There's a few things that disappoint me about this pack
- The one empty set dressing neighborhood with a set dressing train station would of been fun to see Sims using it like they faked in the video
- Instant teleport ski lift its as bad as the City Living elevator
- Japanese world without any way to change it to the world I want it to be beyond the lots
- Rentals instead of giving us a hotel system
Yes, I would have preferred an hotel or both an rental and hotel.
Omen by HP Intel®️ Core™️ i9- 12900K W/ RGB Liquid Cooler 32GB Nvidia RTX 3080 10Gb ASUS Ultra-Wide 34" Curved Monitor. Omen By HP Intel® Core™ i7-12800HX 32 GB Nvidia 3070 Ti 8 GB 17.3 Screen
I have 2 things I am slightly disappointed in, First, I wish sleds could be purchased and had more colors like skis and snowboards can without having to go into debug mode. Second, I wish we could hike together or even just have the option to walk together around different neighborhoods. Neither really effect my enjoyment of the game, I still think it is great and am having a blast, but they both would have been nice additions.
Yeah ok I finally went on a climbing excursion and it all went by pretty quickly, without a hitch and there wasn't that much to do or see. It was beautiful and it made for some really nice screenshots, but I feel like the trail in Selvadorada was equally as beautiful yet more interesting. At the very least, in the jungle my sims get more moodlets from getting attacked by creatures, you get those chance cards, a detour or two, and there are those small (albeit mostly inconsequential) puzzles in the temple.
I agree with everyone who said it should have been a game pack, and to be honest, when thinking of this theme, I always figured it would be.
I was most excited for the mountain excursion and the hiking. I like how the excursion is an event and a group one at that, because an issue I had with JA was how tiresome it was to bring more than one sim, but the mountain overall is not nearly as replayable as the jungle. And I think hiking at least should have been expanded to all worlds, like just to be able to make my sims go for a walk together around their neighborhood.
Sooo that's me, most disappointed about the mountain excursion. I'm not too interested in the snow sports, but I'll probably use them someday for a story or another. I like the world, though it probably won't be one of my most played ones.
Oh, and the female-styled CAS items. I LOVE the hairs, but the clothes are too old, rich lady lol. The male-styled clothing I loooove, however.
Not enough zen and bamboo furniture. The pack advertises building a sanctuary but offers very few options. I was heartily looking forward to building my dream house, which has a modern zen theme with lots of curves, nature-inspired decor, warm bamboo tones and natural rock. We didn't get a whole lot of that. Also, no wooden bath...
Not enough patterned wallpapers. Japanese and Chinese architecture are well-known for them, but we only got a small handful.
I know this is technically more Chinese than Japanese, but I highly doubt we'd get a Chinese pack as well. So why couldn't they add some ornate, traditional build/buy?
Or some cool modern zen wallpapers.
Where are the futons? And if it is really THAT much effort to animate sims climbing into the bed lower to the ground, why couldn't they add some beds with traditional headboards and frames?
Gameplay
Literally just adding tea gameplay would have made me happy, but the only thing they added was a non-functional tea display cabinet. I do not want to be forced to use that ugly base game tea machine here.
I'm happy that we can add koi to fountains, but I'm unhappy with the implementation. It's just a spawner. I wanted to be able to add fish I caught to ponds and fountains, and have control over which fish I put in, breed etc. I'm not even aware of any new types of koi fish in this pack. This is a huge disappointment.
Even though we got "martial arts" in SV, it isn't traditional. There are so many forms of traditional martial arts, so "we don't want it to be the same" isn't an excuse.
No calligraphy? No wood carving? Literally no skills pertaining to Japanese culture? There are so many amazing crafts and skills they could have added, but we got none.
Japanese culture historically encouraged people to focus on one craft and master it - to be the person others go to if they need that product/service. That could have been an aspiration. Mastering only one skill and crafting all possible items would be too easy for an aspiration, but it could have tied into the fact that this mastering is a lifestyle rather than simply a hobby. Mentoring, writing skill books, making a perfect quality version of each craftable item, dedicating a certain number of hours to it etc could all have been part of it. This aspiration would also have been flexible, since numerous existing and new skills and crafts would make sense for it.
Why is the zen garden purely decorative? They could have reused the raking leaves animation from Seasons. The zen gardens are boring and devoid of meaning, unless you buy Spa Day to at the very least be able to meditate there.
