The House in Fata Morgana: A Requiem for Innocence is a prequel to The House in Fata Morgana, the bulk of which expands upon the story of the Jacopo of Morgana's time. Much like the visual novel its based on, it starts off at a somewhat glacial pace. Unlike its progenitor, however, patience failed to reward me—despite generally positive fan reception. In the few moments that it manages to capture what made the first visual novel special, the depicted events still tend to feel like unnecessary extensions. At worst, they feel like desecration. Its best moments depict the moments following Jacopo's execution of the vile Lord Barnier, after which he descends into madness as he transforms into what he once despised. His slip mirrors that of the later Jacopo's, and much like then, it feels like a natural path for someone such as him to take—with a fitting conclusion, to boot.
Where the prequel stumbles hardest, however, is its waffling regarding whether or not it wants to frame Jacopo and Morgana's relationship as something that "could have been." In The House in Fata Morgana, both Jacopos' relationships with younger women were framed as something that unfortunately historically tended to happen—and as malicious. The tragedy in the tale of the second Jacopo is not just his mistreatment of Michelle and the failure of their relationship, but also includes the rest of the time they spent together. From the moment they first met, Jacopo utilizes the power imbalance between Michelle and himself for his benefit, leading her down a path she can't escape from. Jacopo's presence is the source of tragedy—whether it be the one in Morgana's time or the one that came after. A Requiem for Innocence loses sight of this in a pretty bad way, and there are moments where it seems that the author wants to impress upon the reader that they should want Jacopo and Morgana's relationship to "work"—as if it weren't a doomed idea from the start. For example, when tasked with presenting one of the characters with a flower, picking Jacopo's long-time friend Maria will result in her offhandedly scolding Jacopo (and the player, in a bit of fourth wall leaning) for not picking Morgana (or even Ceren, another underage character and a somewhat unwelcome presence). It's a very odd moment for a character who was less than thrilled with Jacopo's fawning over Morgana earlier in the story. In the end, Jacopo does get his comeuppance for the horrible deeds he commits in the latter half of the visual novel, but the scene in which his and Morgana's souls meet once more feels like a narrative misfire. Despite her still harboring a hatred of what he's done to her, the visual novel frames this scene looking back on their relationship as something bittersweet, something that could have been "done right" if Jacopo simply hadn't forgotten what was most important to him. As if a relationship in which a man just had to wait until the child he liked was 16 in order to tell her his real feelings could have been anything but a tragedy from the very beginning. In The House in Fata Morgana, the horror of this is clear. In A Requiem for Innocence, the author is not so certain, and it very much soured for me what already felt like an unneeded addition to the finely crafted, if somewhat flawed, story of the original.
A Requiem for Innocence also includes two other short stories. One is a short epilogue to the original visual novel that follows the modern day Michel and Giselle on a date. It's nice to see the two happy, it's cool to see them bump into the modern day equivalents of other members of the cast, and it's cute enough to justify its existence. It's fluff that lacks the gothic flair that made The House in Fata Morgana stick with me so strongly, but as with most fluff, it's harmless and optional. The second short story follows Imeon, a sick man who ends up on ye olde times Michel's doorstep that wants to speak with the witch rumored to live in the mansion. Michel putting up with Imeon as he overstays his welcome is entertaining enough, and the twist near the end feels fitting for the tragic world of Fata Morgana. These short stories were the definite highlight of A Requiem for Innocence to me, and felt worth reading even if not terribly substantial.
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