This game broke my heart. I recommend it, but you have to understand before you play that this story is a tragedy. The hopeful ending of Innocence does not return for Requiem and you will not walk away with a warm feeling. I was so sad that I cried messy, ugly tears. Still, it was a beautiful game with wonderful characters and I don't regret the experience. I just desperately wish for a happier ending.

I will say that, in hindsight, there are issues with the narrative, but I didn't notice as I was playing because the characterization is just so good. There were concepts introduced that didn't get fleshed out completely, times when the story seemed to contradict itself a tiny bit, and the story seemed to move far too quickly to feel entirely natural. I thought the ending was somewhat forced. Without spoiling anything, I'll just say that it was a bit too engineered. And while I loved the new side characters and thought they were well written as characters, they were pushed into the narrative too quickly to "fit", and thus had much less impact than the orphans from Innocence. Hugo, Amicia, and Lucas were still outstanding, and I adored every second they were onscreen.

One of the biggest disappointments to me was the characterization of the rats. In Innocence, they were a character of their own. They were an antagonist to start, unstoppable and mysterious, and they eventually became an ally and our path to victory. In Requiem, the rats were purely a soulless device of destruction and obstruction. Cinematic, certainly. But devoid of the same weight they had in Innocence.

There were some gameplay changes I liked, such as the crafting changes, and some I didn't care for. As for combat, I felt more pressure this time around that I didn't appreciate. It was nice that stone ammo was infinite and you could carry more pots, but that didn't seem worth the trade-off of 80% helmeted enemies. There was no alchemical way to deal with them like in Innocence, and that was probably so you'd use some of the new weapons, but I found those new weapons were actually more stressful than helpful to me due to their limited availability. I also thought the enemies were a bit uninspired and repetitive, and I didn't enjoy combat as much as in Innocence. For example, the slavers were the exact same enemy types as the Count's men, just reskinned. This eventually made the enemy encounters tedious and boring. And certain sections of the game seemed present only to lengthen the runtime (ex: the slaver section), and could have served better by being cut entirely, trimmed down, or shifted to be more exploratory and puzzle-oriented than combat/stealth-focused.

Finally, I know the developers wanted to up the ante, but (this might be a bit spoilery so read at your own risk) by the end of the game, they have destroyed three whole cities in true medieval "Michael Bay" style dramatics. And it felt like they were trying to beat their own record with every city. The first one took about 2-3 days, the second one was done in roughly 36 hours, and by the third one, we don't even get to go inside the gates! It's being destroyed as we arrive. It didn't create high stakes as much as it came across as ridiculous.

In spite of these issues, I was never exhausted by playing. I was never itching for it to end. I loved every second of it until the final five minutes, which truly gutted me. But only because I, like Amicia, was so desperately holding on to hope for a better end.

All in all, the thunderous praise from Innocence still holds true for Requiem - the brilliant characters, the amazing voice acting, the beautiful and chilling and terrifying and incredible environments, the wonderful music. I don't like tragedies and, yes, this game has some flaws, and yet I still recommend it. It was an emotional journey that I will never forget and I loved it in spite of the heartache that I still feel days later.

This game broke my heart. I recommend it, but you have to understand before you play that this story is a tragedy. The hopeful ending of Innocence does not return for Requiem and you will not walk away with a warm feeling. I was so sad that I cried messy, ugly tears. Still, it was a beautiful game with wonderful characters and I don't regret the experience. I just desperately wish for a happier ending. I will say that, in hindsight, there are issues with the narrative, but I didn't notice as I was playing because the characterization is just so good. There were concepts introduced that didn't get fleshed out completely, times when the story seemed to contradict itself a tiny bit, and the story seemed to move far too quickly to feel entirely natural. I thought the ending was somewhat forced. Without spoiling anything, I'll just say that it was a bit too engineered. And while I loved the new side characters and thought they were well written as characters, they were pushed into the narrative too quickly to "fit", and thus had much less impact than the orphans from Innocence. Hugo, Amicia, and Lucas were still outstanding, and I adored every second they were onscreen. One of the biggest disappointments to me was the characterization of the rats. In Innocence, they were a character of their own. They were an antagonist to start, unstoppable and mysterious, and they eventually became an ally and our path to victory. In Requiem, the rats were purely a soulless device of destruction and obstruction. Cinematic, certainly. But devoid of the same weight they had in Innocence. There were some gameplay changes I liked, such as the crafting changes, and some I didn't care for. As for combat, I felt more pressure this time around that I didn't appreciate. It was nice that stone ammo was infinite and you could carry more pots, but that didn't seem worth the trade-off of 80% helmeted enemies. There was no alchemical way to deal with them like in Innocence, and that was probably so you'd use some of the new weapons, but I found those new weapons were actually more stressful than helpful to me due to their limited availability. I also thought the enemies were a bit uninspired and repetitive, and I didn't enjoy combat as much as in Innocence. For example, the slavers were the exact same enemy types as the Count's men, just reskinned. This eventually made the enemy encounters tedious and boring. And certain sections of the game seemed present only to lengthen the runtime (ex: the slaver section), and could have served better by being cut entirely, trimmed down, or shifted to be more exploratory and puzzle-oriented than combat/stealth-focused. Finally, I know the developers wanted to up the ante, but (this might be a bit spoilery so read at your own risk) by the end of the game, they have destroyed three whole cities in true medieval "Michael Bay" style dramatics. And it felt like they were trying to beat their own record with every city. The first one took about 2-3 days, the second one was done in roughly 36 hours, and by the third one, we don't even get to go inside the gates! It's being destroyed as we arrive. It didn't create high stakes as much as it came across as ridiculous. In spite of these issues, I was never exhausted by playing. I was never itching for it to end. I loved every second of it until the final five minutes, which truly gutted me. But only because I, like Amicia, was so desperately holding on to hope for a better end. All in all, the thunderous praise from Innocence still holds true for Requiem - the brilliant characters, the amazing voice acting, the beautiful and chilling and terrifying and incredible environments, the wonderful music. I don't like tragedies and, yes, this game has some flaws, and yet I still recommend it. It was an emotional journey that I will never forget and I loved it in spite of the heartache that I still feel days later.