Ikemen Sengoku (Oda Forces Edition) -- No Spoiler Review
Ikemen Sengoku (Oda Forces Edition Featuring: Nobunaga Oda, Mitsunari Ishida, Mitsuhide Akechi, Hideyoshi Toyotomi, Masamune Date, & Ieyasu Tokugawa)
System: Phone
Price: Freemium (In-app purchases available, but not required)
Voice Acting: Partial (Japanese)
ESRB Rating: M (17+)
Overall Rating: Stole 7.5/10 ♥s
Pre-Game Perception: Fashion designer goes to Sengoku era Japan and teaches samurai how to love, and probably some modern-day tricks as well.
Morning-After Reflection: A relatable MC manages to survive and thrive in a foreign environment, with plenty of comedic gold.
Story: “You've just nabbed your dream job as a fashion designer when you're sent hurtling back in time to an alternate version of Sengoku era Japan!
After accidentally changing history by saving the warlord Nobunaga Oda from near death, you must survive 3 months surrounded by Japan's most famous and handsome Sengoku samurai and ninjas before your next chance to make it back home. But here's the catch: you can't fall in love with any of them!
Can you handle the challenge? Or in a world where it takes one man to conquer a nation, will you conquer his heart?”
Interest Rating: 7/10 When I picked up IkeSen I was still trying to figure out what I’d like in a phone game, or an otome for that matter. The rating was high, the premise was a little out there but I thought I’d give it a shot because it couldn’t be any stranger than time-traveling and falling in love with vampires.
MC: MC in this game is an endless bag of surprises. She has an established personality at the beginning of the game, in the prologue, but as soon as you pick a route to go down she changes pretty noticeably from one dude to the next. Sometimes I like her, sometimes I don’t. In most routes, however, she is relatable, and at least a little funny. MC starts with no name. She is never on-screen, only showing up in CGs, and not even 100% of them. But she does have eyes! I know, a weird thing to be excited about, but I think eyes are very expressive and removing them from the MC of CGs lessens the impact, and thus my enjoyment of the picture.
So, let’s cover the things that stay constant. MC just landed her dream job as a fashion designer. :crickets: Right... I guess that’s about it. I suppose she also thinks life is precious, but depending on who she ends up dating she might look the other way when they continue their warlording ways. She never refers to family. She just moved because of her dream job, so she hasn’t established friends in the area she came from. I’m not certain if she can cook, because she never attempts to use the cooking facilities 500 years before modern conveniences. And she doesn’t seem to love cleaning, so that’s a plus, but every once in a while she is delegated to cleaning tasks. Although those rarely last. She is, however, thirsty. And one of these ikemen are going to quench that thirst for her, I promise you that. It’s the quenchiest.
I don’t think her age is ever really covered, nor are any of the Warlords’ ages. Historically, I believe they varied greatly at that time, and some would not be such handsome men to look at. I would put MC at a mature early 20s, because I vaguely remember something about the first man she meets being in his mid-twenties and her thinking he was older than her. I could be making this up entirely. Point is, MC doesn’t act like a child, and I rather enjoy that. There is nothing wrong with young women being otome heroines, but I prefer romances that aren’t reminiscent of high school love, because I’m not about the fluff. That’s my preference. MC is short with long, light brown hair. She’s a modern woman, thrown into a situation she doesn’t understand, in a place where women were very different from modern times, and I honestly enjoyed the commentary she gave in the prologue, so I kept at Ikemen Sengoku because it was hilarious how different everyone expected MC to act and how she acted that was perfectly reasonable to our time period.
Likability Rating: Yu. MC barely falls to the Yu rating due to how strong of a personality she has in the prologue, and how she is never absent from the story in any route. Her inconsistent personality between routes sometimes appeals to my tastes, and sometimes is the opposite of what I enjoy in a MC.
Plot: The plot is very straightforward. MC finally gets her big break doing something with fashion, which is her dream job; there’s some sort of event that causes her to suddenly be thrust 500 years in the past, right in a burning building where Oda Nobunaga is sleeping? They never really go over this, but he appears to be sleeping, like, in all his armor or something. At which point MC wakes him up and is like, “Dude, the building is on fire. We gotta go.” The prologue is great, in my opinion. MC is stellar in the way she is written with reactions and Nobunaga is his confident, self-assured self, and MC has no clue what’s going on or who he is and it makes the whole interaction hilarious to me.
