YMMV / Ikemen Sengoku

• Base-Breaking Character: Kenshin, the resident yandere of the cast, does more extreme actions in his route than any other character's. Some players are fine with these actions, saying that his past trauma from losing his first love makes them understandable and that his sincere efforts to prevent himself from hurting the MC and his yandereness being portrayed not as one-dimensional craziness but as a complex mixture of fear, loneliness, and PTSD that can't just be magically cured by love overnight make him more sympathetic than most other yanderes. Other players don't think Kenshin's tragic past or other sympathetic qualities are enough to justify him doing things like imprisoning the MC, forcibly giving her hickies, and waging war with not just Kennyo but also the Oda forces despite the latter having never tried to harm the MC unlike Kennyo and that he's too psychologically broken to believably develop a healthy romantic relationship in the limited time span of his route. A number of players from the second camp also feel that Kenshin was more likable in the first four chapters of his route where he was more of a Defrosting Ice Queen and that his descent into more yandere-like behavior after that was a letdown.
• Diagnosed by the Audience: Many of Ishida's eccentricities - his obliviousness to other people, lack of understanding of sarcasm, one-track mind, and tendency to forget to eat - suggest either autism or ADHD inattentiveness for many players.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Kenshin won a 2017 Japanese poll for favorite character in Cybird's games in spite of having had six Ikémen Sengoku routes released before his, beating out even long-time fan favorites Nobunaga and Masamune who had topped the 2016 poll. He's almost as popular in the English fandom too, coming in 3rd in the first election event in spite of his route not having yet been released at the time of the election, which means that he beat out four other men who did have routes released at that time. However, when his route was finally released in the English game, opinions on him became somewhat more divided — see the above Base-Breaking Character entry for more details.
  • Mitsuhide is loved in the English fandom for his hilarious trolling and surprisingly poignant role in Hideyoshi's route as a teasing but ultimately good-hearted guy willing to put aside his feelings for the main character so she can be with Hideyoshi. He came in at 5th place in English IkeSen's first election event (and came close to beating Ieyasu for 4th place), which is impressively high for a guy who hasn't had his route released yet in even the Japanese game.
• Fan Nickname: "Snek" for Mitsuhide.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: An unusual variant in that while every guy in the game has, or will eventually get, a romance route of their own, every route also has a guy who is not that route's main love interest develop a one-sided crush on the main character and gain the sympathy and/or interest of a number of players as a result, sometimes to the point of them becoming a Spotlight-Stealing Squad for the actual love interest on that route for these players. The most commonly cited examples of these are Kenshin on Ieyasu's route and Mitsuhide on Hideyoshi's route.
• Genius Bonus: Once, when Mitsunari comes to take care of Hideyoshi's monkey pet Uri, he guesses that she's named Imo (causing Hideyoshi to snark 'it's only three letters and you got all of them wrong'). Imo is actually the name of a very famous Japanese macaque who was seen taking her sweet potato and washing it in river water rather than just rubbing off the dirt like the others, and then even dunking it in sea water for seasoning; other monkeys soon followed, until it became a common practice across the species. The incident is an often-told example of the great intelligence of monkeys and their ability to learn from one another.
  • In Shingen's His Perspective story for Ch. 2, he muses that he initially thought Sasuke didn't like him because he kept bringing him moldy fruit. Sasuke doing this doesn't make much sense unless you know that mold on some fruits can be an ingredient for penicillin, which heartwarmingly indicates that Sasuke was trying to help Shingen with his illness even without access to his time's medical resources.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • A lot of things about Shingen become this once you learn that he's dying of a secret illness. His indulgence of sweets and beautiful women? He does that because he has to treat every day as if it might be his last. The MC promising him that she'll make his life miserable until he lets her go and him being unfazed by it? It's because he's already being made miserable by the illness ravaging his body and doesn't need any help from her in that department. His corny pick-up line to the MC that he's been laid sick by his love for her? Becomes pure Black Comedy in hindsight.
  • Mitsuhide's complete lack of taste with food, which was depicted humorously in earlier routes whenever it came up, becomes this when you learn on his route that the reason he can't taste food is that he grew up so poor that he was forced to eat many things unfit for consumption by anyone but the most starving and desperate of people. Even in the present when he can eat actually-edible things, he still doesn't want to regain his sense of taste because it'd remind him of the taste of all the foul things he had to eat in the past.
• Ho Yay:
  • During Masamune's Dramatic epilogue, he responds to the MC balking at Nobunaga's joking attempt to kiss her with "Why not? I'd kiss him myself."
  • On Nobunaga's route, Hideyoshi spends a long time worrying about the rumors that Mitsuhide is planning to betray Nobunaga and tells the MC that he really just wants him and Mitsuhide to be able to trust one another. Then, when the MC asks Mitsuhide if he hates Hideyoshi, he smiles ruefully and replies, "If you ever find someone immune to that charmer's wiles, be sure to introduce me." Then the MC thinks, "Come on you two, kiss later" while Hideyoshi and Mitsuhide are having a heartfelt reunion after Hideyoshi learns that Mitsuhide didn't really betray him after all. And just in case that wasn't enough, Hideyoshi's own route has Mitsuhide remark that his scowling look is "rather attractive".
  • There's also Hideyoshi's unwavering devotion to Nobunaga, which he describes in his route as "giving my body and heart" to him. The MC even believes at one point that he must be in love with Nobunaga instead of her because of this statement!
  • Sasuke's fanboying of the Sengoku warlords crosses over into this trope sometimes, especially in regards to Ieyasu who he always fanboys over whenever he encounters him and even tells the MC in one event story that he's envious that she gets to be in a relationship with Ieyasu.
  • Kenshin displays an eyebrow-raising amount of possessive behavior towards his ninja assistant Sasuke in both Hideyoshi and Sasuke's routes. In Hideyoshi's route, he hunts down Sasuke with a full army after the ninja leaves his job to help the MC get back home and there's a scene paralleling Hideyoshi's desire to keep the MC close to him at all times with Kenshin's similar demand for Sasuke to come back to his side. In Sasuke's route, he gets very upset when he learns that Sasuke has fallen in love with the MC and gives her this interestingly-worded line while challenging her to a fight: "He's mine, you know. I made him what he is. I won't let my favorite hidden blade lose its edge to a weak woman like you."
• Portmanteau Series Nickname: Fans often use "IkeSen" as a shortened version of the game's name.
• Sidetracked by the Gold Saucer: Story events tend to inspire this as they're available for only a limited time and require you to use your Stamina on Glam Offs instead of the normal Princess Lessons.
• The Woobie: Every character in this game (except for maybe Mitsunari and Sasuke) gets their turn at being one, though most of them do their best to hide and/or not cry about it.
  • Jerkass Woobie: Depending on your feelings about them, Kenshin and/or Kennyo may qualify for this subcategory.
• Woolseyism: While the main character from the original Japanese game was already more strong-willed and assertive than the typical otome heroine, the English localization emphasized these traits of hers even more. This worked extremely well with a large number of Western players praising her strong personality and funny one-liners.