Paralives: The First Round
The original plan was to post this piece after two multi-hour gaming sessions. Due to an unexpected change to my schedule, I am yet to find a time slot that will allow me to dive back. I want to have the time to fully immerse myself in this beautiful labour of love.
This is why I decided to post my first impressions a month after Early Access release, instead.
Please note that there's been updates since I last played the game, so what you will read here might already be solved/outdated.
Depending on how much you already know about the game and genre, and your own preferences or play-style, this text might contain spoilers or completely contradict your experience.
Monday, 25th of May was a holiday in my part of the world, so I had a day off. It's a bit sad that the game was only scheduled to be released at 16:00 (4.00pm) my time.
This review will inevitably contain spoilers and quite a few elements that I didn't enjoy about the game.
So before we begin, please let me state that any criticism comes from a place of care for this beautiful project!
I doubt that anyone from the team will read this review and I submitted my bug experiences and improvement suggestions directly and into the forum on release day.
This piece is for the public and those of you who aren't yet sure about this purchase.
With that out of the way, let's get started!
Release, Surprises and Anticipation
The purchase itself didn't go as smoothly as planned.
I needed to refresh the page a few times at release time to actually see the game.
At first, I was quite surprised by the price.
By the looks of it, Steam didn't bother doing conversion rates and instead went for "purchasing power" of the country you're in. That's a pretty nasty move in my book. For me, it was more expensive than in North America and I read of people in other countries having the same problem.
It's very sad that this forced some people to skip on the much-anticipated release day.
Before I read the devs' price announcement, I expected a much higher price, so I had a slightly higher budget set aside already. I am kind of glad about that, as I'd otherwise be very pissed at Steam and would've potentially skipped the release day as well.
When entering my credit card information, I was met with this. Not unexpected, really.
After the purchase went through (a few seconds after this notification), I started the installation at exactly 16:05 local time (=4.05 pm). I absolutely love how fast the installation went. This was possibly my fastest game installation ever. I was ready to play at 16:08.
Just like I suspected beforehand, Linux (CachyOS) had no problems with my game.
The game loaded very fast, too. In something like 30 seconds, I was in the start menu already.
The Sims 3 could neverโฆ
The intro music was very pleasant and evoked a bit of a childlike feeling in me. I checked the credits, but they were slow and longer than anticipated, so I decided to skip those and check out the game settings instead.
At 16:20, finally, the black loading screen announced my journey to Melino.
The excitement was interestingly tame at this point. It was more like a peaceful experience, just maximal, internal relaxation and this almost-overwhelming cosiness.
The train ride intro is a really nice way to introduce you to the game and I loved the details in the scene already. I personally can't relate to the motion sickness complaints, even though I experience it sometimes in real life.
Then, finally, I was to enterโฆ
As I stated previously, I tried to avoid too many "spoilers" when awaiting the release.
One of the exceptions was the Paramaker and boy, this one looked NEAT!
And isn't it just funny that in a recent Sims 4 update they added things that Paralives teased us with before? Maybe EA fears competition? I mean, competition is good for consumers, so I consider it a win. But this move also tells us a bit about EA, doesn't it?
Through this lovely train scene, I landed in the Paramaker myself. And here I actually got a tad bit irritated. Don't get me wrong! I like what I saw, but there's some details that made my personal experience a tad bit less exciting than I expected after seeing it in a video before.
I hate to say this but before using it myself, I was convinced that this might be the part of the game that I'd love the most. Sadly, that's not true. Or, not yet.
The Paramaker's current state is no doubt an excellent base for real greatness to come, but it needs to improve a some things for me to actually love and enjoy using it.
Let's start with some positives first:
The sliders are amazing. Period. You can really customise a lot, even the size of hands and feet.
Andโฆ you actually can select teeth for your Para?! Shut the fridgeโฆ
The female hairstyles are really pretty! It was so hard to make a choiceโฆ
You are quite free to select characteristics like can or cannot breastfeed, get pregnant, etc. This allows for a lot more storytelling game-play than what I know from The Sims series.
