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

Part 1: Japan
I would say this pack is one of the most controversial, meaning that it ranks high, mid or low depending on the person. To me it’s one of the primary examples of “world packs” that simply add a new place to live in, and not that much else. In this case it’s Japan! I think it was the first time that they let sims youtubers build the lots, and the results are great. It offers very beautiful architecture and build mode possibilities. The Sims Team did that thing that they always do nowadays: they don’t give us that many neighbourhoods or lots, but each neighbourhood is very big and you can do a lot of stuff without having to go through a loading screen. In Wakaba you have a beautiful garden, a beautiful lake to swim, and the town square with the train station, which are sadly only for decoration (I think there’s an ice skating rink in the winter, and one of the festivals takes place there, but that’s about it). Overall this is the weakest neighborhood because there's not a lot of gameplay besides the swimming (I find it odd that there's not a single fishing spot with all that water, but even so I think it's a beautiful place to live. The second neighbourhood, Senbamachi, is the main place to go hiking and it’s really beautiful (and it has the world’s only fishing spot). And finally, we have Yukimatsu, and you can do an incredible amount of stuff without loading screens. You have hiking trails (snowy edition), the whole ski resort, and it’s the main place to go climbing. Each neighbourhood also has a festival similar to what they did in City Living, but there are only half as many of them, and none of them are very good gameplay-wise (The Festival of Light and the Festival of Snow are visually stunning, the Festival of Youth is basically trash). Each neighbourhood always has a food stand, a bathroom, and bending machines available (including the new collectables, and the new death). The pack also introduced chabudai (the chairless tables), a hot pot that you can place on tables to cook traditional stuff, forest spirits (these are kinda lame), a cave to have woohoo in if you have a climbing couple because it’s only available near the top of the mountain, and the hot springs lot type (these are honestly just a glorified pool lot with a giant hot tub instead of a pool).

Part 2: Sports!
Hiking is basically a new sport, even if it’s just walking. You click on particular signs and choose to either hike around randomly or with a specific destination, either alone or with other people. The destinations are cute enough, some of them have a few interactions. The most impressive part is that they managed to make groups of sims walk together as a cohesive unit, I wish we had that option in everyday gameplay, imagine if you could make lovers hold hands walking down the street. On the ski resort we have sledding, which is a very cute way of making lovers or family members interact, and we have the more professional sports, which are snowboarding and skiing. I’ve heard that they were basically only some new animations without any real gameplay, and it’s kinda true, but there are a lot of animations, I enjoy them more than what I was expecting. The biggest disappointment here is the fact that the ski lift is a rabbit hole (this was the start of our current rabbit hole nightmare) when it would have been really cool to see our sims sitting together, maybe interacting just as if they were on a couch for 30 sim minutes. The other disappointment is the fact that there’s no competitions, or careers, or any particular goal related to the new sports besides an aspiration, so there’s no real incentive to participate in any of them. And then we have mountain climbing! This one is the most disappointing of all. For starters, the mountain climb is divided into several areas (each one with a climbing wall in the middle as an obstacle) and to advance you simply get to a sign that teleports you to the next location. They could’ve easily made the sims climb into a cave or a narrow path to transition smoothly to the next area, but whatever. The worst part is that you can’t simply start climbing by yourself, the teleporting signs don’t work unless you plan a social event, you are forced to lead a climbing party. This means that, if you have only one sim with climbing skills in your household, you have to invite random strangers to climb alongside you, and the sims you don’t actively control (who most likely have no climbing skills whatsoever) become expert climbers just so that you can move forward. In my first attempt to climb the mountain, my sim was only a level 4 climber (and you need at least level 6) so he was unable to climb the third and final wall. However, his random girlfriend that they forced me to bring along, who had no climbing skills whatsoever, immediately started climbing the wall like it was nothing, and I had to cancel the event because I was stuck. The way climbing ends up working is immersion breaking and kinda boring. Sure, if you want to role play, you can create a random sim (and even give him level 10 climbing by using cheats) and pretend that he’s your climbing instructure, but we shouldn’t need to create immersion ourselves, it should be the default. Getting to the top of the mountain is a cool feeling, and I think it’s funny that you can have woohoo in three separate ways while you are there: the cave, a random bush, and the tent you can bring.

Part 3: Base game stuff and recycled content
Some of the best parts about the pack are not actually part of the pack as they were released for free. This includes the sentiment system, building with platforms, and shoes-off homes (this was added to the base game a few days ago, in December 2023). And some of the pack exclusives are actually recycled from other packs, like the wall climbing animation from Fitness Stuff, the hot tub animations from Perfect Patio Stuff, the bugs and tents from Outdoor Retreat, ice cream from Cool Kitchen Stuff, the woohoo bushes from Get Together, and the festivals from City Living. Personally, I don’t mind this. It makes this pack better and it doesn’t feel as if they are retrospectively making those packs useless.

Part 4: The lifestyles are horrible, change my mind
This exclusive feature is one of the first things the Sims Team tried to sell as a "sim personality fix" because we all know that these sims don't have any personality, and it’s basically the only thing the pack adds outside of the Japan world. Lifestyles are basically traits that are gained according to what your sims end up doing, instead of being chosen, similar to the Parenthood traits. Does this make the sims feel more different then? Not really, they don’t help much because the outcome of developing one is mostly some occasional moodlets (as always). But, weirdly enough, they decided to make those moodlets way stronger than the ones we get from traits and aspirations. My biggest problem with the feature is that the lifestyles are completely separate from normal traits, and this is a horrible idea, as they end up contradicting them on a daily basis, and, because they are stronger, they end up overriding the traits you chose. You specifically made a sim whole sole aspiration is to find their soulmate? Well, if they are single for too long, now their entire personality is that they love being single and hate it when they get into a relationship. Similar things happen with indoor sims vs outdoorsy types, and introverts vs extroverts. To me, the lifestyles end up saying more about the players than about the sims, like, holy shit, I never make my sims leave the house, don’t I? There is an option to deactivate them altogether, I didn’t want to deactivate them until I was “finished” with the pack, but I couldn’t wait to do it.

Part 5: Game Pack or Expansion Pack
People compare this to World Adventures from The Sims 3, an expansion pack where you could travel to France, Egypt and China, making this pack ⅓ of an expansion. I wouldn’t say that’s completely fair, as this is a way more detailed pack, and comparing it to something like City Living (the “you get to live in New York” pack that everyone likes) this is the equivalent “you get to live in rural Japan” pack, and the amount of content is somewhat similar, trade apartment life for some outdoor sports. On a personal basis, I am not that interested in Japan. I don’t watch anime or listen to J-pop or anything, so I’m not going to make my sims visit or live in Japan very often. I did enjoy this pack more than what I was expecting, the landscapes and architecture are beautiful, and it’s a rather detailed depiction of the culture, but what is there to do, really? If all the annoyances like the rabbit hole ski lifts and the stupid climbing social event were not there, and if they added just a little more to it, like martial arts (sumo and jujitsu!) it would be an instant recommendation, but as it stands I do believe it’s on the weaker side of expansions. I can see myself going sledding often for family gameplay, skiing and snowboarding from time to time to give sporty sims a bit more to do, but that’s about it.