Anyways, MC meets all available LIs (save two who are introduced, but not to MC), and eventually ends up hanging out with Oda Nobungaga and all his fellas. From there she finds out that in 3 months another wormhole will open to bring her back home to the present, so she just has to make it until then. Each story is different enough that it doesn’t feel same-y. Although this is happening during the Sengoku period, historical accuracy is very not happening. So every LI path you go down is going to be different than every other. And all of them focus on the LI and their involvement with the warring period MC has found herself in. The only issue with repetitiveness is starting out (after the prologue) when MC is getting her footing in the new time period, and that there are certain plot points that seem to always come to pass, just in a different manner. For example, but not necessarily included in every route: there’s a battle/war, some moral wrestling with murdering people, MC gets kidnapped, and of course, the confession scene.
Replayability Rating: ★★★★☆ Since each LI has their own story, the routes aren’t exactly the same, but since the writing seems to have a script to stick to, every route has the same conflict devices to overcome. I’ve played more than half the released game at this point, and will continue to play.
Love Interests: As of right now (02/2021) Ikemen Sengoku has 10 of 14 LI routes released. Ten is a rather large number to try to tackle in one review, so I have taken the liberty of breaking it up into something easier to swallow. We start our journey with the Oda forces, which include the men on (primarily) Oda Nobunaga’s side. That gives us six sexy singles to mingle with in this alternate historical setting. At a later time I will be doing Takeda-Uesugi forces (5 LIs), and eventually a third with the remaining questionable alliances (3 LIs). Since this is an alternate historical setting - ya’ know, since you’ve gone and changed history by saving Nobunaga - there are no story spoilers from simply knowing history. There are also no spoilers in anyone’s route for anyone else’s route because each route gets to explore a different “what if” with the freedom to make anything happen in this new history.
After the prologue, you’re thrust into the “Choose your Route” screen, where you pick a man you know nothing about and the story works its way to bring you two together. Each route is 13 chapters long, with a split between a Romantic or Dramatic ending at the end of chapter 10. Two LIs (Nobunaga and Masamune) also have what’s called an Eternal ending that you get access to if you’ve completed both endings and then play through for a third time to hit chapter 10 and pick the Eternal route. More information on gameplay will be covered in the UI/Mechanics section. Point is, pick the guy you wanna do, because you will do him. There is doing in this game. Pick any order you want. I went with birthday at first, because a certain LI has a birthday the day before me, so I figured we were meant for each other. I’m going to list the LIs by order of introduction in the prologue, sticking with only Oda forces, of course.
Which starts us with Nobunaga Oda. It took me a while to get around to Nobunaga, only because I don’t typically dig the poster boys. But eventually I was ready to tackle this red-eyed demon, and… there wasn’t much tackling. I mean, it is probably one of the spiciest routes, and MC is seriously thirsty in it, but I really hated the MC overall and the way the story progressed. It took me months to get through Nobunaga’s route, and now I just pretend I never did it so I don’t hold the game as a whole accountable. Let’s talk about the MC first. MC comes from a time when murder and war are relics of the past, not everyday occurrences like the warlords of Sengoku are used to, especially Nobunaga. I don’t think I have to tell you what this means, but I’m going to do it anyways. MC preached throughout the entire route that killing is bad, and only bad people kill, and doesn’t give a flying f*ck about why one might need to kill, it’s bad. It’s needless drama, honestly. I mean, good for people that stand up for their beliefs, but wanting to bang a dude that is known for his murdering habits and simultaneously telling him no banging as long as he’s all murdery is… frustrating. I don’t like when anyone pushes their moral beliefs on anyone else. I much prefer if someone were accepted for their differences, not being required to change. I just had the hardest time getting behind the MC in this one.
Nobunaga, himself, was pretty okay. It was a sexually tense route. If you enjoy him in anyone else’s route, you’ll probably like him in his own. At least his character doesn’t shift much. He sure makes an impression, and finds the MC interesting because of how different she is compared to women of the time period. But that’s common for all of them, because MC has ideals and worldviews of someone 500 years after they cease to exist. Because of how little I liked the MC in Nobunaga’s route, I don’t think I’ll finish his second ending, or third for that matter. And I really had a hard time enjoying the LI for who he is. I’ll just get my Nobunaga-ness from him in other routes. Granted, with a lot less sexing, but I guess I can live with that.