One of my favourite options which I plan to use in the future is the possibility to add a 2nd last name or a nickname.
The previously hyped clothes layering is a clear win and it doesn't end there; layering make up elements and piercings is also possible which is super cool. You can add long nails and modify colours of pretty much every element of both your Para and its clothing, hair and accessories. Choosing multiple outfit options within the character creation already is yet another cool feature that I appreciate a lot.
The love for detail overall is one of its kind. I mean, can we talk about the fact that you can have two different socks? Or just one, for no other reason than "because you can"? Count me in!
But there's also aspects of the Paramaker that disappointed me and that need work before I can love the whole experience.
The smallest issue is the personality section, which could go deeper but I'm sure there will be some updates here so I don't worry too much about it. There's a lot you can do with what you have and the unique combinations you're able to create right now already make for some game-play changes, for example in inter-Para conversations.
Something that kind of bothers me more are the lines on the face and especially body, which in my view are a bit extreme, almost unnaturally and comically so. Especially the collarbones icked me a bit.
Somehow, the material I've seen prior to the release looked a bit more delicate than what I encountered in my first afternoon with the game.
For now, I want to blame it on some graphic settings that I'm yet to figure out.
The art style of the game was one of the things that low-key worried me beforehand and it showed in this exact moment.
The thing that I dislike most about the Paramaker and the Paras in general, is that all male Paras look extremely androgynous at best, if not totally female.
It only struck me when I was in the game myself. Somehow I didn't see it (that much) in the pre-release material.
Maybe it's a skill issue, maybe just a mood of my installation or a weird coincidence, but it took me a lot of tweaking for a male Para to actually look somewhat masculine. Instead of making him to my liking, I wasted time on trying to make him look like a man in the first place. The frustrating experience ended with me having to slap a beard on him.
I then randomised a male Para who again looked too female for my liking and the tweaking game repeated. And again, and again.
The default androgynous or female looks of all Paras both adds realism to the game and takes some away.
Us being able to create all those unique individuals in our game is much better than the strict binary looks of Sims and adds realism we didn't see before. At least from what I remember.
But when all males looking androgynous or female, it begs the question WHY it is a default and why is it so damn hard to change them?
When checking the forum on release day, I did find some comments that would confirm my sentiment.
And some comments were a bit concerning. I for one wouldn't go as far as to accuse the game of being "targeted at girls" or "over-promoting DEI and queer stuff". Yet with much regret, I can understand why some people may think that way. Some games actually do force too much DEI just for its own sake and I also am not a fan of it.
Regarding Paralives, I find the representation to be well-balanced and tasteful. I think my favourite bit of inclusivity is that without having to install mods, you can already add some devices for disabled Paras.
I am sure they'll expand on those once they fixed the most urgent bugs.
This "feminine thing" continues with clothing.
Both genders have the same clothing and many clothes look rather feminine. And that's a shame, because unisex clothes are a FANTASTIC idea.
Sadly, most of the still limited options somehow look better on a curvier female body than on slimmer women or male Paras. As if they had "that cut".
I am fully aware that this is a luxury problem, and that I probably am a bit too old school for modern fashion, so what do I know. I believe that it would be much more inclusive and realistic for a modern life simulator, if the game had both truly female and male clothes and the player could choose from both categories no matter the gender, with unisex options on top. Just like in real life.
This unisex clothing has the potential to be another amazing feature to set the Paramaker apart from CAS and I want it to be great, so I am also hopeful that this too will get fixed. Or that there's going to be mods for this.
Speaking of mods, in case you wonder, they can be made directly via Steam Workshop by those who have a knack for this stuff and the devs encourage fan modding. At the time of writing this piece there's already countless options in the Steam Workshop alone, not to mention external mod pages!
Anyway, I tried not to spend too much time in the Paramaker when I first launched the game. My goal was to end my session at 11pm. Hahaโฆ
For my first round, I chose to explore the game with a single person household, so I created one.
Also here you can see this weird little bug where the preview of the Para is not matching the Para you've created.
