You ever just like, have moments of nostalgia grief where your brain kind of latches on to whatever you were fascinated by in your childhood and never really let's go of? I go through bouts of this every now and then, maybe it's just a symptom of growing old or feeling general lack of comfort in present life. I have no idea, I'm not a philosopher, but what I do know is that Nintendogs was such a highlight of my childhood that when I ended up getting a REAL!! dog, I begged and pleaded to my mom and sisters to name him after the virtual Shiba Inu that I adopted in this game.

And no, Nintendogs does not prepare you for any actual responsibility. I was not aware of the fact that you actually needed to pick up after your dog when walking them outside. Pissing off my in-game neighbors without understanding why. In fact, I'm sure my virtual Nintendog is actually pretty starving by now since I lost the game at some point and haven't been able to check on him in years.

But, it's days like today where I really, really wish that I still had it, but it's gone. I would check in on my Shiba and toss some frisbees with him for a bit. I really wish I could watch him run through loops on the competition track while reading the funny announcer banter. Maybe abuse the hell out of the records like I used to for hours. See the light in the dog's face that'd appear whenever you shouted it's name, even though it only ever heard complete undiscernible gibberish from the DS microphone. I would emulate the game but I just don't think it would feel the same and therefore, it'll just be stowed away in the back of my brain.

Since today my childhood buddy, Scout, is no longer on this Earth, and just like Nintendogs I cannot give either anymore praise other than thanking them so much for being a light of joy during the most tumultuous time of my life. It was never the pinnacle of gameplay, or the next generation's graphics, but a capsule of time that I will forever be reminded of whenever I hear the Nintendogs walking theme, which is a bop and a half. All it ever needed to be was an escape from reality for a kid who lived through a house full of screams and anger. Now it is a nostalgic memory that I will mourn for the rest of my life.

IT’S SUMMER BAYBEEE, LET’S FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

“What? You paid for rain?” Man, we been paying for rain since 2007. For good reason. The Seasons expansions are always the peak of the entire franchise no matter which game it is. Give me the realism of freezing my balls off in a blizzard, thanks!! I’ll take the liveliness of summer sunsets anyday, boss. Plants that actually grow in season? Everyone now has two extra clothing options for both extreme heat and extreme cold. Drip for every occasion.

But the buck does not stop there, a new addition here is the ability to celebrate holidays. The Sims Team have finally killed Christmas. Father Winter (Santa Claus) is my new dad, and the dad of several neighbor’s children turns out. You got your typical real-world festivities already built into the system. Love Day, New Year’s Eve, Prank Day, Thanksgiving, and… Neighborhood Brawl? Suns out, guns out I say. If that ain’t your style, customize a holiday yourself. I have now made today a national holiday to appreciate the friends we’ve made along the way. Thank you, friends.

Genuinely the only caveat is how much of a temporary crybaby your Sim becomes if you don’t celebrate any given holiday when they appear. Oh no, you missed counting down the clock at midnight? COPE. Reverse realism on my Sims when they have work in the damn morning. Hurts, doesn't it? Thunderstorms tend to have this annoying effect because it turns out all Sims are petrified of lightning, sending them all into a full on panic whenever one randomly starts. There’s nothing quite like leaving your house on a 3PM sunny day, just to be met with a torrential thunderstorm at the location you’re heading to. Alright, guess I’ll come back later. Although, watching people get cracked on the head by lightning for just standing outside for 2 seconds never gets old. If you get struck more than once there's a solid gamble that you’ll either turn to ash or become a lightning bender but I am too chicken shit to find out the odds. Standing outside in the cold/heat for too long without the proper attire will murder you every time though.

But look, we got all this cool stuff!! I need you to live long enough to get full enjoyment out of the water slides and decked out greenhouse items. I’m your weirdo neighbor with bees in my backyard, yoinking their honey for financial gain. SUE ME. Leaves are all over the damn yard, Timmy. I haven’t built a snowman in years due to living in a warm climate now, so I will live vicariously through my Sim instead. I still have yet to win the lottery though, that shit is rigged.

You can purchase a scarecrow that comes to life, but mine turned out with the worst traits and is diabolically mean. I’d kill him if it didn’t feel unethical somehow, so I just put up with him coming over to torment me. At least he has the decency to garden for me in the meantime. There are no Aspirations unfortunately, because personally I would have loved one. And aside from a few added collectibles to already existing Collections, we just have the new Flower Arranging skill to work with. It’s just another “watch your Sim” craft things on a table for hours, but you can sell or give away the finished vases to make up for it. This means you can give someone the smelliest bouquet ever and literally piss them off with it. I’d maybe treat your Mom a bit better though.

Honestly, it’s pretty agreeable to most that this is a must have just due to the sheer amount of gameplay injected into 365 days worth of game. It’s life simulation with the background life functioning at the same caliber as everything under your direct control. They know this is the case too, that’s why they give it away for free and toss it into a ton of cheap bundles all the time. If I could recommend only one pack to a new Simmer, it would be this one hands down every time. You just ain’t living life until you’ve blessed your Sim with true art.

When I’m in an annoying piece of shit competition and my opponent is this guy. 😱😱😱

Remember that sick CGI teaser at the end of Kingdom Hearts 2 that shows off this crazy battle with people in armor we’ve never seen before?? Whoa!! Wouldn’t it be cool to watch it 3 more fucking times?

I’ve been mulling over this one because I did a 100% playthrough of it and I honestly couldn’t tell whether or not I simply do not like this game or if I would just find it mediocre had I not twisted my own asshole doing all of the optional content. While I do love Kingdom Hearts as a series, I am also a realist, and thinking about it long enough has made me come to the conclusion that no actually, I think I just don’t really like this game. It really just comes down to what I get the most enjoyment out of Kingdom Hearts from: a rather heartwarming plot about friends who will go to the ends of the Earth for each other, a decently fun combat system, and challenges that are arguably the better content. Like some of the other handheld counterparts of this series, Birth by Sleep fulfills aspect 1 and never delivers on aspect 2 or 3 for its entire runtime. Had I not 100%’d this, I am genuinely of the belief that I would still find it rather mediocre. All story spoilers and story critiques will be hidden inside of a hyperlink near the end, so don’t worry about that.

So, the story begins….

