The expansion Snowy Oasis for The Sims 4, developed by Maxis and published by Electronic Arts, enriches an already very wide offer in the collection of the fourth chapter of the series. If you are a fan of The Sims you will know that it is even the tenth expansion for The Sims 4, which adds the setting of Mount Komorebi. Although it is an outdated title, given that it was released in 2014, we are talking about a constantly enriched and evolving game, which since the day of its launch has seen a myriad of elements added to the offer, both in terms of features and settings. Mount Komorebi awaits us, so let's go backpacking and let's go have a nice weekend in the snow!
Tourist or Resident?
The first thing that catches your eye when you enter Snowy Oasis is the possibility of make quick trips through travel mode on your mobile, or to become residents, renting one of the modest apartments already made available by the developers. The third option is empty land, but if you are a The Sims player accustomed to lavish mega mansions, be aware that the buildable house in this space could be as big as your bathroom. It seems that this setting was really designed as a holiday village. The advice we give you is to rent one of the ready-made residences without going back and forth, enjoying the setting of Mount Komorebi for what it has to offer: attractions and interactions between sims.
The new region is ideally divided into three zones: the one near the city is Wakaba, a newly built town where the Youth Festival is staged, with the mascot Yamachan. In this area there are the Wakabamori, or the residential lots where you can live with the sims and fully enjoy the region of Mount Komorebi. The halfway zone is Senbamachi, the oldest town among those proposed by the new setting: also called the “town of a thousand leaves”, it is surrounded by bamboo forests, where wild animals and dangerous insects live. In Senbamachi there are the Temple of the Mountain and the Cemetery. In this town the Festival of Light is staged, in which homage is paid to the dead. It is a very spiritual village where you can find climbing walls, parks and residential lots called Shinrinyoku. The third zone is that of Yukimatsu, where the Snow Festival is staged. Being perpetually covered with snow, the place is characterized by cable car, ski slopes, paths for hikers and thermal baths. All the elements exude oriental settings and customs, as well as the new feature of taking off your shoes before entering the buildings or houses.
What kind are you?
The Sims 4: Snowy Oasis brings with it novelties from the point of view of the characterization of the various sims: feelings and lifestyle. The developers introduced 16 different lifestyles, viewable in the menu called "Simeology". Feelings, on the other hand, are linked to the sim's reaction following a particular event that he experienced. This enhancement of social dynamics is definitely a step forward compared to the past, a full-bodied implementation destined to become an integral part of the relational mechanics between sims. If you don't like a particular lifestyle, you can reset it with a special potion that can be purchased in the rewards shop or by doing a sort of psychological phone session.
In principle, the system works, also because it is the game setting itself that will lead sims to develop particular feelings and lifestyles rather than others: a sim lover of walks, thermal baths and who therefore follows a meditative or basically solitary life path, will be a sim who is not very accustomed to frequent other sims with a passion for example of extreme sports. Conversely, if your sim is a new Shaun White, he will hardly develop a sedentary lifestyle or hang out with sims with habits different from his. As for the extreme sports part, try to be careful because if the sim has not developed the necessary skills for a downhill skiing or climbing, the risk of getting seriously injured or even dying will be very high.
The new game mechanics however it proves to be particularly severe, if not understood at best: letting a sim who loves extreme sports live for too long at home or at the thermal bath in the midst of others that he finds boring, will have negative consequences on his mood: he could become depressed or become irascible, to the detriment of the feelings aroused in the other sims. Balancing everything with the new game mechanics might seem complicated at first, but as the hours go by, it all gets easier. The really cool thing about these new implementations is that basically there is no right way to play Snowy Oasis: Mount Komorebi makes available practically endless possibilities to develop our sims' feelings and lifestyles.
Do you want to create characters who love extreme sports? You can do it. Do you want to create a kind of Sensei of inner peace and meditation? This is also feasible. Want to build the perfect hiker who knows the whole setting and caves inch by inch? Absolutely yes. The combinations are innumerable and you never run the risk of getting tired. The only element in our opinion that is a little in-depth is that inherent to the Festivals, which could have been implemented perhaps in a more structured and functional way within the setting.
Graphics and Audio
The graphics of The Sims 4: Snowy Oasis are perfectly in line with those of the game released in 2014: the setting and the various locations are well designed, but you certainly can't expect miracles. It is a game that is now heading towards ten years of honorable career, typical elements of Japanese culture in shoji style have been introduced, well made and perfectly integrated into the game world. Same goes for accessories and clothes of the sims, well reproduced. The audio is also really well done: the relaxing soundtracks of walks in the woods are something incredibly suggestive and will surely lead you to want to repeat certain excursions just to listen to them again.
If you are a fan of the genre or a fan of The Sims series, Snowy Oasis is an absolutely must-have expansion. Well done, relaxing and fun, also thanks to the new implementations of feelings and lifestyles. If you have never played The Sims, this could be a good opportunity to do so, also because the whole part of learning the skills to ski and practice climbing could be fun for those who are passionate about RPG, even if obviously it is a very comparison. distantly. If you have left The Sims 4 waiting for the next installment of the series, it might be the right time to take a ride again. In any case, it is a good expansion with some new features and a suggestive setting.
