Impressive visuals, muddled storytelling
I enjoyed 3/4s of Plague Tale: Innocence, right before the story flew off the rails and landed straight into anime territory for some bizarre reason.
Requiem doesn't have this problem, but the overall story and character development did make me raise my eyebrow a number of times.
Without spoiling much, the way Amicia rationalizes her actions throughout the game is questionable at best, and psychopathic at worst. And since the game is completely linear, we are forced to enact her obsessive behavior even when it's clearly immoral or delusional.
Another issue is the overabundance of rats. In the first game they were filthy, scary, and slowly spreading everywhere, but here there are literal oceans of them right from the start so their dramatic impact is greatly diminished.
The gameplay is almost identical to that of the first game with some extra tools and segments thrown in for variety. It's serviceable, if not particularly inspired, but it's clear that the devs were concerned with delivering an affecting story, not a "fun" experience. Presentation is stellar, voice performances are excellent, and music is once again memorable and haunting.
Requiem is a solid yet flawed story-driven experience that fans of the first game will most likely enjoy (term is used loosely here, since the game is intentionally oppressive and miserable).
It's a 3.5/5 game but I will round it up to reward the devs' ambition.