Sims 1 Re-Release Has Something Major To Teach Sims 4

With the re-release of the original The Sims as part of The Sims 25th Anniversary Legacy Collections, many modern-day Sims fans are looking to go back and see where it all started, but they may be in for quite a shock. While The Sims has had improvements and expanded with each entry in the series, it has also gotten noticeably easier.

Those who had the pleasure of playing The Sims back in 2000 know that it is nearly unrecognizable from the modern-day Sims 4 game. What is now considered a relatively cozy game was once a painful simulation game in which Sims would refuse to go to work, or even die, at the most minor of inconveniences.

Sims 1 Is A Hard Game – Here’s Why

Sims 1 Made Players Work To Keep Their Sims Happy

While players who experienced the brutality of The Sims 1 back in the day may have some memory of what they’re in for, those who have only ever played Sims 4 could easily be taken aback upon loading up the original. Put simply, The Sims 1 is hard, and not just because of unfamiliarity, as it’s genuinely designed with more difficult gameplay.

For one thing, Sim needs drop almost instantaneously upon filling them, requiring players to constantly stay on top of needs. However, by the time one is taken care of, another is depleted, and if anyone thinking they can just ignore it for a while and take care of it later when the Sim isn’t busy will have to think again. Sims in The Sims 1 are not as ready and willing to go about their day when they’re in a bad mood, so if needs aren’t being taken care of, then that Sim won’t be doing anything.

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The Sims 1: How To Romance A Partner & Get Married

In the first Sims, romantic relationships, marriage, and even having kids is different from the rest of the series, but they’re all still possible.

Furthermore, having any kind of social life in the original Sims game is nearly impossible, as it requires constant focus to maintain relationships, which there is already no time for due to the aforementioned issues. Additionally, if, miraculously, there is free time available, it’s probably because the Sim isn’t working. Once they do, they will need to work every day, as missing even 2 days of work in a row will result in an automatic firing. Since they simply won’t go if in a sour mood, getting fired is already a major risk.

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The Sims 1: 10 Essential Gameplay Tips For New Players

The first Sims is quite different from its successors, so it can be necessary to seek out tips to make it easier to keep these Sims happy.

Given that taking care of a Sim’s mood was, for the most part, the main aspect of gameplay, it was understandable why moods depleted so quickly. Otherwise, players may not have had enough to keep the game interesting. Once additional packs were added to The Sims and players had more activities for their Sims to participate in, however, they were ultimately punished for participating in the additional content, as the needs depletion rate remained the same.

Sims 1’s Re-Release Highlights How Easy Sims 4 Is

Sims 4 Is Designed To Embrace The Cozy Side Of The Sims

When players think of The Sims 4, a word that likely comes to mind is cozy. For a while now, The Sims has been considered one of the biggest contenders in the cozy game genre, but that hasn’t always been the case. Going back to the original The Sims, players would likely have classified The Sims as more of a strategy game than a cozy game.

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The Sims Re-Release Has Not Been Going How Fans Expected, As Crashes And Bugs Plague The Sims Once Again

The Sims 1 and 2 have been re-released to the delight of many long-time fans but frequent crashes are stopping some from buying the games.

Nobody was free to enjoy their time and embrace all the silly activities available to them. Instead, it was a struggle just to keep a Sim alive. Creating a Sims family in The Sims 1 and allowing it to flourish was a massive accomplishment, and it wasn’t something many players were able to successfully achieve. Now, in The Sims 4, creating and caring for Sims is almost no effort, as they’re a lot more cooperative, easy to keep happy, and accommodating to just about anything thrown at them.

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Are you surprised EA released more broken games with The Sims 1 and 2 Legacy Collections?

While the glitches and bugs aren’t consistent, whether it’s on the EA app or Steam, there’s no doubt that The Sims 1 and The Sims 2 Legacy Collections are broken. I started with just a few routing issues and interactions failing, but now I can’t boot up either game without the application crashing in less than a minute. I’m not shocked in the slightest, EA hasn’t released a new Sims installment that is actually usable upon release for years now. However, considering they had this on the backburner for a while, I’m disappointed that the games are this buggy.

Swapping out partners, quitting and starting a new job, earning money while unhappy, and a plethora of other things have never been easier than they are now. Players have all the time available to them to play exactly the way they want to play and are only periodically required to check in on a Sims’s needs as a background task, making it a complete 180 from how the original game was structured.

Sims 4 Needs To Have Difficulty Options

Cozy Can Still Be Challenging, So Sims 4 Should Offer Both

While most Sims players are unlikely to be interested in fully reverting to the old ways of The Sims, it would be nice to have some way to make modern games more challenging. Sims 4 has a seemingly never-ending list of things to do in the game and all the free time needed to do it, but after a while, that freedom can become a bit repetitive.

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At the end of the day, despite the additional content, there isn’t that much change to how Sims 4 is being played each time a player logs on, just what task they’re doing that day. For a cozy game, that’s kind of the goal, as players are typically looking for something to enjoy casually, but it can become monotonous for those who have been doing it since Sims 4‘s release in 2014. To shake things up again, The Sims could take inspiration from where it started by implementing a new difficulty setting.

Allowing players to change how quickly needs reset or whether a Sim is willing to be cooperative when not feeling well would give veteran players a new challenge and bring back some of the strategic aspects that the franchise has seemingly lost. This would force players to plan their Sim days based on goals and raise the stakes just enough to make The Sims feel brand new again.

The Sims (2000)

Released

February 4, 2000

ESRB

T

Developer(s)

Maxis

Publisher(s)

Electronic Arts