They have somehow re-activated the Eco Lifestyle NAPS. I have them disabled in my game but for some reason everyone's playing guitar and violins, everyone's exercising and I've found abandoned tablets and lumps of clay in my community lots. And my sim gets fined for wasting water every single time she flushes the toilet or takes a bath. Zen gardens and tea ceremony would have been lovely additions.
I like the pack. My only criticism would be the lack of content for an expansion pack. I think it has more content than a game pack but not much. They should have either expanded more on the Japanese culture by adding things like tea ceremonies, futons, Japanese candy would have been cool... Or they should have made it more expensive to the whole game by making hiking available everywhere. I agree with the school uniform thing that someone else said being available in each world. It would be nice to get to set a uniform. Adding rock climbing walls to base game worlds for pack owners? Or the could have expanded on the snowy activities and included more destinations to use these things. We got multiple worlds in S2 and S3 packs. Why not S4? World creating is something the team does very well. Skiing and snowboarding is awesome but we can only do it in one place.
Overall I'm not disappointed but I would have liked more.
I enjoy it and it's a big improvement upon previous packs, but it's still not worth the $40+ price. There is so much more they could have added...
I mean, there are brilliant video games out there with DLCs that are huge and so well done for that price or cheaper. So EA expecting us to pay so much for their half 🐸🐸🐸🐸 garbage is just ridiculous.
I'm particularly disappointed by the lack of Hotels, as this would have been the perfect pack to include them in. Also, the rabbit hole Gondolas.
I enjoy it and it's a big improvement upon previous packs, but it's still not worth the $40+ price. There is so much more they could have added...
I mean, there are brilliant video games out there with DLCs that are huge and so well done for that price or cheaper. So EA expecting us to pay so much for their half 🎃🎃🎃🎃 garbage is just ridiculous.
I'm particularly disappointed by the lack of Hotels, as this would have been the perfect pack to include them in. Also, the rabbit hole Gondolas.
When people keep mentioning Hotels, are you talking about as a commecrial lot to own? Because playing as a guest... I can't see that being fun in any way and struggle coming up with what even it would entail.
Also despite being marketed as a big feature the skiing/snowboarding is really lacking. There's a grand total of 2 skiing trails you can use, they're both very short, no player engagement at all and they're basically exactly the same except one requires higher skill level. They're just not interesting in the slightest in my opinion and there's no sense of progression at all. You just repeat the same animation over and over until your sim stops falling. Yawn.
It sounds fun on paper but then you get in game and realise you're literally just watching a premade animation of a sim going down a hill. There's nothing more to it that's literally it. My expectations for these activites were low in the first place but I thought they'd at least give a variety of trails rather than two that are incredibly short and basically the same and that's it. Plus there should've been something at the top of the cable car but it's just a completely empty area
I like the pack. My only criticism would be the lack of content for an expansion pack. I think it has more content than a game pack but not much.
This is the exact same criticism that has been posted for EVERY. SINGLE. EXPANSION PACK except MAYBE for Seasons.
It's just, does it really... expand? For whatever other flaws they may have, Get to Work, Get Together, Cats and Dogs and Get Famous, apart from Seasons, at least added things that weren't restricted to a single world while still, most of those, giving us a world (and two of the biggest ones: Brindleton Bay and Windenburg).
I was amongst those who said the same about Eco, but my issue with Eco was never the lack of content. It was merely that they would choose that specific theme to expand so much upon when I felt there were more interesting things to devote the energy to. I wish they'd given us less eco in the form of either a GP or a SP. But it doesn't FEEL like a GP. I think Snowy does.
I think extreme sports is a great theme for an expansion, but this one doesn't really go there all the way.
Maybe Jungle Adventure isn't a fair comparison because while the jungle excursion offers more than the mountain one at a GP price, this one also includes skiing and snowboarding, which isn't nothing (whether they interest me or not is beside the point). I suppose it does fall sort of into the same content level as City Living (one of my favorite packs, but because I really wanted that particular setting), so maybe you're right about this pack being just big enough to be called an expansion. Maybe the lines are too blurred.
I like the pack. My only criticism would be the lack of content for an expansion pack. I think it has more content than a game pack but not much.
