It is a shame that many adventures have to be on hold due to the long-lasting global pandemic. In hope that the quarantine period would end soon, there is not many choices of things to do and many people naturally turn to their laptops and smartphones. Games, undoubtedly, is one of many popular choices to help ease one’s boredom when there is so much time to spare. One Hundred Sleeping Princes and The Kingdom of Dreams or Yume100, in short, is one of many potential and fun choices to venture to.

As a Japanese Otome puzzle RPG, Yume100 possesses many charms for various kinds of players.Firstly, many would have already wondered, “What exactly does Otome means?”; it means “maiden” in Japanese, apparently targeting female players, with a recurring trope of beautiful men, someway and somehow, happen to develop a romantic relationship with you, the protagonist of the game. Usually, an Otome game would have up to five or six male characters that players could flirt with and eventually date; however, Yume100 has a whopping number of over one hundred characters of all kinds for players to explore. Talking about a grand harem,right?

Despite having a crazily broad number of routes to explore, that is not all of the game. Yume100 clearly has its theme of a tale of a princess and princes. In the first season of the main story, the player is role-playing as the long-lost princess of Troymare,the kingdom of dreams, traveling on a quest with several princes through kingdoms in order to find an end to the dream-devouring demons that has been threatening the peace of the world. Now comes the question, “why does it has to specifically be us?” Because the player is the marvelous princess of the kingdom of dreams who has to power to give “dreams” to people especially the princes which happens to help as something almost like a magical buff for princes who have to physically fight the demons while the princess would “pray”and deliver her powers to support the princes; and that is where the “puzzle”part in the games’ description takes on its role.

To briefly explain thepuzzle gameplay of Yume100, players basically have to connect orbs with thesame color from the minimum of three by swiping from the board given by the game. Each set is counted as one chain, the more chains the player could makein the 10-second countdown will help multiply the attack per turn. Depending on the status of the princes in your team, each round could either take a few turns or only just one.

In order to have a team of princes to fight for you, players can retrieve princes from going through the main story, but the princes from just the main story are, unfortunately, quite weak considering their statuses. Consequently, players would join in special events and side quests to get stronger princes for the team, but there is certainly a quicker way to get access to the strong ones. The Gacha system.

Most frequent gamers would probably know about the Gacha system. Primarily, the Gacha system is like a gamble where the player will use a special currency in the game that could bebought by real money (Fairy Stones, in Yume100’s case) to buy Gachas that may prize the player with either rare characters or common ones, depending on “probability” and maybe the player’s luck. You may be accustomed to this system if you are also playing Genshin Impact or Cookie Run: Kingdom which are the two famous classic games on trend at the moment; but those two clearly don’t let you flirt or date with the characters or the cookies, do they?

As an Otome game, it is clear that the game’s stories would center on romantic relationships between the player and characters, and coming from a society—if it has never crossed your mind—with a deep-rooted patriarchal mentality as Japan is, Yume100’s plot and narrative have things that can be discussed about as expected. Yume100 obviously plays with the trope of a “damsel in distress,” where the prince in his shining armor would protect the vulnerable and delicate princess in danger. The repetition of this trope in the game is so consistent that the stories become predictable in quite an irritating way. The protagonist of the story is very dependent, emotional, and innocent, clearly reproducing the stereotypical character of a “desirable” woman. Sudden approaches by the handsome princes are never taken as harassments but rather something that make the princess’s heart races madly with shyness and nervousness, wondering “does he really likes me?” when apparently every single one of the princes magically does. She is very submissive and even blushes when objectified by her masculine princes telling others that she is “his.”

So, Yume100 is a misogynistic game that perpetuates patriarchy to its player? No, surprisingly. Not really.

The damsel in distress in Yume100 is a damsel that applies to be in distress or a consensual damsel in distress. The Otome genre is always expected to produce all kinds of routes in respond to the players’ romantic fantasies. As mentioned, the player as the princess has over one hundred choices of different princes to flirt with or to dump at any time. The system is clearly designed for players to be able to find and enjoy their favorite fantasies and press “skip” to any that are unwanted. Thus, if there is something to actually complain about the game, it would bethat it objectifies men.

Princes in Yume100 are categorized into “types” and “stars.” The characters’ types are generalized into 5 different personality tropes: Passion, Gentle, Cute, Cool, and Sexy. Most princes in the “Cool” type usually have either a cold manner or indifference in their personality, while the “Cute” type would often have cheerful voice and a young age. As types may respond to players’ different preferences, the stars are what truly set the hierarchy in the princes. The more stars the prince has, the stronger his statuses and skills will be, and that lead the players to often bid “farewell” to princes with fewer stars as easily as when one disposes a useless object. According to the Gacha system, princes can technically be bought by money same as toys, and when the player decides to bid “farewell” or to dispose them, the game give “shards” in return according to the amount or stars that prince has. The term “shards” is another kind of currency in the game that can use to buy upgrading materials or even another prince depending on the game’s offers at the moment.

Not only that men or the princes in the game are marketed almost like groceries in the store, it is also very apparent that players in Yume100 has the sense of superiority above the princes in the game, as they refer to the princes through their account’s status as their possessions, for instance: “Will you come to me nicely or will you come in tears” (Valentine), “Sakia, come to mama” (MAPLUM), “Inui, pleasestop playing so hard to get!” (NeraiSama), and “Give me the five-star pleaseeee” (N’Sky).

The layers of gender-based prejudices in Yume100 are very extreme in both ways, and the extremity creates the atmosphere of absurdity. It is even possible to assume that the game’s gender roles are like a satire and a mockery to the society that still believe in those stereotypes. Those crazy stereotypes and cliché tropes in the game are so overblown to the extent that those mentalities appearas absurd jokes which can also be entertaining in its own way.

At the end of the day, Yume100 is an enjoyable Otome puzzle RPG with a continuous flow of updates. The puzzle and team organizations can make the game pleasing enough, even without the variant stories that are available at any time. It would be a waste to miss all the possible colors this game could add to your monotonous days inside. It doesn’t really cost a thing to try being a princess with a special power, surrounded by fictional and beautiful men, all within your fingertip. So, let’s give it a try, shall we?