[Review] The Sims 4 StrangerVille

[Mark-x]

The Create a Sim items of The Sims 4 StrangerVille are of great quality like usual. However, CAS (not all of it, but a lot) is very stylized towards this pack and its environment, so I am not sure how often I will wear some of the items outside of StrangerVille. This does not make the items bad or less enjoyable, but more something to keep in mind when you’d consider buying this pack.Yup, it sounds like a very weird combination, but then again.. We are talking about a Game Pack called StrangerVille here, so did you really expect something normal from this? The mishmash of clothing can be explained by the overall theme of StrangerVille and the mysteries surrounding the village and you will unlock even more CAS items by playing through the story and new military career. 

As everyday wear you will find a variety of Wild West inspired clothes for both feminine and masculine Sims, but also some more day to day choice. Some of the items are more casual than others, and I can really see myself use some of these items as hot-weather outfits in the future. There is not one outfit that I disliked, however nothing really wowed me either. So I wouldn’t call CAS amazing, more.. okay, I guess.Two of the most prominent items for Adult Sims in the CAS of The Sims 4 StrangerVille would be the cowboy boots… The over the top, sinfully flamboyant snake-leather cowboy boots. While I enjoyed the shorter versions for both feminine and masculine Sims, I think the longer ones might be a bit too much for me personally.

While children get a whopping total of a two CAS items, toddlers are left out of The Sims 4 StrangerVille completely. I get that this particular Game Pack is not focused around these age groups at all, but seeing as it took toddlers years to arrive to The Sims 4, they have some catching up to do! Leaving them out of entire packs isn’t helping with that! How CUTE would it have been to have toddler-sized cowboy bootsies for your little ones?!! I am not shouting, you are shouting?!!!?The Sims 4 StrangerVille adds a new aspiration in the Location category, called StrangerVille Mystery. It’s a fairly fun aspiration to play through and it works best with Sims who are new in town, due to the story progression of StrangerVille.

One other thing in CAS to spice up your gameplay would be the new trait Paranoid, making Sims of ages Teen or older suspicious of other Sims, sometimes even accusing others of spying on them. Hilarious! It sets the perfect mood for an apocalyptic storyline as well, seeing as these Sims feel at their best in basements.Some of the veteran Simmers amongst us might get some serious flashbacks from the The Sims 2 era, when Strangetown was the one bringing the weirdness into the franchise. As someone who has been playing the game since day one, I can really appreciate the throwback to the older games. The Sims 4 StrangerVille has brought me a lovely amount of nostalgia to remind me why I keep playing the franchise for all these years. It’s just pure fun!

StrangerVille is a beautiful revamp of Strangetown, tweaking the storyline a bit so it fits more with The Sims 4. The climate is similar to Oasis Springs, but StrangerVille still feels different than the base game desert. The world itself is quite big for a Game Pack as well and I’m pleasantly surprised by that. Especially when you compare it to The Sims 4 Get Famous, we even get one lot more, while that is an Expansion Pack!

Okay… I’m calm again. All these ominous happenings around here just really freaked me out for a second. Now, I will not spoil the end of the storyline for any Simmers out there who are planning to play through it themselves, but let me tell you one thing: I LOVED the end of the story. It was so much fun and it was actually quite difficult to get it right, so when I finally did it truly felt rewarding.
StrangerVille is a very weird scramble of gameplay which we have not encountered in The Sims 4 before. When I was playing the Game Pack it felt more like a mini-game inside The Sims 4, rather than part of the game as a whole. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but I can see why it will not be a pack for everyone. Specifically for Simmers who like to keep their gameplay more natural, without strange interruptions and occults.

As a Game Pack I think it is one of the strongest in the franchise. Game Packs are usually more focused around Gameplay, and The Sims 4 StrangerVille just really hit the nail on that department. However, it got me thinking… Will I play this “mini-game” more than once, maybe twice? Probably not. After playing through the story you’ve seen all there is to see and I think that because of that, I will not use the gameplay aspect of the pack a lot in my Simming future. Let me stress that the gameplay is amazing, just not for multiple times.

The Create a Sim of The Sims 4 StrangerVille is extremely detailed. The overall quality of the items are nice, and there’s quite some variety of items even when staying in the particular theme of the Game Pack. However, I really missed some stuff for Children and the fact that Toddlers aren’t even included just breaks my heart. I would have loved to make a whole cowboy family, with everyone strutting their funky boots and hats, but alas.

When it comes to the Build & Buy my opinion is quite positive overall. I’m a big fan of the Victorian styled doors and windows, and especially the doors with stained glass are downright gorgeous. The mishmash of themes in StrangerVille causes the Build & Buy to be quite divided. Which makes it a hard pack for builders to work with as you can’t make one comprehensive build, without having to use other packs in the process. This doesn’t mean Build & Buy is bad in any way, shape or form. It’s just a bit all over the place.