This is the exact same criticism that has been posted for EVERY. SINGLE. EXPANSION PACK except MAYBE for Seasons.
Well if they weren't so lacking people wouldn't say they're lacking... They're charging 40 bucks for these packs and none of them are worth that.
For other games 40 bucks gets you a full game which has been worked on full time development for 1-2 years.
For Sims 4, 40 bucks gets you an expansion which has been worked on for probably less than six months, and during that time they're making other packs as well. The gamechangers who made the builds said they got the world to build in in August, and most the stuff wasn't even done then. So 3 months prior to release it was still pretty much in early development so that means most of it was done in the space of 3 months. That is not enough hours of development to warrant a 40 dollar price point.
I am always amazed at this.
Simmers must have extremely weird expectations for what constitutes an "expansion".
"Expansion" as in expanding the base game we expect the expansions to expand the base game not to lock its features in the world they came in like apartments or strays or hiking or trash in the world or ocean swimming we expect expansions to do more than add a few objects clothing and decor that is what should be expected of a stuff pack. Think of Get Together and Seasons all of the main features were useable in every world before and after they came out that is what a expansion should be about not a world pack mini game.
Sims 4 went from "You Rule" to "One of the stories we want you to tell"
After reading all the comments, there's one thing I learned.
My expectation for EA was so low that I first thought adding futons would've made this EP perrrfect. The fact that I automatically don't even expect anything spontaneous from them anymore besides adding new objects to the game.
Edit:
I absolutely loved what everyone here thought would've been a cool addition to game.
Like I wish they could be developers of this game! So much ideas, creativity I see here that I have not seen from EA.
I still love you EA. Hope we can get the amount of contents mentioned here in the future.
I am always amazed at this.
Simmers must have extremely weird expectations for what constitutes an "expansion".
No they just gave 9 different examples of what can be done with game packs. There’s also the issue that this studio has ramped up copy/pasting content and features for the last 4 years which certainly isn’t helping when it outnumbers what’s actually new.
Yes, that is my main issue with this pack, because it is still my favorite EP that they’re released in a while. BUT- this feels like a GP. It doesn’t expand the game beyond this new world we are given. They could’ve at least added a culture skill. Something that effects sim outside of the new world. Feels like a $40 GP
Not enough zen and bamboo furniture. The pack advertises building a sanctuary but offers very few options. I was heartily looking forward to building my dream house, which has a modern zen theme with lots of curves, nature-inspired decor, warm bamboo tones and natural rock. We didn't get a whole lot of that. Also, no wooden bath...
Not enough patterned wallpapers. Japanese and Chinese architecture are well-known for them, but we only got a small handful.
I know this is technically more Chinese than Japanese, but I highly doubt we'd get a Chinese pack as well. So why couldn't they add some ornate, traditional build/buy?
Or some cool modern zen wallpapers.
Where are the futons? And if it is really THAT much effort to animate sims climbing into the bed lower to the ground, why couldn't they add some beds with traditional headboards and frames?
Gameplay
Literally just adding tea gameplay would have made me happy, but the only thing they added was a non-functional tea display cabinet. I do not want to be forced to use that ugly base game tea machine here.
I'm happy that we can add koi to fountains, but I'm unhappy with the implementation. It's just a spawner. I wanted to be able to add fish I caught to ponds and fountains, and have control over which fish I put in, breed etc. I'm not even aware of any new types of koi fish in this pack. This is a huge disappointment.
Even though we got "martial arts" in SV, it isn't traditional. There are so many forms of traditional martial arts, so "we don't want it to be the same" isn't an excuse.
No calligraphy? No wood carving? Literally no skills pertaining to Japanese culture? There are so many amazing crafts and skills they could have added, but we got none.
Japanese culture historically encouraged people to focus on one craft and master it - to be the person others go to if they need that product/service. That could have been an aspiration. Mastering only one skill and crafting all possible items would be too easy for an aspiration, but it could have tied into the fact that this mastering is a lifestyle rather than simply a hobby. Mentoring, writing skill books, making a perfect quality version of each craftable item, dedicating a certain number of hours to it etc could all have been part of it. This aspiration would also have been flexible, since numerous existing and new skills and crafts would make sense for it.
Why is the zen garden purely decorative? They could have reused the raking leaves animation from Seasons. The zen gardens are boring and devoid of meaning, unless you buy Spa Day to at the very least be able to meditate there.
