Ikemen Revolution: Love and Magic in Wonderland (The In-Betweeners Edition) -- No Spoiler Review
Ikemen Revolution: Love and Magic in Wonderland (The In-Betweeners Edition Featuring: Fenrir Godspeed [Ace of Spades], Kyle Ash [Seven of Hearts], Ray Blackwell [King of Spades], & Seth Hyde [10 of Spades])
System: Phone
Price: Freemium (Free to play with in-app purchases available but not required)
Voice Acting: Partial (Japanese)
ESRB Rating: M (17+)
Overall Rating: Stole 7/10 ♥s
Pre-Game Perception: Alice in Wonderland, but you get to date all the weird characters. And they’re good looking this time around. And there are a lot of them. Oh, it also has something about cards fighting?
Morning-After Reflection: Alice in Wonderland, but you get to date all the weird characters. And they’re good looking this time around. And there are a lot of them. Oh, it also has some worldbuilding about Wonderland and a pretty cool concept.
Story: “In 19th century London, a chase after a gentleman curiously resembling a white rabbit leads you to a land where magic trumps reason. At the center of a struggle between Red and Black armies, 14 Wonderland Ikémen threaten to cast the spell to keep you from returning home— love.”
Interest Rating: 8.5/10. Who doesn’t love Wonderland? I know I grew up loving it, and every rendition I’ve seen. Now I get to play Alice in a game? I’m in.
MC: For a phone game, this MC has a lot of personality. She comes without a name, I’m not certain if you can put more than one name in there, as I just put a first name in. But consider that they will spell out the whole name every time they say your name in text. There are no sprites or voice acting for the MC, however, she does appear in most CGs. She has eyes! You can actually turn this feature off if you’d rather have the typical eyeless self-insert MC. I, however, seem to prefer eyes on my women, so I allow the MC to keep the two granted to her.
MC’s age isn’t given, but she lives on her own in 19th century Paris and works at a bakery before her journey to Wonderland. I would put her around 18 as she is sometimes still juvenile, but also sometimes rather adult. She is a bit young in personality for me, but if I just look at it as a cutesy game made for teens, I think the MC fits the bill. I just don’t happen to be a teenager, but that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy the character or the story.
There really isn’t a whole lot of background for the MC, as expected for a self-insert game. No mention of family. No mention of friends besides vague references once in a while that she has some. She likes to eat, and likes sweets. She likes to eat, and likes sweets. No, really, she likes to eat and likes sweets. This comes up every route at least once. There’s always three scenes at minimum where food is described in detail, and someone comments on MC’s eating habits. So, she likes to eat, and she likes sweets. She also likes cute things, like animals. Because all girls like animals… or something. Cleaning is a hobby, and apparently she’s a hard-worker, to her own detriment, which is pretty common in otome as well.
Likability Rating: Ryo. Sweet, kind, and a maiden in need of rescuing. She’s not bad, especially if you want to play a MC that is easy to fall in love with, full of fluffy feelings that make the guys go ga-ga.
Plot: The general plot is you fall into Wonderland after chasing a man who drops his pocket watch. From there you go through a decently long prologue (for a phone game) where all the romanceable characters are introduced, some not directly to you, simply to the game. After an exciting trip around Cradle (the country you end up in in Wonderland) and getting some of the background of the world explained to you, you pick your route. That’s where most of the similarities of the game end.
All routes head to the same resolution: getting MC back to the Land of Reason (London in this case). All routes have minor conflicts along the way. And all routes have the same general big plots, just executed differently depending on who you end up picking. It doesn’t get too same-y except for the fact that it follows the same flow of story no matter who you pick. I think they just wanted to tell the story no matter who you end up with, so you can romance anyone and still get the same ice cream reward, just with a different flavor.
I really enjoy playing all the routes, because although I know where it’s headed, I get to go there with someone different. And in each route I learn something new about someone else, which makes them much more interesting to me and builds up expectations for when I do finally get to do their route.
Replayability Rating: ★★★★☆ Same destination, just different ways to get there. Worth playing at least half the offered routes.
Love Interests: So, phone games come in all shapes and sizes. For the majority of them there is a prologue where EVERY LI is introduced, you get to know the setting and basic ideas are explained, then you’re thrown into a “choice” section where you pick your LI. Ikemen Revolution follows this model. There is no recommended route order and I haven’t come across any game spoilers that change the way I’d approach a different character. I suppose a few routes explain more of the big plot than other routes, but since the story is different for each character, there are really no events that repeat outside of the big expected ones. Each character (that’s currently released) has two endings, Romantic Ending and Dramatic Ending. When you finish chapter 26, you simply pick the ending you want to do as long as you have enough points on that side of the scale, I believe it’s 60 points in this case. How the game functions will be further explained in the UI/Mechanics section. There are a few characters that have an… Act 2, basically. It’s called Through the Looking Glass, and I haven’t finished all current routes, so I haven’t gone to the second act for those characters yet. Hang tight, we’ll get there (in another year).
