jacopo, Morgana, and Maria. Jacopo was a huuuuuuge asshole piece of shit in the first game, and we get considerably less different perspectives on Maria and Morgana beyond their roles. Now they're stars in their own story, and it fleshes them out a ton. By the end, I like and care about Morgana and Jacopo far more than I did before (and I've always liked Maria). There's new characters introduced, too, that are interesting and integrate well into the cast, and the new personality types bring a fresh, different air to the scenes.

The game is much, much shorter than the original (being two parts and an interlude), but it makes up for that length by having a handful of side-stories to peruse. There's a short trilogy of 'forgotten' tales that are extra goodies for different parts of the main game, a story featuring Michel and his first male friend that continues to enforce the notion that Being Michel is Suffering (But O It Hurts So Gud), and.... best of all... the most perfect, amazing, incredible addition...

A happily ever after story (LITERALLY titled Happily Ever After) for Michel and Giselle, picking up a week after the very very very last scene of the main game. They have their memories in the future, and they meet up and go on a date. That's it. It's amazing. Michel and Giselle get new modern sprites and they look so so so good. I took a bunch of screenshots and they're all from this sub-story. The author really got the impulse of after reading a story as dark and harrowing as Fata Morgana, all I really want is super-sweet fluff of a couple I love being happy. It's perfect and amazing and to be honest I was originally going to give Requiem only a 9/10 but I had to bump it up to a full 10/10 because of this.

At the end of the Backstage segment, a fourth-wall breaking fun romp where the characters talk about the story and fuck around and whose appearances in games like Higurashi I adore, the author himself speaks a little bit about the production of Requiem, and it was just great. He talks about how careful he was to make sure Requiem wouldn't cause any inconsistencies with Fata Morgana, and it shows. And there aren't any! It's just more of the incredible, wonderful story I love so much, and I sincerely want to thank him for that.

Okay. Okay! Bad things. The translation uses more... very up-to-date slang, far more than they did in the first game. It didn't bother me TOO much, but I tend toward the modern informal anyways. Even so, there were parts where even I was like, 'yeah, this is kind of breaking immersion/a little too goofy or wacky for this kind of scene.' While it results in some hilarious moments, I can see it spoiling the atmosphere for some readers. If I was the editor for this game, I'd probably have reigned it in some.

Beyond that? Pure gold.