THIS. I was wondering why we didn’t get any round windows but got a round mirror lmao
The fact that it's not a Gamepack.
$40 is way too expensive for what you're getting: 1 world, some winter activities that can only be done in 1 world, recycled features from other packs (festivals from City Living, rock climbing from Fitness Stuff). Lifestyles are kind of interesting but I don't feel like there are enough negative Lifestyles to balance out the positive Lifestyles.
Also, the absence of tea ceremonies, futons, Karate, snow mobiles and a culture skill.
I feel like there's more content in Jungle Adventure for half the price.
Totally agree which is why I can't get myself to buy it for that price. Just doesn't feel like you're getting enough. I thought it would at least contain the tea ceremony as I mentioned before too along with a beautiful tea tray, futons, Wok, more art work or paintings. The cemetery could at least be also something mystical and scary if they are going to add that. Otherwise, it seems unnecessary.
Always be your unapologetically and authentic self
The fact that it's not a Gamepack.
$40 is way too expensive for what you're getting: 1 world, some winter activities that can only be done in 1 world, recycled features from other packs (festivals from City Living, rock climbing from Fitness Stuff). Lifestyles are kind of interesting but I don't feel like there are enough negative Lifestyles to balance out the positive Lifestyles.
Also, the absence of tea ceremonies, futons, Karate, snow mobiles and a culture skill.
I feel like there's more content in Jungle Adventure for half the price.
Totally agree which is why I can't get myself to buy it for that price. Just doesn't feel like you're getting enough. I thought it would at least contain the tea ceremony as I mentioned before too along with a beautiful tea tray, futons, Wok, more art work or paintings. The cemetery could at least be also something mystical and scary if they are going to add that. Otherwise, it seems unnecessary.
Exactly. And you get more NPC townies from both the JA and RoM GPs and those also effect basically every world bc they give things that effect sims once they go back to their world.
I mean the background buildings that are there just for background and don't offer anything for the gameplay
while simultaneously
1. limiting builders options with what to build on lots if they want to keep neighborhood architecturally cohesive
2. making neighborhood feel like ghost town because the lots are not close to each other due to the fake houses in between
3. annoying the heck out of me personally
i would have much rather had at least one of the neighborhoods with less of the fake buildings and maybe more of rural vibes so i could then
1. build whatever i want without visual clash
2. pretend my households are only sims living there
3. had more of those hiking etc vibes but living in the middle of that not in a town
4. pretend its time period before those type of houses were built
As far as being limited with builds due to the "background buildings", I'm glad you brought that up, because as a builder that's what is annoying about some other packs too. Like when they don't include at least on area on the map where you can style houses nearby. This is the same issue that comes up with the recent Eco-lifestyle Expansion pack. It looks weird if you design a house that looks too different than houses on the same block in every neighborhood area on the map. Which is why I hope in the future, players can design their own neighborhoods and we can see npc's or other sims show up outside (or inside) of their homes, lol. Would at least seem more realistic.
Always be your unapologetically and authentic self
Comments
Yes, I would have preferred an hotel or both an rental and hotel.
I agree with everyone who said it should have been a game pack, and to be honest, when thinking of this theme, I always figured it would be.
I was most excited for the mountain excursion and the hiking. I like how the excursion is an event and a group one at that, because an issue I had with JA was how tiresome it was to bring more than one sim, but the mountain overall is not nearly as replayable as the jungle. And I think hiking at least should have been expanded to all worlds, like just to be able to make my sims go for a walk together around their neighborhood.
Sooo that's me, most disappointed about the mountain excursion. I'm not too interested in the snow sports, but I'll probably use them someday for a story or another. I like the world, though it probably won't be one of my most played ones.
Oh, and the female-styled CAS items. I LOVE the hairs, but the clothes are too old, rich lady lol. The male-styled clothing I loooove, however.
Gameplay
Pirates!! http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/906481/pirate-gp-smuggling-dueling-live-on-ship-or-build-own-and-more#latest
I am always amazed at this.
Simmers must have extremely weird expectations for what constitutes an "expansion".
Yeah including you who's apparently fine with paying 40$ for a world with 14 lots and 4 new gameplay objects.
Overall I'm not disappointed but I would have liked more.