There are currently (July 2021) 13 released characters, with four more planned to be released. I decided (500 days ago) to pick my man simply based on shortest to tallest, and amazingly, I’ve managed to hold to that, but I’m going about half the speed since my first post on this game that was done last September. Unfortunately, Daddy Sirius is still dead last for released routes because he’s a tall boi at 6’1”, but by the time I get to him, I’m sure Dum and Dean will rival him for height. If all of this means nothing to you, it’s okay! I’m not talking about any of them in this review anyways. Getting back on track, I did five characters last review, and I’m doing four more this time around. These are the in-betweeners, for the most part. I liked the shorties, I like tall bois, and I can accurately say that I liked being in-between the guys :cough: the in-between guys too.
I tackled Fenrir Godspeed first in this group, or tried to, he’s pretty good about not being tackled and the MC really isn’t the tackling sort, much to my displeasure. I wouldn’t have minded getting a little more physical with Fenrir… This 5’8”, pink-haired ray of sunshine was a really awesome route and not because of anything that happened, but because he is just the best cinnamon roll I’ve seen in a game. He’s so genki. He’s so loveable. It helps that Kakihara Tetsuya is his seiyuu, since Kakihara is great at having that voice full of youth and vigor and happiness. Am I painting a picture of perfect bliss yet? Well, the story doesn’t go that way, I mean, it’s full of sweet feelings and happy moments, but it does bring the drama like every route in the game, so don’t worry. It’s just that Fenrir really works to keep things at an upbeat and exciting level that all I can remember is how cute he is through the whole route. Yeah, yeah, something tragic happened at some point, but Fenrir was my strength and I forgot about whatever it was MC was crying about at the time.
I jumped to Kyle Ash next, the 5’8”, red-headed Seven of Hearts. This aloof kuudere turned out better than I thought he’d be. He shows up often in most routes, because he’s a doctor and doesn’t seem to hold any sort of loyalty to Red vs. Black when there are patients or people that need help. He also is pretty open about being a heavy drinker in most routes. MC’s disapproval of his drinking habits annoyed me, but she wasn’t overly judgmental about it through the whole route. She kind of just accepted that it was going to happen, because Kyle was like, “I’m an adult! I do what I want!” But really, he’s a functioning alcoholic, so maybe he should curb the drinking a little? I liked that MC got to learn and grow in this route, since most of the time she just hangs around and cleans or cooks. In this route, MC becomes Kyle’s assistant, and I just think about how little first aid was known in that time period. Pretty cool. I also liked that Kyle is a little bit of a broody boy, but incredibly sweet. He pouts like a tsundere, seems oblivious like a kuudere, and treats everyone with the kindness of a cinnamon roll. He’s my type of guy.
Next up was King Ray Blackwell, and I was looking forward to this one since he shows up in everyone’s route more than a few times due to his position in the Black Army. The young king who gets in trouble with Fenrir like they’re schoolboys still, who hides that he pets kitties in the alley, who is friends with Loki and is always looking out for MC’s wellbeing-- yeah, I wanted that dude. I didn’t get that dude. I’m not sure what happened, but Ray in his route is different from Ray in every other route. Yes, he’s still friends with Loki, and still pets the kitties, but he is way more serious in his own route, and even does some things that I felt were out of character despite his character being different from what I’d seen for 16 months. He seems to have little faith in MC, and it almost feels like the writers were aiming for some sort of rivalry between them to keep us all guessing “will they, won’t they?”. I came away from his route with less than enthusiastic feelings, and don’t think I really connected with Ray in the looooong time it took me to finish his route. I don’t even know why MC fell in love with him, because it almost felt like she was the only one pushing herself to do better, and Ray was just some unattainable dude doing his own thing most of the route.
I stuck around the Black Army to romance Seth Hyde before I moved back to the Red Army for some hot/cold lovin’. (Jonah is next. I’m sure it’s going to be all sorts of tsundere insults.) Seth broke the 5’8” height of this group by an inch, which still makes him an in-betweener to me. This 10 of Spades, overly feminine “big sister” plays up his role as always overbearing and scolding both men around the MC and the MC herself, reminding her time and time again that men are “gross” and “dangerous” and even a few comments about them being “wolves” - a favorite metaphor to otome fans. LOL I’m kidding. Otome fans hate the “men are wolves” line. I don’t, but it is so common that I can see why people hate it. I’m down for the predator/prey dynamic, though, so let me be the little bunny chased by wolves.