For the unaware, this is not a game that follows the likes of Sora and his two cannon fodder companions, but is instead a prequel that features three entirely new characters. Each one follows the same exact timeline, just in different perspectives. A tragic story about three friends who get taken advantage of, fighting tooth and nail to keep each other safe. (Wait, we've heard this one before..) With the way it’s set up, it encourages you to play as Terra first. I have a general issue with all of this, but it’s for spoiler talk later. For the sake of structuring this review the best way that I can, let’s just entertain Square’s desires and play as what would be considered to be a sentient boulder with legs first. I’m not gonna sugarcoat it, Terra blows ass. He’s incredibly strong, but also incredibly slow and bulky, with the worst dodge out of the three characters. There is nothing better than dashing in a straight line and getting eviscerated because the non-cancellable animation is longer than the dodge’s i-frame window. This is something that is manageable through some defense abilities and practice, but he never ever feels great to play because of it. Therefore, it’s kind of like trudging through mud.

Part of me wonders if Terra gets significantly more flack than deserved simply because the game doesn’t really do him any favors when it comes to it’s overall mechanics either. You see, we can’t just learn abilities and finishers through leveling up, like it is in the other games. Naw, we have to make it different! We have to make it a fucking chore. We’re going to attach those abilities to your command attacks, which you have to craft, but we’re never going to tell you the recipe for any of them. Then once you figure that shit out, or use Google (who cares), now you have to level those commands to max level in order to use the ability without having the command in your deck. You want a new finisher? We’re not gonna tell you how to get that shit either. Select one that you already own and either walk around for thousands of steps, kill 800+ or so enemies, or collect thousands of dollars. Fuck you, we’re not gonna tell you which one is which. Oh, but you can’t grind for two of these at the same time, oh no, you can only grind for them if they’re in the same bracket. Meaning that you may have to kill 800 enemies, and then grind for thousands of dollars for two separate finishers. While you sit and figure this out on your own, getting blasted over and over again until you finally get your hands on Leaf Bracer. Yeah, you’re probably going to despise Terra as a character while you’re forced to learn the gymnasium ropes that this game forces you to climb up. Floaty combat be damned.

Birth by Sleep apologists will tell you, “just google the recipes and grind for everything you need right from the get go. There’s no reason to complain if you’re not even trying, forehead.” SHUT UP. Even if you have the foresight to do this, all of that goes straight out the window the moment you realize that the plot for each character is like 5 minutes long. You’re in some worlds for maybe two cutscenes tops, fight a boss, watch a 20 minute movie in-between, and then all of a sudden you’re in the final world at the last save point and you still don’t even have anywhere close to half of the abilities or commands. You can get through this entire thing without obtaining life altering abilities like Second Chance, something I would consider to be a staple of every Kingdom Hearts game. Genuinely when are you supposed to grind any of this out without knowing ahead of time, if not after their story? I’m sorry, but this is fundamentally dog water at its core, only exacerbated even more on a completionist playthrough. It means you’ll be playing what feels like 10% story content, backloaded by 90% command grinding and Mirage Arena. You finish Terra’s story and watch a fully complete Credits segment. After all of that is said and done, no matter the percentage you’re going for, it almost ends up not mattering at all because..

Now you have to do it all over again..

Yes, once you’re done with Terra you’ll move onto Ventus; a much more nimble character, but with the defenses of wet paper towels. There are only minimal differences between the three: different finishers, different attacks, different movement, but that’s about it. Just know that both Ventus and Aqua are leagues above Terra’s tortoise gameplay. With how the Birth by Sleep save system works, you lose all of your progress and get sent back to 0 when starting the next character’s playthrough. Clap those cymbals together, you idiot. But, a-ha!, this time you understand that the rug will be pulled out from under you and preparation can be done to mitigate some of that playtime you suffered through before. You’ve learned the way of the Birth by Sleep ability system, but have you mastered the art of the mini-game? Since each playthrough is the same thing minus the controlled character, that means you’ll be doing everything three times over. Fruitball (fucking kill me), Rumble Racing (please perish), and Ice Cream Beat for starters. If I had to rank them I’d go in reverse order of what I just said. I think Ice Cream Beat gets a lot of heat for no reason, but I think that’s because some people can’t admit that they’re just bad at rhythm games. Dunked on. The other two though, bury them in a ditch. If there’s one thing I cannot stand in a video game, it’s a racing segment in a game where racing isn’t the main gameplay mechanic. You might as well torture me instead. Fruitball is the shittiest version of tennis/soccer ever crafted by man. If those aren’t enough for you, don’t worry, we have Command Board at home. I really, really hope you like Monopoly because you’re going to play an absolute metric ton of it.

Oh, Command Board. With 7 boards available, you’ll be mercilessly sent to what feels like being stuck in traffic while you roll Mario Party dice through a board of pain and misery. It is essentially Monopoly without the landlords, only mitigated by the fact that it has the ability to level up some of your commands and ends by passing “Go” once you hit the money cap. It is, however, still entirely RNG based and God help you if you’re unlucky. Is it an easy way to obtain some good commands early? Sure. But, is it fun? No. No, it is not. Not only are you expected to win all 7 boards with all three characters, you’re also expected to win them again in the Mirage Arena. That is 42 games of Command Board, provided you win every time and grab the few commands that are only obtainable from them in one go. I don’t mention this a lot because it’s almost never relevant, but I do stream the games that I review. Some people went AFK while I was playing Command Board, just to come back while still playing a different Command Board hours later. There are people out there who think this game is just a Kingdom Hearts themed board game.

And look, I love me some Yoko Shimomura music as much as the next guy, but something about the Birth by Sleep OST just grinds my gears. I think it has something to do with the fact that the songs have incredibly short loops, meaning that you’ll be hearing the most brain rot music on repeat for fucking hours. I think the Castle of Dreams theme is used to train MKUltra Sleeper Agents because this will make me instantly go rogue the second I hear this shit again unprompted. Make no mistake though, there are absolute bangers when it counts the most. Specifically, Vanitas’s theme opens up the fucking mosh pit every time it comes on. I just wish that was carried over across the whole soundtrack in the same way it does for most of the series. Kingdom Hearts does not have the greatest level designs, but the music at least lifts a lot of that up. In Birth by Sleep, the worlds are at an all-time empty. There is not a single person living in them, which means most areas are GIGANTIC rooms of nothing but endless waves of the most gimmicky Unversed. Keep in mind that this was a PSP game originally. I never owned a PSP so I wouldn’t know how the hardware worked, but even in remastered form they didn’t bother to add anything to the backgrounds in order to make the worlds actually feel like worlds. It makes scenes in the Coliseum utterly hilarious because there’s audiences losing their fucking minds while the camera pans to the side showing you that there are actually zero people sitting in the stands.

Oh? You’ve finished the story and grinded out all of your little mini-games again? You’ve done the Mirage Arena gauntlet and collected all of your little finishers. You watched your second batch of the same exact Credits segment? Well, good news!!