Mitsunari Ishida comes dashing into the prologue with obvious concern for Nobunaga, but also the MC. The first thing the MC notices is how beautiful he is, apparently on par with being a fashion model. She neglects to mention his care or consideration for her, a stranger, that he goes out of his way to attempt to make comfortable. I liked Mitsunari. I liked him a lot. He’s the sweetest LI of the bunch, and awkward, and oblivious, and brilliant, and he is exactly my type. Yes, sometimes I like them dangerous and threatening, but I seem to like the complete opposite as well, where they’re just a cinnamon roll that evokes the need to protect or hug tightly because they are so touch starved. It doesn’t hurt that he has those lovely violet eyes that only grow brighter when looking at the MC.
Speaking of the MC, there’s not much to say about her in this route. She takes on the role of a care-taker, and treats Mitsunari with kid gloves. She’s almost the big sister that’ll smack some bullies upside their head for messing with her younger brother, except she never sees Mitsunari as a brother, which is nice. She sees him as someone that needs protecting, while he also comes to her rescue in the areas she needs protecting in. They’re a good team and only grow stronger together. I really enjoyed this route, though I know the softbois aren’t for everyone. If you want awkward antics and to see some character growth, this is the route for you. I plan to replay him again once I’ve gone through everyone, just for the wholesomeness Mitsunari offers and see where the other part of his route takes me.
Now onto that sneaky snake, Mitsuhide Akechi. How happy I was to be playing while his route was released. I didn’t start with him, but I knew I wanted to get in bed with the bad man who (historically) betrayed Nobunaga. Is it my type? Probably. On one route he says so sweetly to the MC “Keep it to yourself or I’ll sew those pretty lips of yours shut.” And at that moment I knew I needed to see what he was all about. So I jumped in the deep end once his pool was open. It was a good time. Some of it was unexpected, and some of it was expected. It hit all the points I was hoping for, and gave me more enjoyment than I thought I was going to get out of it. I found MC to be relatable and funny in this one. She was scared when I thought she ought to be, shocked when it was a reasonable reaction, accepting in the right circumstances, and played more than just a plot device in this route. There are, of course, some things that I would have rather been different, but I was good with the way she was written.
Mitsuhide, himself, was everything I had hoped for and then some. How do you make an intelligent, conniving man better than he has been in the little snippets you get from other routes? You make him also fall in love with the MC. Smartboi. Dangerous. Questionable at every turn. We only get glimpses of what’s going on in his head, and I like the puzzle that is Mitsuhide. I like that we made this secretive kitsune warm up to us. I like how both of them grow, at least a little, from start to finish. Is good. I’ll come back for this kitsune to experience his other ending once I’ve gone through everyone once.
Hideyoshi Toyotomi was an interesting ride. In the prologue you interrupt a fight between him and Mitsuhide, only for Hideyoshi to look at you, politely ask your name, then tell you he’ll deal with you later. Is that a threat or a promise, Hideyoshi? Turns out it’s a threat, as at the start of his route the two of you are not real enemies, but you certainly are not on friendly terms. It was full of interesting tidbits of information that made me curious about other characters, and in general it was a feel good route with precisely the right amount of drama and romance for me. I liked the MC in this route. She was as stubborn as I expected someone from the 21st century to be, but also rather ignorant of the 16th century customs and dangers. She developed a relationship with Hideyoshi naturally, and it all made sense to me. I really related to her decisions and reactions in this route.
If I have one complaint, it’s that Hideyoshi wasn’t explored as much as I wanted. Yeah, you get his backstory, but a lot of the route is more how he deals with different situations than himself. Most people have plots that revolve around them, and touch on the overall story, but not Hideyoshi, all plots were just him being a good boy and taking care of the problem. I suppose that’s a good thing, because it does show what type of man he’s remembered as, but they touch on this background for him that I really would have loved to delve into. They also expose a part of him that I’d really like to explore, but maybe that was further given light in the premium stories that I didn’t pay for. Will do again. Need some of this good boy.
