The Sims 4: Journey to Batuu

released on Sep 08, 2020

DLC for The Sims 4

Create your Sim's unique Star Wars story as you explore the remote world of Batuu, from Galaxy's Edge at Disneyland and Disney World, in The Sims 4: Journey to Batuu. Will your Sim join up with the Resistance, fall in with the scoundrels, or enlist with the First Order? It's up to you! Build up your Sim's reputation to unlock missions, purchase a lightsaber or droid, and meet iconic Star Wars characters like Rey and Kylo Ren.


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I love Star Wars but this ain’t it

https://www.backloggd.com/u/HuFe/list/the-sims-4-add-ons-ranked/

Part 1: Let’s state the obvious, nobody wanted this
This pack is terrible for Sims fans, and the Star Wars content is completely disconnected from the rest, and it’s terrible for Star Wars fans, as it’s impossible to make a coherent action game inside the Sims 4. The “epic adventure” angle never works because you know you are just clicking on random stuff and nothing really matters. The pack could have worked if they instead had focused on making a livable city with a few sci-fi fantasy stuff like the aliens and lightsabers.

Part 2: Let’s be nice for a bit
I feel bad for the Sims team, being forced to work on a pack no one gives a crap about, and I wouldn’t say they did a bad job taking into account their usual limitations. The clothes and the environments are very nice, the loading screens are very fast, I like the cantina with the banger DJ robot, and the droids and lightsabers are a cute distraction. It’s a good-looking pack overall, but it’s still one of the most boring gaming experiences of my entire life.

Part 3: How does it work exactly?
You simply tell your sims to go on vacation to the world. It doesn't cost anything and there's no set duration, so you can stay there until you are finished with everything you want to do. There's a rabbit hole where you sleep, a rabbit hole to change clothes, and a rabbit hole to eat (they are always getting cereal from somewhere), and a central bar, which is the only real place you can hang out at. Therefore, you simply focus 90% of your time on missions. There are three sides: the Revelion (good), the First Order (bad) and the criminals. I made a sim for each one, but either way, the missions all blend together. They are all something like “talk to this person” or “hack into the ATM machine” (these are the most annoying tasks ever), so you spend all your time clicking on random stuff, or looking for stuff to click on (it’s hard to figure out at first), and waiting for your sim to get to places because they went to get cereal so they have to walk like 2 miles. The most exciting one of these is the one where you work for the First Office and you check people’s IDs, and it’s not even that interesting. By far the most gameplay heavy mechanic is the stealth system: you have to be careful when you get inside the main headquarters or when you hack an ATM to not be in close proximity to one of your enemies, because they arrest you on sight. And what happens when you get arrested? Nothing really, your sims walk to a rabbit hole, they stay there for an hour, and then they are free to go, and you can still hang out right in front of the officer who arrested you and they don’t react in any way. There’s no real sense of progression or danger.

Part 4: Bugs
I encounter bugs in the Sims 4 from time to time, but not very often and nothing too game-breaking, so I feel that this pack stands out in that aspect too. A random mailman showed up to Batuu one time, another time the Stormtroopers didn’t have their helmets on (they are bald), one time my sim started rotating in place, one time my sim was napping on a bench (they do this a lot) and she couldn’t get up, and another time she was about to arrest someone and then she stopped and started doing something else, and I couldn’t control her in any way because the game said she was in the middle of arresting someone, and it wouldn’t let me save the game, or travel to another location, or reset her, and I figured out that I could switch to another sim and end the vacation, so they all went home OK (and you can go back to the Star Wars world immediately after). And the stealth and arrest systems simply stopped working 80% of the time after a while. The First Order would be about to arrest my sim and then they started doing something else, or they simply went on with their business and didn’t react in any way, so I could do anything I wanted.

(Also, this is not a bug, but your sims get to keep their phones, and they totally break the immersion at certain points, alongside the notifications of random stuff going on in the real world)

Part 5: Conclusion
I like Star Wars just fine, but this was painfully mediocre. More importantly, I am a person that hates crossovers on principle, I don’t want ads for another franchise while I’m playing a game. And that is what it is, brand synergy, a bland corporate product. To me, it's not simply that it doesn't add anything (like kits), but it removes immersion and annoys me on top of it, it is an active negative to keep it installed. The only possible exception is the weird futuristic hippy clothing, some of the pieces look pretty cute, and I could maybe figure out a proper context to use them, but that’s not nearly enough to give it a pass. I completed the three aspirations and I uninstalled it immediately.

https://imgur.com/kpOj7hj (My sims arriving to Batuu)
https://imgur.com/MSXsm7P (My jedi and sith loving each other)
https://imgur.com/zWhdgKv (My jedi and sith fighting, but they don’t actually give a shit about each other’s profession, nobody does)
https://imgur.com/ggSRuAx (My neutral sim romancing an alien)
https://imgur.com/Jvj6U1Y (My jedi getting arrested while using the phone)
https://imgur.com/k5iFZ4D (My sith arresting people while eating cereal)

This expansion had so much potential. It's like it tried to replicate Sims Medieval and missed the mark by a thousand miles. The gameplay is extremely disappointing but CAS and BB are cool, I guess.
I bought it digitally for half price, attempted to return it within an hour, and was slapped with "this game is not backed by a great game guarantee" and could not be refunded.

I paid $5.00 for this and Sims 4 physically on Xbox One. Because of this, I enjoyed my time with the content. It's just a vacation world themed after Star Wars. It probably shouldn't be in the Sims 4, but, hey, it's fun content if you can find it on clearance at your local Walmart. Otherwise, it's overpriced like all the other game packs and its new additions only go so deep.