The day after release, instead of tweaking this text for sharing, I jumped back into the game after coming home from work. Not for a proper gameplay session, just to try the Paramaker again. I so want to love this part of the game!
For funsies, I ended up doing a budget-John Wick. The beard somewhat did the trick again, because without it he looked more like a Johannaโฆ
The first house Dalarna purchased was rather cheap, but big. I wasn't able to place any object in it and random other Paras were coming to sleep there?! So I think I unknowingly entered something like a cohabitation space of sorts. Or that it was a bug of some kind. I will try to find the house again and use it as my first house in my next game-play to see what's going on.
In this game, I didn't waste much time on that detail as I was involuntarily playing against the clock. Still in that house, I had her pursue a Museum receptionist career and practising guitar for a bit, then I moved her around. I didn't properly get started on build mode just yet but when I got her an empty lot between two houses, I ran into wall placement issues. Bad start, but since building wasn't on my to do list for day one, I bought her a different house instead and continued with the game-play.
The customisation of household objects makes up for the limited items available. I also just love how much pleasant and real-life-looking clutter you can place at your home, making it feel very alive. I hope that some of that stuff will become interactable in the future.
The cheat window is helpful and easy to use, though not all cheats worked for me.
I really loved the cat cheat :)
After a while, my Para was a guitarist and started seeing a pre-created Para, Sebastian Marquez.
And up until this point, I found the game to be intuitive. Then, the fun beganโฆ not.
The talking mechanic to get to know someone has its charm, but in the long run can feel rather tiring and I was more interested in building skills rather than improving the relationship.
This is a big shame, because the relationships system is really interesting.
Sadly, the moods came in between quite a lot, too, and reminded me a little bit of the infuriating Sims 4 emotions system. My Para was almost permanently stressed or sad. I hope this can be fixed, because it sometimes gave me the most ridiculous cards that just ruined the conversation and lacking other options, I inevitably had to steer the conversation in a direction I didn't want.
You need to consider the mood, the situation, everything, which makes it more unpredictable, but there's this feeling of abruptly halting mid-flow every now and then. I am not a fan of that. As an idea, the cards are great, allowing the game to become somewhat of a roulette. Real-life relationships also get built in tons of different ways. In this specific game and at its current state, the relationship-building can become boring and even frustrating. Pair it with your Para's weird moods and you may ruin something that was about to be good.
Also, some cards came up repeatedly and some others (arguably the more interesting ones) seemed rare.
The limitation of this cards system made interactions feel very stripped down. I look forward to what's coming and I hope the next update will make things a bit more interesting in that regard. And in general, I hope we'll have more interactions to choose from. The current options feel poor and kinda diminish the game-play between characters. Especially when there's multiple Paras in a household, it can become overwhelming and you're forced to over-manage things in order for them to flow.
Paras talking together through walls or at weird distances is a bug that hopefully can get fixed easily. Interactions can be cool, like read together or watching TV together, but the true relationship building is still lacking.ย
Para autonomy is another topic but me focusing on one character first, didn't really let me feel this so much in the first few hours of game-play. When later my character got married, managing a household felt weird and a tad bit tedious.
I quite liked the Storyteller's cards at first, but the novelty quickly faded into boredom.
Some cards felt off and I will just assume it's a bug or an early access issue as well, but one card was repeated almost every single time, the one that gives my Para a free computer. Even if the perk was already used once. For fun, I let my Para have that card every time I'd encounter it and it wouldn't stop being shown. How many identical computers does a Para need?
Unlike in The Sims, I wasn't able to remove the computers from the inventory to sell them. In general, I wasn't able to use the inventory yet. When I tried, it didn't work for me and I suspect that's another bug.
Overall, the storytellers can steer your game and that's a good thing. When you choose one of the three storytellers, you also make some last settings for the game, like aging. I opted for Stella the dog, which is supposed to make the game really easy. To discover it for the first time, I wanted the cosiest experience. I might repeat a single household game with the others to see if there's any difference (for me). Judging by the few opinions online that I've stumbled on, there's not a lot that differs between them (yet), though.
