Kicking off Megane Madness Month reviews is none other than the evil prince himself, Iori Enjo! This was the very first route that I ever played in Scandal in the Spotlight and the second route Voltage released. He just seemed like the better of the two options available at the time, and in hindsight, I don’t regret choosing to play Iori’s route before Kyohei’s route. In fact, if I’d played this route second, I don’t think I would have liked the guy as much as I did…
Iori is the kind of guy that just grows on you… But, even I have to admit that most folks won’t like him very much. He’s not the easiest guy to love, and even I, a self proclaimed lover of cool intellectuals and ice queens, had a hard time swallowing some of the stuff he said throughout the route. But, I stuck with it and the pay off was worth it?!
Where to Play: Android | iOS | Nintendo Switch
Iori Enjo is Revance’s prince charming, in front of the camera’s he’s Mr. Perfect, but behind closed doors he’s a venom spewing jerk! I’ve dealt with cold bastards before, but Iori takes the cake, even though this was my second time through the route, I was still taken aback by how rude he is to the MC. He calls the poor girl orange breath for most of the route and that’s even after he starts to warm to her. If you’re expecting a quick change of heart from this sadistic prince, then you are in for a rude awakening. Iori is a cold, manipulative jerk, with a not so secret disdain for his “fickle” fans and a hatred of women. It’s easy to condemn Iori early on, especially given the way he treats the MC and talks about his fans behind closed doors, but I urge you guys to bear with him, he’ll come around. I can’t promise that he’ll turn into Prince Charming overnight, but when he does come around, Iori will do anything to protect those precious to him.
I’m not gonna lie, I absolutely hated Iori when I first started this route, he’s mean for the sake of being mean and the way he flips the switch between his public prince persona and his demon king persona was enough to give me whiplash. He doesn’t even try to keep up pretenses with the MC, the minute she agrees to be Revance’s new ghostwriter, all of his princely charm goes out the window… and I have to give it to him there, at least he’s honest. So you can imagine how thrilled he is when he’s asked to collaborate with the MC song lyrics for a 25 Hour TV broadcast Revance is scheduled to headline in a few weeks…not!
He grudgingly agrees to the task, and he and the MC strike up a rather rocky working relationship. By which I mean, Iori does his best to ignore the MC as much as humanly possible. It isn’t until the two of them go away on a private work vacation, that they really start to open up to one another about their insecurities and doubts. The MC is struggling to come up with lyrics for the upcoming special performance. She’s afraid that her inability to write song lyrics will bring the band down, and that she’ll never be the lyricist Ryo and the rest of the band need her to be. While I admit that Iori isn’t the most sensitive member of the band, he isn’t a complete monster. He does feel personally responsible for causing the current situation, since it was his harsh criticism that may have led to Ryo’s sudden disappearing act and after talking with the MC he comes to see a few similarities between the two lyricists.
Now again, I want to stress that he doesn’t make a complete 180 over night, however, Iori does start to pull his punches a bit. Instead of outright insulting the MC, he resorts to light teasing and becomes a bit more protective of her around the other guys, especially Nagito. It’s subtle and it takes six chapters to get there, but when Iori starts falling for the MC, he becomes a much more bearable. Now while most of the route focuses on the budding romance between Iori and the MC, Voltage also takes the time to delve into Iori’s past and his motivations for joining Revance.
Iori is the son of a wealthy and powerful advertising mogul and as such he is used to folks trying to get close to him for selfish reasons, especially women. So I definitely understood his rather scathing opinions about women and while that doesn’t excuse his actions, I really appreciated the extra insight into his personality. On top of that he’s dealing with mounting pressure from his father to quit Revance and take over the family business.
Voltage did an excellent job of pacing this particular plot point, and while it isn’t completely resolved by the end of the route (it gets resolved in the sequel), it felt natural to leave things where they were. In fact, I would have been extremely disappointed if the writers had tried to resolve everything by the end of the route, Iori’s issues aren’t so simple as to be dealt with in a measly 13 chapters, I mean they could be, but not without sacrificing his growth as a character over the course of the story.
Do I Recommend Iori’s Route?
Iori is like a fairytale prince, money, good looks, hell, he even has a white horse… I kid you not, a white horse! He’d be the perfect package, if not for his horrible first impression! Like I said, I played this route before I played Kyo’s route, and I thank my lucky stars that I did, because if things had been reversed, this review would have differently. But, that doesn’t mean I dislike Iori as a character, far from it, I just want to stress that he’s no Kyohei Rikudoh, so don’t expect him to be… Iori is a lot of things, but at the very least, he’s honest. He’s not perfect, and while he may keep up pretenses for his fans, Iori is a very flawed character and I appreciate him more for that.
The MC in this route was a bit of a mixed bag, on one hand I loved how sassy she was towards Iori in the beginning, but some of her choices throughout the story had me shaking my head. It’s like the writers didn’t know what direction they wanted to take her, which I guess mirrors Iori’s personality switches, wait, no… Screw that, Voltage just didn’t know what to do with the character and it shows. She was just kind of meh…
There are two endings in this route: the Dramatic Love End and the Romantic Time End, both of which I enjoyed, however the Dramatic end was much more satisfying and fit well with Iori’s overall growth in the route. Also I mentioned this in my first review of the game, but, I highly recommend getting the end set and his POV story. The end set because, Iori sings in a short music video and the POV story because, it gives some context to Iori’s actions throughout the story…
In the end, I definitely recommend playing this route! While Iori isn’t my favorite guy in the game, I appreciate the way the writers handled not only his story, but his character growth. Most people will hate Iori, there’s no doubt about that, but if you can see beyond his sadistic nature, he’s not such a bad guy… he kind of just grows on you…
What a dick. Love it! 😀
LOL that he is! 🙂
Sadistic is probably not the best description of a guy that you are pursuing for a relationship, but for a game sounds like it could be fun watching the slow transformatin. Thanks for sharing.
LOL this is very true if I met a sadistic guy in real life, I’d probably run for the hills. But, I agree at least in games they’re interesting to play with. Also thanks for always taking the time to read my posts and comment, it really means a lot to me!!
No problem. While I’ve only played a couple otome games, I enjoy reading your thoughts on them and the different routes. Next time I decide to play one I’m going to be spoilt for choice given how many I now know about that I’d like to play.