Implying that's all there is is a lie.
This is the exact same criticism that has been posted for EVERY. SINGLE. EXPANSION PACK except MAYBE for Seasons.
I mean, there are brilliant video games out there with DLCs that are huge and so well done for that price or cheaper. So EA expecting us to pay so much for their half 🐸🐸🐸🐸 garbage is just ridiculous.
I'm particularly disappointed by the lack of Hotels, as this would have been the perfect pack to include them in. Also, the rabbit hole Gondolas.
When people keep mentioning Hotels, are you talking about as a commecrial lot to own? Because playing as a guest... I can't see that being fun in any way and struggle coming up with what even it would entail.
It sounds fun on paper but then you get in game and realise you're literally just watching a premade animation of a sim going down a hill. There's nothing more to it that's literally it. My expectations for these activites were low in the first place but I thought they'd at least give a variety of trails rather than two that are incredibly short and basically the same and that's it. Plus there should've been something at the top of the cable car but it's just a completely empty area
It's just, does it really... expand? For whatever other flaws they may have, Get to Work, Get Together, Cats and Dogs and Get Famous, apart from Seasons, at least added things that weren't restricted to a single world while still, most of those, giving us a world (and two of the biggest ones: Brindleton Bay and Windenburg).
I was amongst those who said the same about Eco, but my issue with Eco was never the lack of content. It was merely that they would choose that specific theme to expand so much upon when I felt there were more interesting things to devote the energy to. I wish they'd given us less eco in the form of either a GP or a SP. But it doesn't FEEL like a GP. I think Snowy does.
I think extreme sports is a great theme for an expansion, but this one doesn't really go there all the way.
Maybe Jungle Adventure isn't a fair comparison because while the jungle excursion offers more than the mountain one at a GP price, this one also includes skiing and snowboarding, which isn't nothing (whether they interest me or not is beside the point). I suppose it does fall sort of into the same content level as City Living (one of my favorite packs, but because I really wanted that particular setting), so maybe you're right about this pack being just big enough to be called an expansion. Maybe the lines are too blurred.
Well if they weren't so lacking people wouldn't say they're lacking... They're charging 40 bucks for these packs and none of them are worth that.
For other games 40 bucks gets you a full game which has been worked on full time development for 1-2 years.
For Sims 4, 40 bucks gets you an expansion which has been worked on for probably less than six months, and during that time they're making other packs as well. The gamechangers who made the builds said they got the world to build in in August, and most the stuff wasn't even done then. So 3 months prior to release it was still pretty much in early development so that means most of it was done in the space of 3 months. That is not enough hours of development to warrant a 40 dollar price point.
My expectation for EA was so low that I first thought adding futons would've made this EP perrrfect. The fact that I automatically don't even expect anything spontaneous from them anymore besides adding new objects to the game.
Edit:
I absolutely loved what everyone here thought would've been a cool addition to game.
Like I wish they could be developers of this game! So much ideas, creativity I see here that I have not seen from EA.
I still love you EA. Hope we can get the amount of contents mentioned here in the future.
No they just gave 9 different examples of what can be done with game packs. There’s also the issue that this studio has ramped up copy/pasting content and features for the last 4 years which certainly isn’t helping when it outnumbers what’s actually new.
THIS. I was wondering why we didn’t get any round windows but got a round mirror lmao
Totally agree which is why I can't get myself to buy it for that price. Just doesn't feel like you're getting enough. I thought it would at least contain the tea ceremony as I mentioned before too along with a beautiful tea tray, futons, Wok, more art work or paintings. The cemetery could at least be also something mystical and scary if they are going to add that. Otherwise, it seems unnecessary.
Exactly. And you get more NPC townies from both the JA and RoM GPs and those also effect basically every world bc they give things that effect sims once they go back to their world.
As far as being limited with builds due to the "background buildings", I'm glad you brought that up, because as a builder that's what is annoying about some other packs too. Like when they don't include at least on area on the map where you can style houses nearby. This is the same issue that comes up with the recent Eco-lifestyle Expansion pack. It looks weird if you design a house that looks too different than houses on the same block in every neighborhood area on the map. Which is why I hope in the future, players can design their own neighborhoods and we can see npc's or other sims show up outside (or inside) of their homes, lol. Would at least seem more realistic.