1. What did you first think of the art style?
At release appearances didn’t matter much to me, because the new versatile CAS (all outfits for all categories, separate accessories categories) blew my mind away. I took a long time to learn the push ‘n pull system, though.
One problem I noticed early was how dark and blue-tinted the indoor spaces were. My MTS download history lists a lightening mod as my very first Sims 4 mod as early as September 7.
Only after the first excitement about CAS and easy build mode settled a couple of weeks later, did I notice how clunky the furniture looked, like Lego Duplo compared to regular Lego.
2. Thoughts on the semi-open world?
No more travel times messing up shedules and putting one family on an unfair advantage over another, who lives closer to the workplace? No more curfew and psychic police? But I can still explore the home lot’s surroundings and collect seeds/minerals? Sign me on!
Semi-open world was a major factor why I had bought this game. (Time still passing globally instead of per household still isn't a good idea.)
3. What surprised you the most?
I don’t remember. I know there were two major annoyances, sims multitasking eating with toilet use (a problem to this very day) and sims spawning at venues in their PJs if I left their household at night (they fixed that sometime early on). Not sure if these count as surprises, though.
Honorary mention to culling, although that got discovered later only, and when it hit me (after the pre-GTW patch, iirc), I had been warned and was prepared.
4. Which missing features did you covet the most?
Pools, but I had known they wouldn’t be included beforehand already. What I hadn’t known was just how much I’d miss them, and mind you, back then they were still throwing out the “engine can’t handle pools” narrative, so I was convinced we’d never get swimming pools.
5. What were your impressions of the emotion system?
I liked the old memories system that allowed us to define a memory’s flavor. Back then I could tell the game that my sim was sad about having to move to a new town. Nowadays, if the same sim would have a random happy moodlet at the time of taking the screenshot, the game would color the memory a happy one.
I found it hard to manipulate the emotions into the “Very” stage at first, but when it fully sank in that all this did was improve skill gain, I stopped trying.
Wants, fears and aspirations were never something I enjoyed, in fact, they were what had turned me off Sims 2 early on and made me return to Sims 1. So naturally I was positively impressed by how unintrusive these features are in this iteration.
6. Were you able to continuously play without getting bored?
Yes, perhaps even longer than I can nowadays.
I said so in a different thread already, I do not generally get bored with Sims 4. I get annoyed instead. The game doesn’t fail to entertain me, it often fails to work with me to the extend I expect it to.