It’s probably the eyepatch. Anything sounds good coming from a man with an eyepatch. Masamune Date is the eyepatch wearing warlord. Historically accurate in that regard, they decided to keep that feature in this game, and who doesn’t love an eyepatch wearing, passionate, reckless, and charming man? I’m sure there’s someone out there that doesn’t, but I’m not that someone. He’s the flirt on the Oda side, and he makes it known when you finally do meet him in the prologue. He’s also a man that does what he wants, which he also makes known in the prologue. He was certainly someone I was interested in, so I let him carry me away. Masamune is a much more complicated character than I thought he was going to be, and I really appreciated that. He is so moe despite his super manly exterior. I had a great time on his route and will certainly play it three times just to see every angle of this man.
The MC on Masamune’s route was pretty good too, imo. She played damsel in distress a few too many times for my liking, but never in the sense that she wasn’t looking to save herself as well. It was the writers’ choice to make her a plot device so many times. MC is also a fighter in this route, so if you want someone that will give the one-two-punch, this is your lass. She also was rather funny to me, and I really enjoyed this route all around because of the dynamic between her and Masamune. Those two were made for each other, despite me liking other LIs more than Masamune.
If there ever was a tsundere, it would be Ieyasu Tokugawa. He might not be the tsundere character that comes to mind when someone mentions the trope, but out of the Sengoku boys, he certainly is in this game. Sulky tsundere is what I think of when I hear his name. From the moment you show up in the prologue, until the end of his route, he tsuns and sulks hard. Want to hear how worthless and unimportant and troublesome you are? Ieyasu will tell you all you want. Oh yeah, and how much he doesn’t care what you do, even when he does care he still doesn’t. He gets some character growth in his route, and probably more of his backstory than any other character gets revealed, so it was neat seeing that in this game.
On the other hand, I’m not sure the MC gets much growth at all. Maybe I was jaded by the time I played Ieyasu’s route, despite it not being the last of these men that I did, but I didn’t really care much for the relationship built between Ieyasu and MC, nor did I care much about MC. Since Ieyasu doesn’t express himself much, MC makes up a lot of what he’s thinking in her own head, and I’m not sure it is always the case. They don’t banter like she did with other LIs. And she kind of just exists as a plot device most of the time, without actually having a strong presence or reason to be in most situations. I wasn’t a fan, but she didn’t annoy me either. It was pretty mediocre in general. I don’t know if I’ll come back for Ieyasu again, but he’s not completely out of the question for a second round to see his other ending.
Boy Crazy Rating: 87%. Most of these boys are welcome in my husbando harem, even the one I didn’t care for because it wasn’t his fault that I didn’t enjoy the route. I’ll take a lusty oresama anyday. It’s the confidence. I really enjoy their interactions in general, and I like that everyone loves the MC in every route.
Romance: For such a short story, it has a surprising amount of romance. It’s not all fluffy and full of dates, but the relationship blooms quite organically through the three months in game time that the story covers. Since the game is set up to be done over a month, it follows the same sort of set up for events to happen. What I’m trying to get at here is that you can expect the relationship to progress at roughly the same speed of your playtime, not in-game time. So, for example, it might be chapter 10 when they get to f*cking, which would be day 20 if you play by the 5 free tickets a day method. Yeah, that’s more on the spicy side of the game, but I think you get the idea; there is romance that builds through the game and as you near the end of your 30 day journey, you’re likely going to find more of it. That being said, we’re told more often that the romance exists than we’re shown. Some routes do a good job of expressing what’s inside the characters, but in every route there’s the outside characters informing the reader that MC and LI (on route) are in love.
Unfortunately, it may be the mobage model, or my (often) sporadic playtime given to the game, but I don’t really develop those deep feels for the characters. That’s the biggest drawback to rating the amount of romance in this game, I don’t feel a whole lot for, or about them, unless I’m not enjoying it, then I feel a whole lot. I can tell you what my favorite romance is in Ikemen Sengoku, but when I hold it up to my favorite romance from a full otoge, it pales significantly in comparison. Even a mediocre romance from a full otoge outshines most of these 30 day, 5 hours of reading romances. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy my phone games, and the model of playing 15 minutes a day works well with my life, but there’s simply not enough substance there for me to really connect or develop feelings for the LI & MC combo.
