Build your own story 

I can't explain the feeling of nostalgia I felt when opening an EA game after so long. The entire Sims franchise has been a part of my life, from my childhood to the present day, and it's a game that I hold dearly. 

The Sims 4 in particular is a joy to play. It is a 2D life simulation game where you create your own character, characterizing it as you like. I would say that this system is quite complete, since you can change everything from physical characteristics to clothing styles, body types, voices, and even the way you walk (and with this freedom you get the feeling that you are controlling yourself in a parallel life). 

Since The Sims is not a game that has a story mode, we have to deal with the fact that we are not going to be presented with anything in that sense. We create our character, customize it as we wish and give our own version of the narrative. Then some doubts always arise, such as: what profession do I want to follow? How many children do I want to have? What will my house be like? 

So, even before I start playing the game for real, I am always thinking about which story I am going to face this time. After choosing the skills and desires of my Sim, I follow with my own narrative, created and developed by me, to give life to this gameplay. 



Growing together

The first thing I noticed was that Growing together brought with it the inclusion of the town of San Sequoia, a place that started out as a fishing town and developed industries around that. The town is not very large, but has some pretty interesting plots. 

With that, for this review, I started by adding four characters in a simple house in the new town made available. I created a family with an adult, a teenager, a child and a baby. Since the focus is on DLC, it is imperative that I pay more attention to the child and baby than any other factor. So my experience was a little different from what I am used to. 

Usually in my gameplays I don't give priority to the children. I create adult characters and develop skills focusing on their careers, earning money and gradually improving their homes. But to try out Growing together game expansion pack, I had to adapt and control the smaller Sims, trying out different interactions and mechanics. 

I found the expansion quite easy to use. Its purpose, officially released by EA, is for you to experience a new way of dealing with the generations in the game. We have newborns, babies, children, teenagers, young adults, adults and seniors. With that, this DLC would come to enhance and bring content with more evidence at this point. 



But, being quite straightforward, it was really a simple addition to the game. I tried out several objects that came with the package, tested them as much as I could and didn't see that much difference compared to the base game. 

One discussion that always gets high on The Sims forums when new DLC is released is the difference between game pack and expansion pack. In my opinion, this DLC could easily be a game pack, which is simpler, ordinary, since it does not add innovative gameplay (this is the case with previous packs - such as Family Life - which are more complete and were not released as expansion packs, as is the case with Growing together). 

However, I have to recognize that, as much as the gameplay is not a big differentiator considering the collection of objects and the new city inserted, this expansion brought a greater characterization of each Sim, making them more unique. 

Moving on to more complex attributes, and the most fruitful so far, we can experience a "family dynamic" in Create a Sim, where we can define the proximity between Sims who live in the same house, which defines how they will be treated during gameplay. This was a very nice point in the expansion, which I found very complete, because it makes everything more realistic, and takes away that automatic and sometimes tiresome interaction.



I also really liked the mechanics of the memories, or milestones, because it's something that already exists in the Generations DLC in The Sims 2 and 3 and has now arrived in the fourth game of the franchise. It allows you to remember important moments in your Sim's life, both sad and happy, that they can share with friends and even future generations. 

Usually, adult Sims are the ones who are responsible for taking care of baby Sims, taking on the biggest tasks. Children and teenagers can interact with them a lot, but teaching and improving skills, sanitizing and feeding are tasks that only older Sims are in charge of. 

With this new package, babies are able to ask adults to do actions for them, such as bathing, changing, and putting them to sleep. This is something that can make some dynamics a lot easier, and since babies can now ask for things, they end up having more interactions with objects in the house. 



By asking for a toy, they show that they have the autonomy to play by themselves and put everything back in the trunk. This expansion has the potential to show that babies and children can participate more actively in the game. 

Babies, from birth on, will have development divided between several stages of life, such as creating and reinforcing their personalities, month by month, until they reach the "child" stage, in which the little sims will define if they will like parties, if they will be creative, if they will be playful, etc. 

Sims will also have new goals in life, from learning to speak as a child, to overcoming a "rival" in the workplace, to going through a midlife crisis, and much more. 

It also brought two new games (dominoes and puzzles, which can be played outdoors or indoors) and new events (baby shower and family party), which induces familiarity between Sims, causing them to increase their friendship with each other. 

Nostalgic Audio, Music and Gameplay 

How to talk about this wonderful and very nostalgic soundtrack? I simply love all the songs in The Sims, from the ones that play during events to the ones that play while I'm in Construction Mode, which bring a very comfortable ambiance to the game. 

The Sims songs remind me of a good time in my life, when I was a kid and couldn't stop playing. That excitement of creating a family, playing with it for months and not getting sick of it. The soundtrack of the game is impeccable and makes me want to keep playing. 

And I don't even need to mention the "dubbing" of the game, which is done in its own language (indecipherable, but very intriguing). I always wondered what the Sims were talking about and why it wasn't dubbed into our language (since the game is localized into Brazilian Portuguese and 17 other languages), but nowadays I find it amazing and quite unique. 

I must also praise The Sims' menu, which is very complete: we have the option to change the graphics quality, the audio volume, music and ambient sounds, the gameplay range, the camera and expansion pack settings and even the option to insert tutorials and tips. It is really quite complete, as we can customize almost everything in the game, leaving us comfortable to explore it our way. 



The image and video graphics of The Sims are the least attention grabbing factors for me. As much as it is a 2D game, I think the graphics are not very polished and could do with a little more care. 

But this doesn't change the fact that the game is very fun to play and worthwhile. What is not really worth it is the new DLC, which delivers less gameplay than the more viable and innovative Family Life game pack. 

Taking into account that the game asks as minimum requirements 4GB RAM, an Intel Core i3-3220 processor and a NVIDIA GeForce 6600 video card and I played on a PC with 16GB RAM, Intel Core i5-9400F processor and GTX 1050 Ti video card, I didn't suffer any bugs or glitches, the game ran perfectly. 

The Sims 4 DLC Growing together up key for PC was released by Electronic Arts.