What does sims 2 have that is lacking in sims 4

Even though I only have Sims 2 Pets on gamecube, I got to borrow the pc version from my sister. Both are really good gameplay, love the personality and how they remember stuff. Specially since they feel more alive then boring Sims 4, literally feel like I wasted money... I'm more into gameplay then building.

The sims 4 lacks the following
- random surprises and events
- unique personality
- Reactions to environment and other sims
- challenge
- Small details

Sims almost never reject social interactions and are generally friendly towards others unless the player decides to be mean.

- better AI.
- engine thought for a life simulator.
- ts2 is full of details, so many that even 15 years later people is still finding new ones.
- the sims do feel like they're part f their world, on ts4 their interactions towards everything are so limited sometimes it feels like they're just robots passing through.
- lots of features like the create a world tool, or personality features like memories.
- the input of the creator of the franchise. while it's said he wasn't 100% involved in its development, at least he was there to express his opinion and feedback to it. the game still has a soul, something that sims 4 lost when ea decided they would reuse the sims olympus engine for the game & advertise it like it was the eight wonder.

Another thing TS2 has that TS4 doesn't do very well. There is nothing you can't get your hands on for TS2 right within the game. The developers didn't hold all their marbles close to their chests. They shared every cheat, every boolprop, every customization you can think of so the player could actually recreate their own game to suit themselves. TS4 actually took away some cheat codes so players couldn't use them. Told their players they wouldn't understand some of them anyway, and or felt it was 'cheating', lol, etc.

TS2 was the very best for sharing all it's cheats, ways to do and change things. It's not that a player should do all that, but they didn't hold back and shared every thing with the player (most right in the game) and or made the code so easy in a way an average player could use the third party tools like SimPE, CEP, and create their own stuff whether that was by setting up game rules by cheats, and or creating their own custom content or Sims, skins, and personalities and neighborhoods. That is something that didn't occur again though TS3 developers did share many cheats with players, TS2 developers gave them all to players to do with whatever they felt most found in read me notes. It was your game, ruin it, if you want to. lol

I just got back into the sims 2, honestly in a weird way I feel like sims in the sims 2 have a lot more personality. I mean, yeah we dont have traits to choose from but every sim has their own interest and if you direct the to do something they dont want to do theyll throw a tantrum. Overall the sims feel a lot more alive.

Also, idk if you play with premades but I really like the scripted events and back story for the sim 2 sims. I like having that little push. Plus there was so much effort by maxis to really flesh all the sims out. In the sim 4 you dont really get that. Yeah you get a general backstory but a lot of the time the relationships don't even match if that makes sense.

Theres a ton more of amazing details the sims 2 have that the sims 4 doesnt. The sims 4 got things like CAS and Building right but imo thats all that they got right. Sims 3 will always be my number 1 but sims 2 is a close second.

I personally never cared about not having traits in the sims 2, for me even with the same aspiration your sim can still be different from another one because of the interests,hobbies and etc.

Sims in the sims 4 are souless...
Sims 4 has so many recycled objects and animations that everytime they came out with a new pack it doesn't even feel excited or new...

I sent my sims in the sims 2, to a vacation in an asian world, THEY MET a NINJA.
I sent my sims in the sims 4 to a Japanese inspired FESTIVAL, they played with snow from seasons and ate ice cream.

In the sims 2, when a kid gets an A's report card, they run excited to show to their parents. When they get a bad grade they look at it dissapointed and put it away. In the sims 4, they don't do anything.

In the sims 2, sims actually sit together at the table to have dinner and talk to each other. They are also able to sit down together to watch a movie.
In the sims 4, these two simoly actions are nightmares, among with so many other features that never works, and you end up having to imagining everything that is going on because the game doesn't even work, and most of it, you are imaging it and playing in your head...

Sims 4 is so broken. It could have been amazing without all the recycling, without all the pointless features as constantly looking the phone nevertheless if your sim hates technology or not, without the empty personality traits that don't do anything in particular, with a little more of gameplay, with a little more of detail... Sims 4 is honestly for people who like to buils and create characters, thesr two feautres are amazing, but the gameplay seems designed for 6 years olds.

sims 2 has more family play

Sims 2 has so many things, like Sims 4 is nice to play, because you can have more options in CAS, like skin tones, being able to make pets, etc. it does really look pretty, and I do enjoy the game packs I got for it, but I went for packs I loved in Sims 2, and a few packs that Sims 4 offered.
Now, back to the question, Sims 2 does almost everything better than Sims 4 in a lot if ways. For one, their were wants and fears that actually make since, where whims seem more empty. In Sims 2, you could have a Sims with almost the exact same astrology sign, and a few others, but feel more real because they won't be 100% the same.
Also, teens look like teens, and not adults, where you can't tell the difference between the two. Plus, the gameplay in Sims 2 threw some curve balls at the player, where the results could change the outcome of the game play. Plus, Sims could be killed by flukes, like looking at the sky too long and get killed by a satellite dish. You can more or else control the Sims however you wanted, but the game play could switch things up.
Sims 4 doesn't really offer much random game play, and most of the stuff that makes the game fun in Sims 4, gets nuked, because people complained about the feature. Like, don't but Vampires, if you don't want to deal with Vampires.

I have been playing the Sims 2 today for the first time in around eleven years and I can’t believe how much I have forgotten or just how much detail is in the Sims 2 compared to the Sims 4. Having my sims shop for clothes and groceries, cars, personalities and all the randomness. All the time I was playing I kept saying to myself... “oh I wish the Sims 4 had this or that”. I love both games but playing the Sims 2 really just reminded me how much is still missing from the Sims 4.