Heart Palpitation Rating: B-. It is a romance focused story that is simply too short and shallow for me to fully believe. Feelings exist, but I need something more to touch this stone-cold heart.
Spice: This is the section of my review that I look for each time I read my own reviews (because I do, and what about it?), and what I want to know about in every review I read. Is it spicy? How hot is it going to make me? The answer depends on how much you’re willing to pay. Ikemen Sengoku is a freemium phone game, and due to that the hot Hot HOT stories are all locked behind premium currency, which I don’t buy. Unlike Ikemen Vampire, the event stories seem to be more comical than sexy, and even when they are sexy, it’s always very tame in the free portion of event stories. The main story is probably more steamy than IkeVamp, but there aren’t a lot of foreplay or smut moments. The MC examines how she feels a lot, and she is thirsty, so anytime sexually tense times come about we get a nice commentary about it. I rather enjoy that about this game. MC is hot for every guy, and that makes me at least a little hot for them too.
Overall, the game is what I’d expect for a free M-rated game. You get bits of spice, but not enough that I’m thinking about how much a scene made me squirm. There are moments, one route is rather risque with mouth and tongue on various body parts; another talks about the morning after when MC is admiring the bite marks on her body. And now that I’m considering it, I hadn’t realized that every LI is written with a different sexy aspect to him, so there’s bound to be one that is right for your tastes as long as they don’t go too far into kink territory. I’m guessing the premium scenes can set your groin face aflame, but can’t say for certain. And unfortunately, I’m going to have to fail the game for us cheapskates free to play players that only get a taste of the goods instead of the full monty.
Cold Shower Rating: Fail. If you have the money, it probably is an easy pass, but I don’t and so a fan and a glass of water is all I need when things heat up.
Angst: I’m actually surprised at the low amount of angst from this game. It isn’t angst-free, but it doesn’t go overboard despite all the warring that was going on at the time. They really brush over the death that could/did happen in the story. Rarely does someone - even a villain - die, which makes me grumble a little because I prefer my authors to kill off characters as needed or Red Wedding the lot of them to remind us that we’re all puppets to their whims. And there’s war here, there are actual skirmishes and battles, but the amount of lives lost is never covered, just that there’s fighting. I guess this keeps the game from getting too heavy, especially since every LI seems to have some angsty background that drives them to be a warlord. When we are exposed to the darkness within a LI, I wish we could delve deeper, but the story doesn’t allow the time to get into it enough to fully explore the depths of the emotion connected to the events. What can I say? I enjoy my angst. Make me cry. For real real. Not many games can, so give me that tragedy that rends me to my soul. IkeSen doesn’t do this, they just touch on it and I’m left wanting.
Drama Llama Rating: 6/10 Tumultuous times and murderous LIs don’t deliver on the levels of angst we could have seen. The drama llama is giving us threatening stares, just don’t approach and you should be fine.
Voice Acting: It’s another partial voice acting game; and although I understand that it costs money, and the game is largely free to play, and there are constant content updates, I still wish it were more integrated so I can give credit where credit is due to these wonderful seiyuus. But I can’t. As with the other Ikemen series games, you largely get lines only when you win battles, but even fewer than both IkeRev and IkeVamp because IkeSen is older than the other two so it’s kind of like their jumping off point for what works well. (Cybird does have older games, but I didn’t care for them, so I just pretend they don’t exist.)
Since there is just so little to actually talk about here, I can’t give it much on the rating. Recently there has been a push for backgrounds with voiced lines, but those are difficult to come by for free to play players. And is it too little too late at this point? Possibly. To be honest, I can barely recognize who is who when I hear them on the title screen because there just aren't enough voiced lines in the game.
Expression Rating: Ka. Give me more sexy lines. Give me more lines with emotion. We get so little that there really isn’t even enough for me to consider it a voiced game.
Art: The age of Ikemen Sengoku kind of shows in the art, it’s very five years ago mobile art. That’s not to say it is bad, because I certainly don’t think it is, it just isn’t as beautiful as Cybird’s other Ikemen games, imo. It has detailed backgrounds (that get reused often). It has unique characters where none of them look like another. Everyone has their own color scheme, and I’m sure keeping to the theme of the game wasn’t easy when designing pretty eye-candy for the masses. Each LI sprite gets a few outfit changes (I think three at most), and a few facial expressions. Unnamed characters do not show up (not surprising). And overall the quality is spot on.