Anyways, back to Seth. Seth was also very unexpected. His route gets more adult than any other route I’ve done. I was playing and after a few lines I had to check to make sure I was playing the same game I have been playing for over a year, because I thought I stumbled onto the 18+ parody version or something. Like when you look up your childhood cartoon and find out that nothing is safe from becoming porn. This was not my chaste and cutesy Wonderland that I’d come to know. This was more than hinting at mature play and - though I’m not complaining - I’m not sure how to proceed knowing how steamy it can get but doesn’t! Seth’s route was full of drama and mature content, and I actually really liked this story except the MC lost a lot of her voice during it. So much was said to herself in her head, and like, if she just said those things then the story would have been so much better, imo.
Boy Crazy Rating: 89%. I really enjoyed many of these husbandos this time around. Though Ray was a let down, I’ve certainly added Fenrir and Kyle to my husbando harem. Seth can come and go as he pleases, because nothing’s going to tie him down.
Romance: I still maintain that IkeRev is the cutest, fluffiest game I’ve played. The majority of each route is about falling in love with the LI of your choice. Sometimes it takes longer. Sometimes it’s sweeter. Sometimes it’s quick and violent-- Oh, no, not in this game is it ever quick and violent. Well… it’s not violent love. Seth’s route proved the quick part to be very true. Anyways, phone games tend to turn the romance up to 100% because of the nature of story-telling for the game. There’s a lot of introspection dealing with the MC of IkeRev. She’s constantly fighting with herself on whether she loves the LI or not, or if he loves her or not, and I suppose it helps with the build up to keep the story questioning, but I think it just becomes an annoyance after a while. Please just get to kissing, and once the romance is established I can get my mature content that rarely gets to happen in this game.
Heart Palpitation Rating: B. This group of boys still brought some love, though in strange ways compared to the first five I diddled dated.
Spice: The ever painful Spice section of my review. Why would anyone want smut in their romance games? Because some of us are sexual creatures that like to do the do with our husbandos and waifus in our heads or in stories. Deal with it. Buuuuut, Ikemen Revolution is a free to play game, and I keep up with that no money rule (most of the time). So since I’m not willing to dish out the dough for the good stuff, I’m left with all the normal stories and only moderately warming encounters. Most of this game is so very chaste that I have grown used to it and no longer question why I can’t get some M-rated content because I know I’m a cheapskate. However! Let me tell you about the steamiest route I’ve played in this entire game (so far). Seth’s route brings on the heat. It was hidden in the new releases, it seems. I’m not kidding, there is not just implied sex, there is actual sex. I may have taken a few screenshots of the writing for-- ahem. For science.
Cold Shower Rating: Fail. Despite one route being sex on fire, the other three were all about the emotional attachment and not how to make parts fit together. IkeRev still gets a fail because there’s not enough to make me need a moment to recompose myself.
Angst: Ikemen Revolution tries so hard to bring the angst, but they continue to write the MC as the sunniest person with a will of steel that doesn’t bend and only warms up when there’s sunny times; so she ends up feeling like a sun-warmed towel that embraces you after you come out from swimming in the ocean on a early summer day. What I’m trying to say here is that even though the subplot of the story can get dark and angsty, MC makes it seem all rather small in comparison to how supportive and happy she is. I’d say this group of boys brought in more drama than the previous batch I had, but it’s still not up to sad-making or tense-making moments. A lot of the game had me saying, “Oh. Well, that happened.” And then everything is sunshine and rainbows again. I seriously cannot take the dark themes in IkeRev seriously.
Drama Llama Rating: 5/10. The drama llama is amiable enough to be pet and even hand fed. They care little about your reservations, and will be complacent when you timidly reach for them.
Voice Acting: To say this game has voice acting is almost a fallacy. They call it partial, but it is really only a few lines out of the many that exist in the game. I understand that voice acting can be expensive, and it is a free game, so I get why there aren’t many lines read by some top named seiyuus that they have on cast. If you really like the voices for certain characters, you can set their card as your background wallpaper, and they usually have a few lines that they say to you when you poke them.
Expression Rating: Ryo. Too few lines to actually rate, but good for what you get, I guess.
Art: The art is really good, imo. So, now that I’ve been around for a bit, I’ve seen a few different styles and a few different art qualities, and I have to say that IkeRev is still good quality for a free game. Hell, it’s good quality even if it wasn’t free. Every sprite has two outfits, though only one pose. They have a few different facial expressions. And even though most of the cast are dressed in military uniforms, they all are personalized enough that I feel they’re distinct to the personality of the LI. The majority of the game is the VN section, so you are going to see a lot of the people you’re trying to romance, and I think the art is just so smooth and detailed that it’s just… swell. It’s swell.
Still Picture Rating: ★★★★☆ Many quality. Such consistent. Very characters.
