Thank you MangaGamer for sending us this game to review!

Not too long ago, I reviewed The House in Fata Morgana, and rewarded it one of the highest gameplay scores I have ever awarded any game (it’s hard to beat perfect). It’s an excellent story, and incredibly memorable. As one of the best visual novels I have ever read, I gave it a strong recommendation, with also a strong warning – this is full of content that is very dark, bloody, has tons of foul language, and is not for the faint of heart. It’s also chock-full of other appropriateness issues, and should be read by adults only. All of that applies here.

What also needs to be said, very clearly, is that this is a sequel work, and as such, most certainly will spoil the first game, and the first visual novel must be read first for this to make any sense.

Do not read any further in this review if you have not completed The House in Fata Morgana! Spoilers for Fata Morgana are impossible to avoid going forward! Go read that review, complete that game, and then come back here.

Well, that was awkward. You read The House in Fata Morgana, and now you have also already read A Requiem for Innocence, because you loved Fata Morgana so much that you had to read even more because it existed and you couldn’t get enough. I totally get you!

If that’s not you, well, that’s okay. I just figured that would actually cover most people reading this review right now. Or, you like to see what other people think of games/stories you love. I get it; I sometimes do that too! Moving right along...

The House in Fata Morgana: A Requiem for Innocence is made up of a titular main story, along with several shorter ones. Each of them explains or expounds upon something covered in The House in Fata Morgana.

The main story, A Requiem for Innocence, is a retelling of what happened during the last door in the main game. In the previous telling, you see Michel going ‘back in time,’ meeting each of the characters from when Morgana was still alive, and seeing what happened from their perspective, as Michel tries to reach Morgana’s heart. In A Requiem for Innocence, you find out what actually happened – that is to say, not including Michel’s meddling with Morgana’s memories, but things as they happened before Morgana turned into the witch that tormented those around her for around a thousand years.

It starts off with Morgana being chained to the ground in Lord Barnier’s estate. She is being held naked, against her will, and with cuts and slices all over her body. Morgana, and many other people, think her blood has healing properties, so the lord has been serving her blood to his guests. It’s a nasty and gruesome sight. You finally get to see what that evil lord looks like, and he’s even crazier than I thought he would be.

Rather than just reading about the slave revolt that removes him from power, you get to see everything that led up to it, as well as the mechanics of it all. It was awesome to watch him get what he had coming to him. From there, you get to experience much more of Morgana’s happiest days of her far too short life; when she was living in the brothel with Maria and the girls.

You really get to see so much of Jacopo and Morgana’s early relationship, and how that grew. It was quite charming, even if the day-to-day reality of living in the back of a brothel is far from ideal. In the main game, I felt like the titular character was shown much more for her dark side (understandably) than the nicer aspects of her character; now you get to know the young her a lot better.

The trials and tribulations, and the character growth and ultimate destruction of Jacopo is really the other highlight of A Requiem for Innocence. It’s also amazing to see how so many characters could have changed things massively for the better – if only they’d taken the opportunity to do so. In many ways, this is an incredibly heartbreaking tale, and absolutely should not be missed. It’s sad to see Jacopo come so, so close to being a great man – and to have that just thrown away, bit by bit, by a combination of short-sightedness, misunderstandings, and a sense of desperate self-preservation. That, and the events that led to Morgana’s imprisonment, are an amazing lesson on what not to do, and a really sad look in how far and quickly one can fall.

The other stories available are much shorter. Assento Dele is a really neat story about how Michel, before he met Giselle, had made another friend in Imeon. I don’t want to spoil this character too much, but it’s a really nice story that introduces you to a really awesome character.

Tales Wasted Away in Obscurity are three very short stories, just a few minutes long each, that fill in some small pockets in various points in the past. You learn more about what happened after the events of the first door in one, you learn more about a character from the second in another, and more about Michel’s family as well.

Happily Ever ~After~ is a really sweet continuation of the final ending from Fata Morgana. You get to see what Michel and Giselle are like once finally reunited. It’s cute, heartwarming, and finally, a story without any sadness whatsoever. Definitely what those two long had coming (even if Giselle lied to her parents, tsk tsk).

Like the main game, there is a Backstage, which is a really neat way for the developers to talk directly to the readers, and a secret episode unlocks once you’ve read everything else. I’m not going to say any more here other than to say that it’s totally worth it to get through it all just for this alone.

Like the main game The House in Fata Morgana, there is a ton wrong from an appropriateness perspective. There is blood, gore, and the works, though rather than the gruesome deaths by a serial killer, you have the gruesome deaths at the hand of a tyrant lord, including forced cannibalism. (It’s really nasty.) Every curse word in the book is used, including but not limited to '*ss', 'sh*t', 'd*mn', 'h*ll', ‘b*st*rd’, ‘b*tch’, and 'f*ck', and sometimes with God used in conjunction (or standalone as well, including inappropriate uses of Christ). Reincarnation is still a central part of the story, upon which it simply would not work if it wasn’t present. Girls work in a brothel, with all that such entails (not described too much, thankfully, but nor is it ignored, either). A few characters show massive amounts of cleavage. A side character is revealed to be bisexual at one point. As previously mentioned, a young girl is shown naked (with required parts covered by her hair). Slavery, alcohol use, drunkenness, and more is all accounted for. This story is for adults only.

The music is awesome, like it was in the main game, The House in Fata Morgana. I wouldn’t put it on quite the same level, and some tunes are repeated or remixed, here, but it’s still really great, with some beautiful pieces. Graphics are low resolution, but still in a wonderful art style that I wish was used more often. The art and graphics are still presented in the outdated 4:3 aspect ratio. The interface is still a bit wonky like it was in the main game, but if you are playing this in the proper order, you’ve already gotten used to its quirks.

The House in Fata Morgana: A Requiem for Innocence is an absolute must-read for anyone who has already read The House in Fata Morgana. There’s really not much more to say than that. All of the things that make Fata Morgana great are still very much here, though I found it interesting that since the element of mystery was largely missing (you know the ending before you start if you read Fata Morgana), you had to be driven along by the great writing and storytelling, instead of an unending desire to know what’s going to happen. This meant it was a bit easier to stop reading when other things in life required me to, but I still went back to it as soon as I could. And I suspect, if you followed my instructions above, and read Fata Morgana already before looking at this review, then hopefully my suggestion to just read it already is enough for you to do just that. The moral concerns are just as massive as before, but if you read Fata Morgana already, then you already know what to expect and have accepted it as such.