The Sims 4 Jungle Adventure Review
Into the Jungle!
The Sims 4 Jungle Adventure gamepack takes us to a new destination for our Sims to vacation, Selvadorada! This appears to be the equivalent of The Sims 3 World Adventures. Let's start by talking about some of the new features!
The Archaeology skill and Selvadorian Culture Skills are added!
Two new Aspirations are added! Archaeology Scholar, which grants the Museum Patron Trait, boosts your Sims mood when they're in a museum. Jungle Explorer grants the Treasure Hunter trait, increasing the chances of better finds on their adventures.
Huge Jungle to Explore! Here you will find excavation sites, a hidden spring, and a hidden Temple. Sometimes there will be skeletons roaming about, who don't seem to be aggressive unlike the Mummies in TS3 WA.
New objects and outfits of course!
Things we loved
Through the Archaeology skill you can craft new relics that have unique functions that range from electrocuting other Sims to summoning a skeleton maid to clean your house. Of course we older fans will be happy to see that we can have Bonehilda running around again. Except now depending on the rarity of the crystal you use in your relic, they can even boost your skill gain! These of course range from blessings to curses.
Exploring the Temple and doing puzzles again was absolutely an amazing feature! The Sims 3 World Adventures was an amazing game for these, and I put many many hours into exploring all the different tombs in the different worlds.
The objects that were added in this gamepack are a great addition and opens up a lot of different design possibilities, which we're extremely hungry for these days after losing the Design Tool from TS3.
Things that were disappointing
While I loved being able to explore the Temple again, I have put many hours into revisiting and raised all the skills to max and still cannot access certain parts of the Jungle. I believe the only way to do so is purely by revisiting, which is why it is nice that there is no debuff from going on vacation like there was in TS3 WA. However again, I have put quite a bit of time into it and have turned up empty handed. TS3 WA was such a huge expansion, of course we can't expect the same amount of content however I think fans would have rather gotten an Expansion Pack instead with more locations and perhaps a better system as far as how to unlock different areas.
Items that you need are not always available at the market. It can be a pain trying to find a machete sometimes.
Really the only negative is that it's not the large content filled expansion that people were hoping for. My hope is that more like this will be coming, and with Strangerville's release being similar in a way that it is an adventure, there is reason to hope for some more new locations with unique ways to play.
My Thoughts and Suggestions
So do I approve of this gamepack? It's hard to give it a full endorsement knowing it's predecessor and accepting that we wont be getting the massive expansion with all the little things that made it so magical. This is for me the greatest let down of The Sims 4, but I am trying to be optimistic. This gamepack is yet again not quite what we wanted but for it's price and the amount of content I would say it serves it's purpose.
The annoyance of not really being able to fully explore the Jungle while also being able to finish what's available there by default so quickly I believe really hurts the level of quality we expect regarding function. This is an addition that fans were really looking forward to, and while I see the effort and possibilities, the end result just isn't quite up to par.
Nobody wants to spend their time traveling back and forth between vacation destinations for the random chance they might finally get to see that place and finish exploring. You're well finished with all the skill building and anything else there is left to do in Selvadorada before it opens. It's not that this is a hard thing to do, it's that it's annoying and time consuming and no one likes that.Knowing how this system works it's almost counter productive to allow Sims to extend their vacation time as that's really probably the factor in why so many people aren't seeing it before they get bored and move on to something else.
However the archaeology perks are quite cool, I would say this feature saves this gamepack from being undesirable. For this reason, and the fact that I really did enjoy what content I was able to access inside the Jungle, I would say this is worth adding to your collection.
I would absolutely love to see similar gamepacks in the future! I would love to see the original destinations from TS3 WA broken down, though I'd prefer them in the larger expansion with more storyline and content I don't see it happening anymore for the Sims 4. Perhaps in The Sims 5 EA will hear our pleas and give us the epic adventuring experience that we long for from TS3 WA. But for now, I think fans would be happy to settle with gamepacks that deliver a similar experience. Send us to France and return the Nectar Making Skill (yes I know, probably wont happen because of other additions that replaced it in function but I miss my nectar cellars). Send us to China and return the Martial Arts Skill.
Thank you for reading and I hope my review helped you get an idea of what this gamepack is all about!