Them steering the game in a way adds a structure that fills the Para's day while the general live mode is yet a massive work in progress.
For the time being, job places are rabbit holes, but the career advancing appeared insanely fast to me. This is refreshing but is complicating things at the same time. The fact that you can get higher ranks for your career even if you didn't meet the skill requirements of the previous level is rather special.
I am not sure on which team I am just yet, but I liked the slightly different approach.
If the schedules don't clash, you can also pursue two careers which I like a lot and made use of for my Para Dalarna and townie Sebastian.
Next time, I want to test if I can somehow juggle three careers at the same time, just for funsies.
The school system is also interesting. You get to see the grades in each individual subject and even update them based on the cards you receive.
I think the cards system helps the live mode in many ways, no matter if it's about your Para's personal development, career or interpersonal relationships. Thanks to those cards, you get some sort of structure and opportunities. The right card paired with your Para's wishes, progress at work or school, skill building and some in-town activities, you get to fill your Paras' days while the core of live mode isn't properly fleshed out yet. To some extent you get some RPG vibes when you collect items to donate to the museum or engage with citizen requests, like for example designing a website for Sebastian.
Skill-building is quite cool but comes with issues, as well.
Some options were completely broken, like the triangle practice.
An interesting addition to the skill-building is that skills can have dependencies. For example, you need to have a certain skill level in technology or you can't progress in learning the programming skill.
Once again, it could just be a bug or the system isn't completely finished yet. When the Para has a wish to level up 2 levels on guitar, for example, he or she will still feel bored after a while of practising and then can't continue. Same thing with learning skills on the computer or from a book. After a while, the Para is bored.
As a being with almost never satisfied curiosity, I would argue that this only makes sense when the Para isn't interested in a topic. Why, for example, would a Para with talent and interest in art get bored as fast when diving deeper into their passion topic?
We humans prefer to learn more about the things that interest us, so this is a bit of a realism issue with the game in my book.
Most animations worked well for me so far, but there's been a few funny moments.
And at some point during my game, it crashed due to lacking memory?!
When I restarted it, there already was a patch update going on automatically. I had no crashes after that.
My Para, Dalarna, ended up marrying townie Sebastian and had a child with him. The genetics made the kid very androgynous. OK in baby stage, but it stayed that way when the boy aged up. Not surprised at this point. I will observe with future games if this was just "genetic lottery" or a general issue. I played until Dalarna died of old age.
Unfortunately, this was a weird event, because she went to work in her last hour of life and I couldn't stop that. She just spawned in front of her home after the shift ended and instantly crashed and disappeared.
The fact that you know when your Para will die (at least if it's of old age), is rather unusual and here I much prefer the unpredictability of The Sims.
My goal to stop playing at 11pm turned out to become more of a guideline.
Let's also talk about the town of Melino. Again, the love for the craft is oozing from every corner. There's some kind of lore with the families and whatnot, though I wasn't much interested in that on my first ride.
That is something to check out when I have more time to spare.
I love the fact that it's an open world with no loading screens for public spaces like restaurants or shops. Just a small loading notification while you can still make use of the world around your Para. The day to night cycle is really pretty and also the way the Paras grow older appears very smooth. I just wish that you could teach toddlers how to walk and talk. In a way, talking can be taught to toddlers with the correct together cards (language skill grows when you clicked the right ones), but other than that I see potential to improve.
Overall, Paralives evoked many long-forgotten feelings and memories of the game I loved when I was younger. Some things seemed familiar to some extent, some felt completely new. The game feels a bit like a more polished and matured version of a long-abandoned gem, that so happens to be a whimsical comic version of it at the same time.
So far, I enjoyed this oddly specific combination a lot, but there were some issues that prevent me from completely falling in love with the game.
I for one am happy that it was an indie studio that showed the big players how to get things done! Money can get you only that far, a thing many people should internalise.
Now just lets hope that the team will be able to provide us with the promised updates and that nothing comes in between.
The game's early access was once postponed because the life was missing. Good decision if that was the case. Still, I think there could be more going on in life mode. The cards can only amend this to some degree.
