When I first played Innocence, although there were plot points left open, I honestly didn't see where the story could go, it felt very much like it was over and a nice place for it to be. With Requiem the writers decided "Hey, actually not.". The story in this one has its ups and downs and starting with the downs, besides like mentioned it sort of undoing the happy ending of the previous, it has some issues. Amicia for example feels like a different character not only compared to the previous game, but also within different parts of this game's story as well. There were also plenty of moments that were immersion breaking in a way, things that Amicia could have definitely have gotten really sick from and die, but the story chose to ignore it while people around were dying from less. Random characters also get introduced, seemingly meant to be of importance only to be thrown out within a chapter or two. There's also a lot of "you're dead/you lost; but actually not, it's part of the story" which can be made interesting in videogames, but I feel like it gets borderline overused in this one, it would have been more effective to have it just once, two max. I also mentioned before that some points from the previous game were unsolved, but this game didn't touch on those at all so there's no resolution to those.
Enough with the bad, some of the ups of the story are that we get to learn more about the Macula and previous carriers. I found the story also effective at making me care for the characters and their well-being. Another aspect I liked was that the story didn't act ignorant regarding gameplay aspects from the previous game, something common among sequels as they try accounting for some players not having played the previous game, instead it acknowledges it like "Hey, remember this thing we used to do before?". This a minor point, but I also liked that it didn't waste much time getting into the action, a positive present in the previous game as well. I found quite interesting that we can also see a visual progression of Amicia's character model as she goes through the story, not many games do that, but it's always nice to see that attention to detail.
Going over gameplay now, there were some annoyances like occasional getting stuck in the map's geometry and some jankiness, especially in chase scenes when you're controlling Amicia from the front. Rats also don't always get off you after you get back into the light, this was an issue present in the previous game as well. One more annoyance is that the game has buffs that you upgrade passively which are inconvenient to do so as it's not super clear what upgrades one and not the others. You're also unlikely to fully level up up all of them within one playthrough so if you care about achievements, NG+ is necessary. And finally, some levels feel repetitive when it comes to how to progress through them.
As for positives, the level environments are varied, and so becomes the gameplay too on the second half of the game [spoiler]as different companions can provide different helpful skills[/spoiler]. We also get a new weapon, a crossbow. It's fun to use, but the ammo is hard to come by.
Another great thing that no one expected or asked for, but great that it was added, is that there is a secret collectible you can obtain that provides some buffs. It's very easily missable, but I won't say more about that, you can look it up if you wish to find out more.
Overall I'd say my experience with Requiem was good and that it's a good game despite finding it previously unnecessary.