Now you have to do it all over again..

You’ve finally made it to the last character, Aqua. The woman of the group. The magical girl boss babe that can do no wrong, equipped with magic spells that will split all the enemy’s assholes wide open. Well, for the most part. (More spoiler talk later.) This is something that should be a worthy reward for the gamers who have stuck it out this long, but at this point you’ve been playing the game for so long, doing the same shit, that you just want to be done with it. If you’ve made it this far in the review, you’re probably wondering why I’ve stuck with a 100% playthrough if it clearly wasn’t an enjoyable experience. The thing is, I replay KH1 and KH2 to 100% completion for fun, so it’s not really something I just chose to do out of the blue. Sure, synthesis grinding in those games are a pain in the ass but leveling up to high degrees so that you even have a chance at fighting the data bosses is where I think the real entertainment in those games lie. They’re a worthy challenge for gamers who are looking to get their shit rocked by them. I’m here to tell you right now that this is not the case for this game.

First off, the command melding can net you some pretty cool and flashy attacks that’ll wipe the floor with most enemies. If only they didn’t take ages to set up and granted you i-frames. Birth by Sleep seems to really love non-cancellable animations that will either leave you murdered or leave you waiting for an attack to end even after everything is already dead. The amount of time spent waiting for Rhythm Mixer to end should be its own calculated stat on the end screen. Unfortunately, this means that even after working towards getting cool shit like Tornado or Transcendance, you’ll likely never get to actually use them where it matters since bosses will not allow you to pull that shit in their fights, let alone the regular enemies. I would have loved to kill Xehanort with the break dancing attack, but no, you get knocked out of using it the 9/10 times you try. Therefore, you’re more likely to just strap on the tried and true command deck that everyone and their mom uses. 4 Thunder Surges with 4 Curagas. Thunder Surge is the most powerful attack with the highest radius of damage while also providing you with i-frames across a long distance. It’s broken, and gives you zero reason to diversify with anything else. You’ll be needing that deck anyways, since it’s one of the only ways to defeat the shittiest boss to ever be created.

After getting this far, I was pretty set in just calling this a boring trip full of chores and monotony but that was before finally unlocking the optional bosses as a reward for making all three of my children as powerful as possible. The two in the Mirage Arena are fine. Completely manageable fights where typical pattern memorization is the key to winning. But, and I say this with minimal exaggeration, you would have way more fun getting run over by a truck than you would if you were to fight either of the other two. The first one would be spoiled by saying their name so just call him Idiot McGee, I don’t know. He’s got a health bar as short as an ant, compensated by the fact that he immediately assaults and one shots you by ignoring your abilities and teleporting away whenever you try to land an attack of your own. He also copies your spells and uses them himself, meaning that curing yourself is off the table unless you want to deal with him healing himself to pay it back. It’s hard as balls and you’d think this would be a worthy challenge. Except for the fact that he’s programmed with sand for a brain and completely loses it the second you hide behind one of the giant rocks on the battlefield. It’s almost like he has object permanence and thinks you’ve literally disappeared from battle. So guess what, use that to your advantage and you’ve effectively cheesed him. Riveting stuff for a late-game addition. Now get ready for a genuine challenge, but for all the wrong reasons: Mysterious Figure. I would not even send the most annoying FromSoft fans this guy's way.

The last thing on the agenda is to kill Mysterious Figure, probably the worst boss I have ever encountered in.. gaming. He is no Lingering Will, that’s for sure. Why fight a guy that will test your abilities and skill level when you can just get your shit fucked up by an RNG simulator instead? This dude’s rocking a moveset of like 15 attacks, all used completely randomly with almost zero tells. He can break out of all of your combos, throw you into the air, split himself into 5 copies that can all attack you with different spells, turn himself invisible, drop a meteor on your head, mega-flare, stab you with never-ending spears, and hit you with a tornado that makes you drop all of your commands on the ground. Worst of all, he has a Doom spell that will end the fight instantaneously if you can’t mash the X button at the same speed as a Master Mode CPU of Mario Party. This dude is FUCKED, and he can eat shit. Sure, he’s challenging but it’s literally only because he is poorly designed in a game where the combat is watered down for PSP play. You want to know what you get for beating this guy? A keyblade that sucks worse than the last one, and pointlessly unusable for Terra/Ventus since you’ve just completed the game with them by defeating him. Jesus fucking Christ. And you get to do it 3 glorious times. This is the culmination of why I don’t like this game because none of it is a worthy challenge. It’s not fun.

Provided you finished everything and didn’t accidentally save over your save files like a bingus, you’re getting sent straight to the finale, but not until after you’ve watched the same full Credits segment for the 3rd time. They really want you to know who worked on this game. Play your cards right and watch the credits AGAIN, you’ll also get an extra, extra bonus epilogue episode after that episode. (It's unlocked by either 100%ing the game, beating it on critical mode, or killing an asinine amount of enemies.) This game is never-ending.

Spoiler discussion for plot and characters in this link here. Click at your own discretion.

And that’s that. Birth by Sleep is probably one of the most important games out of the entire series as it was their first attempt at building the world outside of Sora’s shenanigans. There are dire consequences here, but at the end of the day it just serves as more backstory for characters who will always be treated much more respectfully (unless they're Kairi.) It’s a game that is filled to the brim with tedious segments and annoying combat, where the important battles are incredibly anticlimactic and the optional ones are utter horseshit. Play it normally for the plot, but definitely do not 100% it.

I am finally simple and clean. (I have showered.)

Alright, alright. I have been very generous towards the EA DLC machine in the last handful of my expansion reviews. Those were packs that I use in my everyday usage of this game, so naturally I’m going to recommend them to whoever cares. You want to know which pack I’ve literally only used once and then never again? I think you know where this is going.

Like I said, I’ve purchased all of these due to a self-imposed challenge and while this game pack does include new content for a variety of things, it’s just so circumstantial whether or not you’ll get any enjoyment out of it. Selvadorada is a new destination world meant for vacationing only, meaning that you can only visit it in the same vein as Granite Falls from the previous Outdoor Retreat expansion. What does this entail? Oh, you’re just a tourist who shows up to tomb raid in some randomly generated temple. Oops. 💀

And uh, that’s really it!! Yeah, not really getting any use out of this unless you want to play as Lara Croft, so there isn’t really much to talk about here. You can learn more about the culture here by interacting with the Sims who do live there, but just like the other tourist destinations, it quickly becomes your Sim’s entire personality. The Selvadoradian, and Batuu (When I fucking get you, Star Wars pack.) interactions just fill up your dialogue options no matter what, it’s actually kind of annoying. Leveling up the Archaeology skill means that your Sim will be bombarded with requests to authenticate random relics that you can’t turn off. So, they’ll just get their inventory filled forever with random junk. And to be honest, I really can’t attest for how well the inspired location, food, or interactions come across because I am not Latin American myself. From what I understand, it's a huge mix of several different countries confined into this one town. I do not know how accurately things like the Rumbaism dance represent what they were going for here with their first attempt at showcasing a culture outside of Europe/USA, but I’m pretty sure running amok in a foreign city where you are a visitor isn't really smiled upon like, anywhere. It's definitely created from a tourist's point of view only, which is likely disappointing for a lot of people.