Still Picture Rating: ★★★★☆ Many thematic. Such dated. Very eye-candy.
CGs: I’m actually surprised at the lack of CGs that come with this game. Unlike Ikemen Vampire and Ikemen Revolution, Ikemen Sengoku doesn’t rely on cards to pass beauty battles, but instead dress-up and room design gachas. This means there are much fewer CGs available because they don’t need pictures for every card. So you get about three per full story (both endings) and then every once in a while (roughly once every 6 months) they do a boyfriend Gacha that gives you more CGs for your room. CGs from the story are exactly what I would expect from the art-style. They’re detailed and typically cute or dramatic moments that make a big impact on the characters for the route. The CGs you can get from gachas range from standard, to beautiful, to low-effort sprite pasted on a solid background. Each CG is easily found under the warlord of your picture.
Look at this Photograph Rating: 82%. Not many CGs for how long I’ve been playing due to limited availability. Nothing I’d care to revisit outside of the game, so all-in-all it’s good for what it is, but not good enough for me to want to come back to.
UI/Mechanics: It’s kinda fun to me to see how Cybird has figured out what works and what should be pushed aside in order to make a mobile otoge that brings in money. IkeSen came before IkeRev, which came before IkeVamp, and it wasn’t the first game either, but that’s not here nor there. The point is that Ikemen Sengoku is older than the others so it has some features that were adapted to be better for the user in later games, and some that are gone. The dress-up aspect, for instance, is still going strong in the newer games. The castle decorating was canned for card collecting. Basic instructions for how to play are given if you choose the right routes first (which I didn’t) but if you’ve played other mobage it isn’t hard to figure out how things work.
In IkeSen you collect items from gacha, sign-ins, and stories to dress up your avatar and decorate your castle. Your points from both get added together for your strength in defeating other players in the player battles. You do not have to have items displayed in order to gain the points from them, simply hold them in one of your storage areas. Through player battles you gain intimacy to pass love challenges and continue on with the story. In this game your intimacy is reset every route change, however, you keep all your beauty items so you still have a decent time passing player battles.
The game is pretty easy to manage as free to play, but all the good stuff is locked behind premium currency, which is difficult to accumulate. You can watch ads each day for 10 coins, but the ads sometimes cause problems and even if you get 10 a day the content to pay for costs many hundreds of coins to purchase. You’ll be dropping some dough if you want those premium stories, or epilogues to events, or the boyfriend gachas for new CGs.
The UI isn’t complex, though some things are not optimised the best; such as news and events being in different sections that both need to be looked at to get rid of the announcement marker. Once you learn where everything is, it isn’t hard to navigate. The menu pretty much has everything you could possibly want with little digging to find anything. And no matter where you go, the home button is (almost) always at the bottom of the screen so you can start over if you get lost. Some screens can take a few seconds to populate, so there is loading time and nothing saying that it is loading besides one of the characters that have a little message for you that doesn’t relate to loading at all. I miss certain LIs saying lovely things to me since they get changed out every time a new route releases.
What’s this button do? Rating: B-. Not the best menu I’ve seen, and some mechanics are not explained well or at all. But it’s pretty easy to navigate if you have experience from other games, or are good at mapping and deducing on your own.
Errors: The quality for Cybird games is top notch. Rarely do I find a spelling or grammatical error, and I’ve never had an actual game error save for one related to a single event. That’s it. One event error that was fixed within a few hours and I’ve played for a year. The translation never feels odd or confusing, and even pop culture references are easy to understand and often hilarious to me. Point is, there’s nothing to see here. It’s all peachy-keen.
Here there be Bugs Rating: Pass. Even less than your expected household pests. Easily passes the error check.
Background Music: It’s a mobile game with like three soundtracks that get repeated throughout the game. I’m sure creating music for a game isn’t an easy feat, but there’s nothing to really talk about here. I often play with the sound off, since the LIs rarely speak and the music is pretty generic. It fits the scene and game, and I probably enjoy the “battle” music more than anything, but even then it’s not something I’d seek out. I can read my 5 parts of a chapter in silence, or while listening to my own thing outside of the game. I don’t need a mood to be set, the writing does that well enough, imo.
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