What I wonder is if a less advanced Paramaker would've given the team the necessary time to make the live mode more interesting. Sadly, the main point of a life sim is the weakest in this case. I put my hopes and also some expectations into the team at this point.
During my first play, I wanted to properly discover various aspects of the game and there simply was not enough time to complete my Paralives to do list. At least not if I wanted to be somewhat awake at work the next day.
With all its flaws and bugs, I must say it's an Early Access that sets the bar. If Alex Massรฉ and his lovely team can keep up their good work, I see a new heavyweight growing in the next few years. If I could ask the devs to do anything, I'd urge them to focus on the live mode, on expanding it. I am happy to wait longer for cars, pets and weather if only the base was really fun to play.
The hours spent in Melino were very delightful nevertheless. I might've been a bit more strategic with my approach and give into the published material to prepare for a more streamlined discovery, but just learning the mechanics "the slow way" had something meditative to it.
The love for details in Paralives is almost a little overwhelming, though I say that with utmost admiration.
Is Paralives the superior Sims 2?
The game actually feels a bit like old Sims but at the same time naturally is something completely different. And I absolutely hate to compare the games. Yet is there another game on the market that we can compare it to? The limitations of the genre, I guess, where the genre literally means "The Sims". I am happy that now there's true competition and maybe a bit egoistically, I do hope that many die-hard Sims 4 apologisers will wake up now. Not only when it comes to the colour wheel.
Not too long before release, I heard a Life Sim YouTuber say things like "Paralives may be the better Sims 2".
In different ways, I thought that they could be on to something. If you ask me, it's a pretty good way to pitch the game to a Simmer, but I'd rather say it's a bit like The Sims 2's more mature, but still fun older brother. Well, if we look away from the things that need improvement, still.
Judging from my first contact with the game, I'd say that Paralives is not nearly as chaotic or unhinged as The Sims 2 or 3, and feels tame in a good way.
If I think about it long enough, my conclusion is that besides the art style, Paralives is a bit like what I imagined Sims 4 to be. You know, before my demanding, well-wishing imagination clashed with the disgusting reality of corporate greed in creative recession. Paralives has the soul of The Sims 2 , yet feels upgraded. And that paired with the open world of The Sims 3 and the matured emotions and interactions system the game should have naturally progressed to.
If the bugs can get fixed, so that they don't come in between the player and the Para, I think it's safe to say that we have a winner here.
Directly comparing Paralives to an AAA-title is simply not fair, but lacking other things to compare to, I regrettably have to go that route. Some of the things that we can see in Paralives is undoubtedly reminiscent of Sims mechanics and the team proved that they love the genre and have what it takes to shake it up!
Purely from a game-play perspective, I do feel like Paralives has a chance to be the better, more modern Sims game that the franchise never received. And seeing the downfall of EA and the overall positivity of and around Paralives and its creators, I am fucking glad it's not a Sims title but its very own thing.
The team informed us about all the things that are still missing and what we can expect throughout this two year stage.
The game is not yet finished and it's important to keep that in mind. Too high expectations will ruin your experience, going in with none will provide you with a lot of joy.
With that being said, I encourage everyone to give this game a chance. We received Early Access information for quite some time now and the team really went out of their way to be transparent with us and to manage our expectations.
Still, many comments online suggest that people don't seem to comprehend what Early Access really means or they had, despite the team's efforts, expectations that can't be met anytime soon.
If you expect a ready game, a Sims copy of any kind and a flawless experience, let me discourage your from buying the game just now. But if you're open minded and want to help something big to grow, consider skipping a takeout meal to instead support the beautifully human art of creating games.
I'm looking forward to the coming updates and will dive deeper as soon as I can spare a few hours. I am definitely inclined to continue the journey, discover more about the world and its quirks and secrets, even if my playtime one month after release suggests otherwise.
Paralives didn't manage to dethrone The Sims 2 as my favourite simulator game. There's too many things that don't work well enough yet for me to fall in love completely.
If the team continues the way they do, I can see it happen in the future and I already dig it!
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