As for the temple raiding itself, it’s rather boring. You can manually progress through the jungle with a few transitional windows of choice which sometimes net you random collectibles, but it’s always the same jungle no matter how many times you visit. Sometimes some paths are just blocked off for some reason, meaning you’ll have to leave and come back to get them unblocked. There is only one temple that randomly generates new traps and treasures every day. Passing through these obstacles is just a two click process of “investigating it”, then selecting whatever option has the green thumbs up and that’s basically all it amounts to. Repetition, baybee, let’s fucking goo!! I hunted for this one treasure for so long, it kind of felt like RNG was holding me hostage at gunpoint.

Completing the aspirations added from this pack will just net you better treasure rewards and better moodlets while at the damn museum, so there’s really no point in getting them at all. Skeletons can appear but they aren’t as interesting as they should be. I’d love to do crazy shit with them but it’s impossible, therefore they suck!!

It would be way nicer if you could actually live here since it is quite nice to look at compared to the rest of the game, but you can’t. It’s not that it’s broken or glitchy, it runs perfectly fine. It’s just fundamentally boring and is so segregated from everything else that you could play the game everyday completely forgetting that it’s installed in the first place. Genuinely the best thing that it added was this portable water bottle thing that instantly refills your Hygiene meter, which I use quite often because I am incredibly lazy.

At least I finally met Sans Undertale.

No creative naming with this one, they just said “no bullshit” Cats and Dogs. Damn, they were right. I cannot seem to recreate my own dog though, so this shit sucks actually!!

I find it so funny that as soon as something involves pets, game developers lock the fuck in. Take the dog escort missions in FF7 Rebirth for example, just a straight up renaissance of craft for such a miniscule event in that 100 hours of game. Petting a dog is now seen as a mandatory mechanic right next to photo mode and fishing, vaporizing the psychos on r/petfree into ashes. Cats & Dogs is no different here as it adds in so much extra content just for the sake of celebrating pets. New artwork, decorations, furniture, the paintings that your Sims can make, food recipes, and even introducing an entire Sims Instagram feature just for taking dumbass photos of your cat. They knew what they were doing and the pets are integrated pretty well. They genuinely add to the life of your Sims by being their friends, instead of being their props.

Not met without controversy of course, since The Sims 3 Pets included horses. A lot of horse girls dunked on this one for only including what’s listed on the label. Personally, horses were nice for the open-world setting of The Sims 3 but that game came at the cost of your PC using your entire town’s electricity grid. So, I can see why they were left out initially. They’ve been added after the fact now so I guess it doesn’t matter anymore. (I don’t have this one yet though.)

Even without horses, there is still a lot here to enjoy. Personally, the ability to craft whatever abomination you want using the CAS Editor is funny enough. They come with their own traits that range from beautiful baby boy to dubious asshole. And of course, they can breed and create their own generational legacies depending on how crazy you want to get with it. I have seen some randomized Eldritch beings walking about, baiting me into adopting them. If I had less self control I would put them out of their misery THE FUN WAY, but it's gonna take more than a purple, sweater wearing dog named Goober to sway me into this responsibility. I think that’s why a lot of the stray animals are sick to be honest, they’re pulling on your heart strings. Do not fall for their manipulation!!

As for how they actually play and function with the rest of the gameplay, it’s overall rather smooth. However, you can’t play as them which I find to be a bit of a bummer personally. Thankfully, mods exist and I need to use them because I am an impatient person. I don’t really need to create a whole life story for each pet I make, but it’s just nice to manually cancel out when a pet is being annoying instead of waiting for your Sim to yap at them about it. You can level up a Pet Training skill to make it a bit easier to deal with the annoying parts of owning a pet though. There’s also the Friend of the Animals Aspiration which rewards you with befriending random pets a lot easier, so that is just itching a scratch I know some people have. You can also collect feathers by sending a cat to destroy the local wildlife. Ummm, don’t do that in real life.

Lastly, in a similar vein to the Dine Out expansion, you can buy and run your own Veterinarian office. If you don’t mind watching animals vomit and pee everywhere, sure. I would say that it runs a lot better than owning a restaurant, although it still comes with it’s own chaos. Managing employees who sit around and do fuck all can be a bit of a chore, but you’ll be doing most of the work anyways. Figuring out what is causing an animal’s illness is like solving a little puzzle, which is neat for a time but it’ll eventually come down to memorization at the end of the day. Since you build skills for healing animals, I found it really nice to use it on my own pets so that I wouldn’t have to travel to the vet office every time they fell ill. The only way that pets can die though is through old age, so don’t worry about seeing some doggy dog death that you won’t expect. However, it's all fun and games until Grim shows up on their birthday and then I want to beat his ass. Definitely not a pack that you need if you obviously don't care about having animals in your game, but it's a fun one nonetheless.

And that vet office? There’s one automatically placed in Brindleton Bay, which is based off of New England. I got my Dunkies watching my dog tear my couch apart. This shit is awesome actually!!

I don’t care what conservatives say. Parenthood does, in fact, cost a lot of money. This game pack was $20 for instance. I would be richer without kids!!!

I mean in all seriousness, this pack did not add children to the game, but I couldn’t help myself. Children and Teenagers were always there, but there was never really anything special that they could do. They were more like smaller humans that went to school and were limited in their gameplay functions. Shells without a soul or personality. Ugh, and you gotta feed them and shit!! BARF!!

This pack remedies a lot of the uselessness that children had before by simply tossing in a bit of personality to the mix. It doesn’t seem like a humongous change on paper, but you’d be surprised to find out that a lot of what gets added here bleeds into almost every second of the gameplay. That is if you’re the type of Simmer that isn’t batshit insane and actually enjoys keeping their families alive. Before there was really no reason to play as your child sims, but now this gives them things to do.

