Realm of Magic occupied my life for days straight, and I am still actively playing the Sim I created for this pack on a daily basis. The spells and potions are just so invaluable that she will probably be my main Sim for some time. I personally loved this pack and would highly recommend you grab it!
There is a serious amount of content and creative potential in Realm of Magic and it’s further proof that while The Sims 5 might be in some shadowy state of development, there is still ample fun to be had with The Sims 4. Fans of Harry Potter will rejoice that the Sims can now explore the nexus of magic and everyday life and longtime players now have even more stuff to keep them in the game.
For a game pack Realm of Magic adds a lot to the game and is quite an interesting and enjoyable pack. This may not be for everyone as some may argue the sims should start giving people what they want, but this is a lot of content for a Game Pack.
Really? All this lore about magic in popular culture, and all you can do is a fake Art-Nouveau house with three "spellcaster" gurus? Apparently the developers are just bored with their jobs.
At first glance, Realm of Magic can seem barren. However, it’s all a guise as the true game begins in its mystical new realm of Glimmerbrook. All in all, The Sims 4: Realm of Magic is a ton of fun. With a bunch of newly added features to take your Sims game to the next level and a ton of different new paths to experience, this game pack does not disappoint.
Realm of Magic is powerful and versatile, but ultimately, it feels less fun. It’s a fantastic pack to play around in, and I’ll likely return to it organically at some point as I build up a multi-generational family. As a sole pursuit in a game of The Sims 4, however, this power fantasy is capable of automating and trivializing much of the game. Realm of Magic works best in small doses, but much of the content makes the base game less enjoyable, not more.
If you've been craving more of the occult in Sims 4, it's a decent way to indulge that craving given that "Vampires" is one of the only substantial offerings in that department since 2015.
This is a new low for the series, and EA's DLC practice in general.
You already have the functionality of this "game pack" in your game, it's called *The Cheat Console* and can be accessed by pressing ALT+SHIFT+C. Of course it comes without the gnarly wooden furniture that has been ported from the Sims-3-store, but as usual you can already get that and more as a mod.
Just type "testingcheats true", and you will be able to magically alter your surroundings, just without the one and only animation that is supposed to show your sim casting a spell. They even added the "set as head"-cheat as a "spell" (after the aforementioned "testingcheats", shift+click on any item to get that effect). Potions have fantastic effects like "maxmotives", or use the script from "get to work" that let's random people have fights with each other when you patrol the neighborhood as a policeman.
What you don't have when you use cheats is the plethora of new bugs and glitches, useless huge additions to the UI that are just in the way, and a new neighborhood with 5 lots, containing three of the most lazy and unfinished buildings I have ever seen since this series started out in 1998.
The "Realm of magic", as interesting as it may look in a trailer, can be renamed into "the realm of empty", because there is nothing that you can't find somewhere else or do in any other place without having to travel the whole distance. There are *two* new harvestables that are barely used, in a magic pack with alchemy: TWO.
Of course the AI hasn't been adapted in the slightest, especially when it comes to the NPCs that should somehow react - you have seen that kind of non-response in the vampire-pack already, so whatever immersion you are looking for, it won't be coming from there. The level-system is a contrived assembly of mostly useless abilities that take out the last bit of consequences or challenge. As a matter of fact you can just outright stop playing the game since you are only cheating anyway. Thankfully the game now crashes on a regular basis on top of everything else, so you won't even have to *stop* playing on your own.
Calling this product an insult would still be far too generous. An insult needs at least a bare minimum of effort.
20$+ for:
1. A set of spells your character will get with NO effort,
2. Some clothes (nothing truly special) and
3. A lot of bugs which will pop up at random, ruining the gameplay?
Like dying to overcharge after having immunity-to-overcharge perk learned, having unplayable character after drinking potion of immortality (because the game will still attempt to make him die to old age - effectively purging actions queue once a minute), getting Curse while having curse immunity, etc, etc...
Cost/content proportion is incredibly low here...
SummaryWelcome to Glimmerbrook. It's a quiet town. Family homes. Places to hang out. A dense wooded area with a mysterious pathway. Wait, what is back there, Simmer? Where could this not-so-secret secret trail possibly lead? Well, if your Sim has any bit of adventure in their personality, they'll want to know. And what they'll discover is a wor...