CGs: I really like the CG art in this game. All the pictures are very well done and I’m constantly snapping screenshots of every new CG I get. Granted, that’s not many. Because other than cards you might procure, you only get three CGs a route. That’s not many, and when it takes an entire month to get through a route, you’re more likely to get more battle cards than route CGs. They’re still beautiful, imo, so I’m only going to complain about the quantity offered to free to play players, like myself.
Look at this Photograph Rating: 86%. They’re fun and fabulous, but they’re few and far between. Give me more pretty boys to look at, and maybe some more risque shots, and I’ll totally bump this score up.
UI/Mechanics: If you’ve never played a phone game, let me lay down some tracks so you can figure out how Ikemen Revolution works. To start, it’s free. No need to pay for anything unless you want to. There are options to buy magic crystals, which is the premium currency, in order to then buy other items that can improve your gaming experience. I spent $5 on the Tea Party package, and have played for roughly 18 months. You can gain magic crystals through various means in-game, like daily log-ins, (rarely) secret lessons, and placing in events. The other currency is Lin, which is just a fancy word for gold. This comes from battles, both winning and losing, daily log-ins, sending greetings to friends, and collection event rewards. This is also a chapter ticket game, meaning you get five free tickets a day that do not stack with any other day, and replenish at 5am PST. With those 5 tickets you can read one full chapter a day; there are 27 chapters per route, all chapters have five parts, hence the five tickets = one chapter. But wait, there’s more!
This is also a dress-up game, a gacha game, and an energy game. This is where those battles come in. You get cards that you add to your deck (two cards only) and for 20 energy you ghost battle other players (really, you just hit a button and it does it for you). But where does the dressing up come in? Well, your beauty score (easy to think of as strength for battles) is determined by the amount of beauty you have on all items you own, including what’s in your closet; you do not have to wear them for them to up your beauty (strength). This strength is added to your card strength, and if your strength is higher than your opponents, you win. Why does this matter? I’m getting to that, I promise. So, you build your beauty, to battle for intimacy, with energy, and gain gold as well. While playing through your chapters, there will be intimacy challenges, and avatar challenges. In order to pass an intimacy check-point, you just have to have more intimacy than required. In order to pass an avatar check-point, you have to purchase the dress-up item with gold or crystals (premium currency).
It seems all rather complicated, but isn’t once you go through a challenge or two. Just log in a few times a day to spend your energy on battles, and read your chapters, and that’s how easy it can be. Eventually you’ll have enough of a rating that you don’t need to even screen opponents in order to find the best to win against. I’m at that point. I hit it around month four of this game, and now that I’m a year past that, I never lose. I just do my battles and always win them. The richer get richer is what it comes down to.
For those that have played phone games before: the UI and mechanics are pretty simple. Once you learn how to navigate the menu, everything is laid out in an easy navigable manner. It doesn’t take much time to load anything, so pages are pretty quick. And the menu will pretty much tell you if you have anything you haven’t looked at yet.
What’s this button do? Rating: B+. There’s a lot going on, but it isn’t hard to learn or figure out. Plus, if I remember right, they guide you through a lot of the first time uses of features.
Errors: There’s a lot of quality control that went into this game. Of course, since it is a translated game, there are a few spelling, grammar, and punctuation mistakes. The most common one I see is a word missing that could trip someone up, but context will imply who is doing what and I haven’t had a time that I’ve found it confusing in the least. Since I play f2p, I don’t keep track of every mistake over the month it takes per route, but there really are very few. Few enough that I’ve dismissed most of them, and insignificant enough that I’ve never taken a screenshot to laugh at until I cry. I find English mistakes terribly amusing. #SorryNotSorry
The biggest issue I have with IkeRev is the initial loading of the app when I go to power it up several times a day. I often hard-close all my apps, because I don’t like them running in the background. Anyways, the point is when I click the app to launch it, more times than not, it won’t launch correctly. I get a blank screen inside the IkeRev border at the top and bottom of my screen. To which I just hard-close the app, then re-launch it and then it works like nothing ever happened. I haven’t figured out why it does this yet, and have had no issues with any other part of the game, but this has become so constant that I just launch the game twice most times and have stopped caring that it is an issue. It is, however, still an error, so I thought I should mention it.
Here there be Bugs Rating: Pass. No game-breaking bugs here. You’ve got your normal translation infestation, but nothing out of the ordinary. Rest easy.
Background Music: I rarely play with the music on for IkeRev. Since I constantly log in and out of several games a day, I typically have my media volume all the way down. Which means I don’t hear the hellos of whomever is on my home screen, but I’ve kind of grown used to the “partial voice acting” of IkeRev and don’t really need to hear it. I’m getting away from myself here. Point is, the BGM is rarely on, so I couldn’t care less about how it sounds. There was a time I listened to it, but not any longer. It’s fine, I guess? It’s just not good enough for me to care.
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