It’s generally the little things. Items and clothes specifically dedicated to them, interactions with other kids, parental discipline, after-school projects/clubs, the occasional emotional turmoil that we all felt when we were the ages of 10-16, temporary phases, etc. It really does not sound like much, but it is a pack that is running on all cylinders at all times. Children and Teenagers are given a meter towards different personality traits that will eventually shape how they would act as an adult. For instance, a child who’s been taught Good Manners will end up being a way nicer person. Or a child with less Emotional Control, will probably become an incel or some shit. Do better, parents. In reality, they’re adult form is actually kind of an asshole and can only be prevented by actually putting in some effort towards teaching them better traits.

It’s a simplified system and not much of it makes that much sense. Everyday each of your children will ask one of their parents for advice and you’ll get a pop-up like this. You have zero idea what each option entails (until you get a higher Parenting skill), but they will all increase one trait and decrease a different one. It is a very binary system, but I think anything more advanced would burn a lava hole into the game’s core and straight through your PC’s hard drive. In all honesty, my save file is a 100 Baby Challenge and I tend to just randomly pick each time they come up as they can be rather intrusive sometimes. But, there are better ways of increasing a Child’s trait if you need to do it that badly. Different actions that a child does will also increase some traits as well. So if you’re badly hurting for them to be the best citizens ever, just make them do all of the chores non-stop everyday, get A+ grades, and participate in several hobbies. That will break them into something, most definitely. They’re gonna go really far, haha.

Other things: There is the Super Parent Aspiration, as well as the actual SKILL for Parenting. Who would have thought? If you play with the younger life stages, it’s absolutely the first skill that you’re probably going to max on complete accident and it’s not a bad one to have. It’ll unlock this thing called Full Parent Mode which prevents your Sim’s needs from decaying over a certain amount of time, making it way easier to get a lot of shit done. The best part is the Super Efficient Parenting action though, it will give them the midas touch and instantaneously make the kids happier by feeding/changing diapers/cleaning all in one go, instead of having to do them one after the other. Very handy when you have 7 kids in your household like it’s the set of a sitcom show.

So for family enjoyers of the Sims, this one is considered to be like, the quintessential DLC and I would agree for the most part. I think part of me is just so used to seeing those little advice pop-ups that I kind of just glaze over them for the most part. Most people aren’t psychotic like me and play this game casually, so it will shine brightest when you’re playing it just as intended. As someone who played the game at launch, yeah, these new kids would absolutely stomp the old ones and it’s not even close.

Honey, they put RPG skill trees in our Sims game.

In an effort to bring a bit more of the thrill of The Sims 2 without the abrupt bluescreen crashes of The Sims 3, we have now come to the first of a handful of occult related expansion packs. Look, I am not the biggest occult stan.. never fully seen Twilight even as a joke, I will admit. Some fans would disagree and claim they’re like the air they need to breathe or else they shall perish if we don’t get them all as soon as possible. I am never going to sneer at a different playstyle, but I’ve also never quite seen the appeal at the same time. My Sim can no longer go outside in the sun, this is not revolutionary. That is just everyday life for the average Gamer.

That being said, we’re on that immortality grind mothafuckas!! Vampires do not need to sleep or PISS, so there is no other perfect time than now to force your Sim into maxing all those Skills you still have left over. All you have to do is locate the nearest vampire and simply ask for them to change you. Although I recommend avoiding Vladislaus Straud as much as you possibly can. He has what I would call ugly disease and therefore he was killed almost immediately in my save file. Since Vampires can’t die of old age, it was the only way to make sure his bloodline ended early. No thank you.

With that Skill tree though, you can unlock more powers to use that are actually quite interesting. The more powers you use/more blood you drink, the more XP you get and then those lead to levels like a normal video game. Basically anything that is annoying can be eventually rectified through this, such as becoming immune to sunlight. However, those abilities come at a cost; for every power-up you obtain it must be accompanied by a weakness in order to prevent you from being an unstoppable God. The weaknesses aren’t really that big of a deal though, it’s stuff like needing to drink more often or having to sleep in a coffin, etc. You can make it so your Sim gets super sad about having to drink blood. Shut up, you crybaby!! There’s one where you will take more damage in the sun though, I don’t know why on Earth anyone would ever take that one. Maybe for hard mode, pain and suffering I guess.

I really only dabbled in the whole Vampirism bit for my challenge, so I purchased the perks that mainly revolved around survivability and convenience. There are some diabolical powers at play here though, like randomly decreasing a Sim’s needs? I love the idea of watching a Sim eat a sandwich, then instantly dropping their hunger meter back to starving. Just keeping them in a constant state of joyless waste. Of course, there’s also turning into a frickin’ bat and converting other Sims into Vampires. I went for the Good Vampire Aspiration first, then the Vampire Family one after. Oh, the fall from grace she had when it turned out that transforming others is not actually consensual, and her new siblings were in fact very unhappy with their new lifestyle. Sorry!!

There’s also the addition of Forgotten Hollow, but I’ve never personally lived there. It seems rather quaint and gothic of course, but I’ve never enjoyed that it’s always nighttime there. Perfect for a vampire connoisseur though. Overall, it’s a good bit of fun for a while but I have no intention of staying a Vampire forever as they do not, in fact, sparkle. Yes, I turned a bunch of my friends into them and then cured myself LOL. Sorry again!!

Oh hey, bat sex.

Finally we are getting into the meat and potatoes. A divine course of DLC that’ll make even the most serious dollar sign min-maxxers shudder in fear.

Ring ring, who’s calling? Oh, that guy you met once and never again. He wants to know if you’ll go to GeekCon with him and dress up as Star Wars characters. A random townie just crashed the rocket ship there and literally exploded (didn’t die), so you bought the festival related SWAG to commemorate this fine afternoon. They’ve concocted the perfect sample of stupidity to coax my Sims out of their house. Apparently it’s karaoke bars and dumb little stupid events that happen every other week. There is nothing like getting a bunch of Sims together and watching them interact on their own, whether it’s bettering their lives or destroying them. This is why I play the stupid, haha funny gibberish game.

The bulk of this pack is stored within a new city, which you can travel to at any time. Living there will require you to foreclose your house and gulp.. become a renter instead. Unfortunately, you cannot edit the foundation of the pre-made apartments, but most of them are rather lavishly gigantic. We’re talking sitcom levels of large, despite being the cost of a pair of shoes per month. Video game escapism, my beloved. It does however come with the added addition of shitty annoying neighbors. Video game escapism, denied. I like the busyness of the city, but I still prefer to just travel there instead. With it having 4 districts of different things to do and an assortment of foods to eat from different cultures, I’m still slowly working my way through the Collectibles that it added. There’s just a lot to do in the city, baybee. I barely go to the other towns in this game, San Myshuno is where it’s at.

