Ikemen Sengoku - Mitsuhide's Route Review

Today I will be reviewing a mobile game route. It's been a while since I've written about the Ikemen series, actually. Funnily enough, my posts about them seem to have the highest number of views. Mobile game stuff in general seems to be more popular, most likely because more people play them.

Mitsuhide's route came out about a month ago, and I've been playing since about a week after it released. I was actually a little bit excited for this one! It's the fourth IkeSen route I've played so far. The other ones I completed were Kenshin, Ieyasu and Sasuke. (I just never bothered to write about them on this blog...)

There are spoilers below, be warned!

(I didn't know what picture to put here so just enjoy this screenshot from the character selection page!)

When I started playing Ikemen Sengoku almost two years ago, I didn't think much of Mitsuhide at all. I couldn't really understand why he had a sizeable fanbase when there were plenty of other perfectly fine characters. But then after a while, I thought about it, and I saw the appeal in him. If it were about five years ago, he would've probably been my favourite. His type I used to be super interested in. Eventually, I began to gain an interest in Mitsuhide, and when his route was announced, I was getting quite hyped.

So last month, I picked up my iPod Touch and started playing IkeSen again for the sole purpose of Mitsuhide. Like usual, I selected the Dramatic Ending because drama is always entertaining. My expectations were high after hearing good things about the route, and I'm glad to say that it was as good as people said it was. 

The plot occasionally got me on the edge of my seat. In some parts it was super exciting, but then the chapter tickets would run out and I'd be sad. Usually when the tickets run out, I just forget about everything until the next day, but this one made me think about the plot and anticipate what was going to happen next.

Mitsuhide I found rather unpredictable. There were a lot of plot twists that I didn't see coming at all. I was honestly convinced that he was betraying Nobunaga until the very last second before he was going to kill him. His romantic side was also good and sometimes put butterflies in my stomach (which is also a rare very occurance for me!), but sometimes I found it slightly cheesy, but I always feel that about IkeSen's romance scenes. The sex scene he got with the heroine at the end had a nice CG, but I can never read those parts in this game seriously, sorry.

My personal favourite scene in the entire route was when Mitsuhide put on that stage show and he kissed the heroine right there in front of everyone before running away with her. The bit where he escapes prison and visits our MC in the night was also some good stuff, even if I didn't read the premium story for it.

The plot I really had no problems with. It had so many twists and plenty of dramaticness. It's probably the best route I've read so far. The only issue I have is something I've had with every other route in this game: the heroine ditching her whole life in the future for some dude she met three months ago. (I know there are endings in the Vita game where she takes her lover to the future, but I think only one of them was put in the app version) I honestly don't care how much she claims to love them, giving up your life for someone you haven't known all that long is a bad idea. Trust me, I saw it happen in real life and it did not work out well at all.

Hideyoshi's relationship with Mitsuhide I also really enjoyed. The character interactions in IkeSen are always top notch in my opinion. Before I didn't know all that much about Hideyoshi, but now I appreciate him a bit more. I still don't want to start his route though. Another stand out character was Kyubei. He didn't even have a sprite, but even so I still liked him a lot.

I'm glad that the villain wasn't Kennyo or Kenshin like it usually is. They created this new bloke with a sprite called Yoshiaki, and he's very scummy. There wasn't much to his character other than that he was a scumbag. He feels more like a one off villain than a recurring one, but since he has his own artwork I suspect he'll come again. Even though he has literally no redeeming qualities, I bet there's still going to be a small group out there begging Cybird to give him a route.

One thing every IkeSen route has that I absolutely adore is the Unrequited Love feature or whatever it's called. This route's Unrequited Love character is Yoshimoto. It may be the only time us English speaking players will get any love from him outside of events, because his route is currently stuck in the Japan only Vita game that I keep mentioning. Yoshimoto gets a good chunk of screentime, and I didn't mind his arc here. The scenes where Mitsuhide got jealous were great fun too.

The heroine in this route is OK like usual. I still don't know if I love or hate IkeSen's MC. Her translation is absolute genius, some of the stuff she comes out with really makes me laugh, but she is a pain in the bottom for me to self insert onto. When I read her dialogue in my head, it's always read in someone else's voice. Sometimes she does annoy me, especially when she tries to apply her modern values to things. She says stuff like "war is bad!" when she's in a place where it's going to be common and there's nothing she can do about it. Still, I do appreciate her personality because it's different to most other heroines.

In conclusion, Mitsuhide's route was awesome. It's probably the best mobage route I've played outside of Mystic Messenger. I don't really know if I'm going to play any more IkeSen routes after this. Kennyo's route I have an interest in, but that won't be out in English for ages. It looks like I'll put the game down for a while. The only other mobile game I'm playing right now is SLBP which I actually am enjoying a lot (to be honest I just downloaded it because of the voice actors). I still have Ikemen Vampire installed on my iPod, but I'm going to wait until Shakespeare or Dazai's routes get localised before picking it back up.

I hope all of you enjoyed this post! See you next time!!

(It seriously annoys me that Blogger puts ugly white borders around all the pictures! I don't even think I can turn it off...)