I feel like TS4 has been a failed experiment. This game...was an mmo first, than it had a story mode, than it became a weak main sims game. It wasn't meant to be a main game and it shows.
The biggest "innovations" of this game are it's biggest flaws. Emotions clearly didn't work out the way they probably planned, I don't even think moodlets were supposed to be a thing since they weren't on the first TS4 gameplay video but they are here and they are a major problem. Multitasking makes sim AI lag, a lot, and it's a wall in development.
The EP's are for the most part decals and decoration objects, with so little features or even none. I still don't understand how a Cats and Dogs only pack doesn't even make dogs and cats more detailed than in previous games a aprt for some "quirky" hidden traits, doesn't make pets roam around every world, doesn't have pet trainer NPC's or actual contests with an NPC and other sim's that can win. And only two pet beds. It's all so.....low end. They have also been recycling the EP and GP content as of late which....just shows how much development they are putting into these packs.
Build mode is a mess. Only basements, pools (I don't even know how a sims game came out without pools) roof types that somehow didn't make it to the base game in time and half walls were added in 3 years. Foundations are a problem, every lot is flat, ponds are objects, only one type of stairs, elevators aren't real, there's a huge lack in wallpapers and floor tiles, no sliding doors, etc. We only got new wall trim types in the vampires GP I believe, so this iteration isn't even expanding on the new features it has.
Sims have no personality in TS4, and they only tried to expand upon them in Parenthood, but you can't set character values in CAS.
They even removed the memory timelines from the game in a patch and added the more simple screenshot viewer because they didn't want to work on a better system, removing the option to manually dictate a memory's emotion. Now it's automatic.
Whims in this game are a joke to behold, they might as well not be there. The aspiration rewards aren't that amazing and the devided aspiration goals instead of just the major one doesn't work. The concept of aspirations and the reason for them to not be changeable in TS2 is because aspirations in TS2 work like a trait (romance aspiration would make your sims keen on cheating and not really care too much if the partner cheated on them, they did not like to get married). They would dictated how your sim reacts to certain events and what he/she wants or fears. On TS4 it's just a boring way to somehow reward the player for completing a bunch of goals.
I still to this day don't understand why you can change a sim's body type and whatever suits you in CAS through the wardrobe. It's way too op and it feels like a feature an RPG would have when you make a mistake on your character. In TS3 you have to pay to get plastic surgery and in TS2 you have to go through an entire career. I don't know why this game is praising on the cheaters. I always feel like I'm going to the Black Emporium into the magic mirror to change my inquisitor when I see the change sim option on a mirror and not even there I 100% agree with the feature.
All the complaining made a T rated game an SJW political delight. No slapping, no shoving, no bumping, no showing off a fist, but we can have all the potty humor we want. No robbers, no meteors, no spontaneous combustion, no death by flies, no death by elevator, and death by emotions has been nerfed to hell.
Overall TS4 feels very much like a children game, it's easy and simple as simple can be, the artstyle looks like a cartoon network show (I guess some people like it, but I'm not living for the plastic hair, playdoh skin and over saturated tonality), animations are too much and unrelatable especially when sims talk, those smiles and arm movement is crazy, and the clipping bothers me a lot, that and sims talking through walls.
However I give it a 4 because it does have some good concepts regarding certain features and it can keep me entertained for some time though it's not as fun as previous games as it tends to get really repetitive really fast.