I haven't really talked about the furniture in these packs and that’s mainly because it's.. well, just chairs and couches and whatnot. I do not claim to be or even exist on the same level as Bob from Bob’s Furniture. I’m much more the type of person that just kinda throws things I like together. Orange walls with green couch cushions, ya know? One look into my Sim’s house will make even the most sane individual break. But, guess what you sicko Animal Crossing enjoyers, this pack includes a gigantic superstore’s worth of furniture, not to mention the added abilities to perform street art to scribble all over your walls and lawns with. And don’t even get me started on Lot Traits man, give your house a literal personality so that it’s easier for your Sims to learn certain skills or encourage certain behaviors while they’re there. There are now more than a million different ways to make money that aren't just going into a rabbit hole and disappearing for 8 in-game hours. I would consider this to be a pretty big root for the tree that is this game as each pack created after this one just adds more oomph to it.

The only thing that genuinely annoys me is that they added a Singing Skill. It’s not the skill that annoys me really, but my Sim just loves to whip out her best Ariana Grande impression whenever there’s nothing to do. It’s like she’ll die if she doesn’t do it once every two hours. But other than that, this is a beefy hamburger of an expansion pack that adds a ton of content from aesthetics to actual gameplay. I don’t think I go a single session without using it, so I would think this one is pretty bang for your buckaroos.

What's on the menu tonight, boys? Invisible food.

So, I'm not really sure if this used to be as buggy as it is now or if I just never noticed, but taking your Sims to a restaurant is kind of a miserable experience. Like, it's an all day excursion. Take PTO because you're gonna be stuck there until 3:00 AM when you really just wanted to go on a date night with your husband. I'm not really sure what the issue is honestly, maybe all of the furniture just short circuits all of the Sim's brains and gives them stupid idiot disease, or quite possibly they all have some serious ADHD because it's almost impossible to keep them seated for even 5 minutes.

The waiter is a pregnant alien and the chef is a robot who keeps shutting himself down mid-shift. There's a thunderstorm outside so everyone is running around in fear. The bathroom is too far away so there's piss puddles all over the floor. The guy sitting next to me keeps eating everyone else's food. I ordered my appetizer 6 hours ago and it still hasn't come. An old person just died in the lobby and a celebrity is screaming songs into the open mic. It's nothing but CHAOS!!!!

I appreciate the sheer amount of possibilities that could happen, but I seriously don't recommend bringing more than one Sim to one of these things. It's funny for like 10 minutes, but it does quickly turn into a migraine. I went to a restaurant everyday to fulfill the Experimental Food Collection, and that's really it. She ate 3 meals in one sitting each time and can now craft the most disastrous artisanal foods you can think of. Squid tentacle à la Mode if you will. Nothing but the finest cuisine over here, except for when you order something and it comes invisible like the waiter is pulling the biggest prank and charges you for it anyways. Dickhead!!!

Aside from that, there's really nothing else other than the gameplay. Having no Aspiration is a bit weird because in this pack you can actually own your own restaurant, unlike the Spa Day pack. You can actively choose the staff and take care of your guests, which is rather nice but there's really no incentive to do it without an Aspiration though. (Unless you really want to live your restaurant owner fantasy). Being in direct control of the operation helps it run a bit better and you're actually paid for a full night. I'd definitely rank this above Spa Day even with the bugs just because of that alone.

I like the ideas a lot with this one but it's probably the buggiest pack out of them all. It's been patched multiple times throughout it's entire lifespan and it seems they just can't figure out how to get it to function normally with all the other DLC throwing wrenches into the Sim AI. With every other expansion pack added into your game, this one breaks again. It's not a super necessary pack to have for a full experience of this game, so I wouldn't buy it again personally. However, if you're a true psycho you can feed unsanitary sushi to your guests and literally murder them with it, so there's that.

Maybe Dine In instead.

Man, they don’t make ‘em like they used to.

For all this time, I mainly avoided the whole club aspect of this expansion pack thinking that that’s all it really added. Eh, whatever!! Maybe I don’t want my Sim to enjoy group outings with friends. But then you pull yourself back a little bit and you realize that this pack is like the main reason why there’s any LIFE in the LIFE SIMULATION game at all. I was a fool, but now.. Now I am with my tribe. In terms of completionist content for my own sick pleasure, there’s just 1 new skill and 1 new aspiration so that part is whatever. It's the actual gameplay elements that shine the brightest here though.

No, really. Arcade machines, dance floors, foosball tables, bar nights, dance clubs, cafes, civilization itself? All of that was added in this pack and it kinda makes me wonder what on God’s green Earth were Sims doing before it. Watching paint dry? Slowly aging until the sweet release of death between the walls of their solitary home? While it’s still a bit of a pain in the ass, the group mechanic allows you to control multiple Sims at once to get them to actually interact together while out. Activities can be done with several Sims, like they actually like being around each other. Before you would just kinda hope they’d sit together at the dinner table so you could have some semblance of normality in your escapist life, but sometimes that wouldn’t be where the cards fell. My wife would eat dinner on the toilet while I sat alone in the dining room. Well, not anymore!!!

They worked their pussy off creating Windenburg. It’s gotta be one of the best towns in the whole game in terms of aesthetics and things to do. It has a shit ton of empty lots to build off of for the most nasty Sims architects out there. You can visit an old antique house and learn the backstory of a random ghost couple for no reason other than.. they felt like putting it into the game? Like, it sounds stupid but I’m being serious when I say they don’t do stuff like this anymore. I’m sure as I keep reviewing these packs, there will be less and less to talk about because they get more streamlined by release order. The Sims is pretty well known for having genuinely bananas lore and questionably canonical timelines. Stuff like this just reminds me of how charming this series is at its center, even if it doesn’t really feel like it anymore.

For the club feature itself, bro I can’t tell you enough how alive I actually felt putting one together. They give you so many goofy ass options to work with in terms of club requirements and activities. It’s the kind of core dumbassery that I love experimenting with in The Sims, just a breeding ground for chaos to lay waste across your town. As your club grows more powerful, the more perks you can buy like a completely diabolical Fallout: New Vegas build. You short on change, buddy? Get your 8 friends to paint for you without a break, then collect their money. No need for romance when we’re all doing the do. I’m beating up the elderly AND cleaning up the beach at the same time. It's not like they're gonna help with that. The rewards for skill boosting are unbelievably broken in exploitative ways that I will be taking full advantage of. If I want to max a skill in under an hour, I can just buy all the skill boosting perks and then have my friends come over to watch me show off until it's 100% done.

And look, you can bark at me all day long about how this all sounds like it should have been base-game content and yadda yadda, I agree. I get it man, whabby doo, but we don’t live in this utopia that you speak of. Your dreams are just dreams and I am not the CEO of EA. You can't really talk about The Sims without someone booing and throwing tomatoes about DLC and I don't disagree with those criticisms. But, I am the ruler of my own wallet and I say that video games were actually a mistake for mankind. I am the schmuck who bought the expansions so that you don't have to, my brave soldier.

My definitive answer is that this pack is one of the better packs in the entire line-up. Is it the best ever? Naw, there's some fancier dinner plates coming down the line, but people might really enjoy the social aspect of this one and those people can use this information however they will.

Gang, gang.

!!! MOVE OVER GAMERS, WE GOTTA GET THIS REVIEW OUT BEFORE CHRISTMAS !!!

You want to know the funniest thing about being a kid? It’s being ignorant to the fact that some things are just horseshit, and boy was kid me quite the ignoramus. Revisiting this game, it’s not like I didn’t know what I was getting myself into but there was some sick part of me that wanted to relive a good moment of my life in the one Spyro game I have the most unblurry memories of.

Well it turns out, those memories end at the 2nd level and nothing beyond it. Even the borderline racist NPCs somehow scrubbed from my mind. There’s no shot I finished this as a kid, and my memories kept the better portion of the game in stasis forever. They’re not good levels per se, just functionally better. After that the game quickly hurtles closer towards dystopia the further you get into it. To put it quite bluntly, this game is just not finished and couldn’t be more of a beacon of developmental hell. Except this was from the PS2/Gamecube era back in 2002 and.. yeah folks, crunch and corporate shenanigans have been happening our entire lives. This shit was made in the same time it takes to grow a human fetus and still somehow ended up being more of a disappointment.

With vast levels that are emptier than corn fields and enemies with zero life put into them. There’s no variety to be seen, just small ranged dinosaur and big dinosaur who make this sound when you murder them. If this game has achieved anything, it’s that it is at the very least sometimes funny. But you won’t be laughing when the camera 360 no scopes itself into the wall of the level design, launching you off the platform that you’re currently standing on. On normal hardware this game runs like it’s being squeezed through a tube, but even while playing it through unscrupulous means there still feels like there’s some sort of wind resistance pushing against Spyro as he charges. He feels like he weighs a metric ton, which makes platforming a goddamn nightmare. If that’s not enough for you, throw in some magic floors that clip through your body, and mini-games made by Satan himself. The draw distance is abysmal. You want to go on your cozy little gem collectathon, but they removed Sparx’s little hint clues which means you’ll be scouring all of these gigantic levels for much longer than you want just for that one last gem to appear out of thin air because it glitched out the first time. It's actually a marvel of achievement that speedrunners were able to figure out how to beat this game in 1 minute, the amount of time it takes for the veil of nostalgia to be sucked from your eyes.

What’s it all for, you may ask? Well, some of the most weirdly named Dragonflies I could have ever imagined. They really just pulled from anywhere with these guys. “Hey, it’s Karen!!” Spyro says, but the subtitle says “Rhett.” I can’t believe my childhood hero Spyro just deadnamed that dragonfly. And like I said, these issues get more prevalent as the game keeps going. With each level, the more unfinished it feels. The worlds get emptier with more nonsensical tasks that barely function. Assets aren’t re-used, but still uninspiringly pulled from previous titles in an effort to save time. Unlockable powers that get used less and less, voice lines completely missing in some instances, etc., etc. It all culminates into a final boss fight that not even I could foresee. A baffling affront to God himself, just a gauntlet of atrocities deep fried through the Christmas deadline conveyor belt. Spyro died and we killed him.

Keep this game dead, do not “reignite” it. There is no redemption to be had. Lock this one in the vault and treat it like a lesson. One day you too could make your own Enter The Dragonfly, and you don’t want to be that guy. Sometimes things should be left as memories in our heads, never to be revisited. This is a ghost for a reason, so fear it.

Now for the end of this review, I feel like it’d be only fitting to just stop talking in the middle of my

Within the first 5 seconds of freedom this game gave me, I immediately picked up the kitchen knife and used it in probably the worst way possible. The game didn’t stop me and it also didn't seem to care, and neither did I. But that was probably the worst way possible to start this game, because as it dragged on for hours the main thought in my head was, “We were cooking on the first route” which should have ended the game. Instead I was trapped in a torture chamber of nonsensical solutions and horrible dialogue delivery, with an ending that wasn’t even interesting enough to be worth the painful drawl. The image of Daisy Ridley’s weird polygonal feet are scarred into my brain forever.

While I find the trial and error bit of gameplay to be rather neat, it’s done in such an excruciatingly painful way here. Every do-over lacks the ability to skip the cinematics so you’ll feel your body rapidly age with every scene you’re forced to watch on repeat. The lack of options your character gets to work with are frustrating and unrealistic. The characters shamble around like zombies and there’s zero way to speed up the process to get back to a later segment in the timeline aside from some line skips. I guess had they implemented such a silly concept then the game would quite literally be 12 minutes long. Instead, you sit through hours of trying out the smallest changes, only to awkwardly miss-click something and have to redo the whole process again. With every make-out session your wife assaults you with unprompted at the beginning of every loop, the more reptilian I felt while playing this game. How icky it made me feel while I slowly became an iguana.

You’d think a game that allows you to stab the shit out of your wife in the first five seconds would have literally anything to say about violence or impatience or domestic abuse or literally anything? Maybe it’d point a finger at me and go, “You’re part of the problem!!” and question my immediate conclusion to stretch the game's choices to it’s most inhumane limits. Nope. It meant nothing, like it was just something cool you could do for the sake of it. Violence is actually the only way to siphon any useful information from any of the characters, in fact the peaceful communicative solutions don’t even open up until after you’ve murdered so it’s not like it’s not encouraged. But, it literally doesn’t acknowledge this as something awful nor does it affect your character in any real way. The game does not care, so why should you? Allowing me to start the game with the ability to do this really set itself up for failure. It never challenged my thought process, so I just simply progressed with not giving a shit. It's almost like game interactivity has a way of affecting the player if it's implemented in a meaningful way instead of just existing for "artistic" shock value.

At the end of the day, does it even matter? I went through all this effort just to land on a conclusion that I said out loud as a joke. When the twist happened and that joke ended up being the reality, oh fuck off. This is it. It’s just a game that let me murder my wife in the first 5 seconds of it and nothing else. Riveting stuff, guys.

How they got James McAvoy, Willem Dafoe, and Daisy Ridley involved in this is insanely hilarious. They sound like they’re phoning it in the whole time, like they don’t even believe in this game’s bullshit themselves. It’s artistic, I’ll give it that. But, am I buying it? No. I ate chocolate mousse while a man screamed at my wife and hogtied her to the floor right in front of me. Neat.

Got around to playing this game the right way and I’m glad that I did. Disregard my first review as either a solo-player's point of view or just simply the insane ramblings of a madman. We’re KeyWeing as God intended now.

This game is playable in solo mode for sure, but it’s like asking your brain to work at a level it cannot simply comprehend. With co-op you get free range of your keyboard and a buddy that will share 50% of the backbreaking work with you. How else do you people think you get your mail? Not by people, but through the blood, sweat, and tears from the most overworked, underpaid, armless birds. At least they get the benefit of informal dress codes. Please excuse my dripless friend, he’s just not quite at my level yet.

There are 4 main level designs that vary in obstacles as the game progresses which is just enough variety that keeps the game extremely fun throughout its entire playtime, which is decently lengthened. It’s enough to get through in one session and can be stretched by rechallenging the levels for better rewards, hidden items, etc. There are bonus levels with different gameplay mechanics as well and they net you more tickets for your gold mine of Kiwi cosmetics.

I think what works the best for KeyWe is how there isn’t any Overcooked! or PlateUp levels of vitriol. All three are great games with similar co-op mechanics, but there’s equal opportunity for both players to actively help in each scenario here. You can’t really impede on the other or kill your friend, which makes it a real breath of fresh air. In fact, the only thing that impeded anything were the slight moments of online desync, but it wasn’t a big issue. I found establishing a level of communication and having to shout “1, 2, 3!” before simultaneously finishing a puzzle to be rather charming. We are considering speedrunning the game now, that's how Earth shattering it was for us.

The difficulties fluctuate without ramping up to impossible degrees. While it’s a relatively easy game overall, the later levels have a fitting stress factor for the hidden masochist inside of you. The final stretch is one big, satisfying gauntlet of all of the skills you've acquired throughout. It’s not that the levels are super difficult, they’re just stressful with really well-executed shit inducing anxious music to go with them. You're a professional at this point, but the music is making you second guess yourself. The OST is actually fantastic and I’d post examples but I can’t find it ANYWHERE!!! All I have is this old trailer to work with, but it uses one of the best songs in my opinion. Classic example of the composer giving it their all, even if it’s for a short goober game about bird mailmen. Never stop.

Anyways, play KeyWe. It’s ridiculously fun.

This game has a lot of potential, but I feel like the initial concept works against it. It’s a bit more mean-spirited, where you kind of hope something horrible happens to everyone and it actually needs to in order to progress. It’s a concept that unfortunately rips away all of the scariness and hilarity that most people would probably be looking for. Aside from a well-timed spawn, there’s nothing to be afraid of. Unlike the other game that this one will be compared to until the end of time, there’s no chance of organic comedy coming from your friends who are avoiding danger rather than looking for it. The point here is to hope that something kills everyone and that the camera man isn’t dicking around somewhere else while it’s happening.

I played the game for about 2 hours and feel like I’ve already experienced everything it has to offer. The upgrades it sells you are mostly cosmetic and the amount of views you get per video seem completely arbitrary. You’ll have some rounds of gameplay where everyone dies in the first 5 seconds, leaving you with 60% of film left and others where barely anything happens at all. The environments don’t really give you that much to play with and there’s no reason to wander off because there’s only one camera. Every day ends with an awkward movie experience where everyone sits around looking at the unedited footage and maybe sometimes you’ll hear a light chuckle under someone’s breath. It’s nice that they offered it for free, but I probably won’t go back to this one until it gets some major updates.

My third eye is open and it’s crying.

This pack seemed so obviously fine tuned to a mediocre experience that I’m sure someone out there might enjoy, but it’s a personal nightmare to me. There aren’t any new collections, but there sure are a handful of weird aspirations that delete my inner peace instead of inspiring it. You’d probably guess from the title, but it’s a pack that introduces the spa, and therefore tosses in everything from detoxifying tea to massages to meditation and yoga. But boy, am I far from relaxed.

Finally my dream job of re-organizing the bones of my neighbors through unlicensed massages is actually achievable, except they made it work in the dumbest way possible. You can’t outright buy a spa in the same way that you can a restaurant, so your Sim is meant to just show up and start massaging people.. just.. because they want to? Please do not tell the IRS of my grift, but there’s no shot I’m getting a W-2 for this. It’s weird in practice and also in function, since the spa has actual NPC employees working hard for their $7.50/hr. It feels like the equivalent of you squeezing behind a cash register at your local Walmart and accepting tips from the customers for letting them skip the line faster. It’s aggravating because the NPCs are actively competing for your space, when really you’re just an asshole, leaving you to constantly beg the customers to let you tickle them a bit with your fingers.

That’s honestly really it? You get the Wellness skill which gives your Sim super calming aura, I guess. They can teleport while meditating and that’s pretty goofy, but other than that there’s not much here besides the furniture. The neat thing is that apparently EA actually refreshed this pack sometime in 2021. (This is the only time they’ve done this. Probably the only time they ever will.) This refresh added Aspirations that weren’t there before and these were what I was forced to do. They are not fun because they play poorly.

It meant I had to pull off some MLM scams at the local spa by bringing people with me. Getting multiple Sims to do an outing together in this game is like pulling teeth and the spa locations have got to be the worst places out of them all. There’s yoga classes happening every 5 minutes, which distracts every Sim in the vicinity like they’ve been hit with a sonar thought wave. One brain cell, only yoga. Everyone drops everything they're doing in an instant and starts performing yoga outside even in torrential downpour. It made getting the massages I needed really aggravating. I ended up deleting the yoga mats and pondered locking all the yoga instructors into a 2x2 containment cell. I would have honestly been doing this town a service since we lost some neighbors who were forced to perform yoga in a snowstorm. God bless those poor souls.

The rewards are not really worth it because they just net you more money for performing spa work. Sir, I am a 2.2 Simoleon millionaire and you will never see me on this lot ever again. I’ll take the soothing super power though if it makes my Sim’s kids complain less while they’re around me. I’d skip this one personally, unless you’re super into granola.

I hope we see free pack refreshes more often though, but this was 3 years ago and that ship has probably SUNK. I've mastered true clairvoyance now and that is sensing when EA is trying to siphon more money out of my wallet and surprising them with a Home Alone death trap instead.