Greetings and welcome to -- another Sims 4 pack is already out?
When is this gonna end?!
Seriously folks, Realm of Magic is the thirtieth pack for this game now, with a rumored university
pack looming large on the horizon.
But for now it’s all about the eighth game pack, Realm of Magic, a $20 addon released
on September 10th, 2019.
And as the title suggests, its focal point is on giving sims magical abilities, being
only the second pack dedicated to the idea since The Sims Makin’ Magic back in 2003.
Of course there’s been no shortage of supernatural gameplay in The Sims series since then, but
Realm of Magic takes a more focused approach similar to the Vampires game pack, where an
old idea is reimagined and remixed to hopefully provide an experience that’s more elaborate
than what we’ve seen before.
In this case, that means sims can now embrace the lifestyle of a Spellcaster, which is a
combination of witch, wizard, shaman, alchemist, and overall chaos-bringer with a god complex.
Becoming a spellcaster begins in the new world of Glimmerbrook, a quiet little neighborhood
that’s rather plain at first glance.
Nonetheless, it holds a hidden secret that isn’t hidden or secret at all: a huge magic
portal sticking out like a sore thumb at the top of this waterfall.
Entering the portal will teleport your sims to the realm of magic itself, creatively called
The Magic Realm.
This is an instantly spellbinding location
featuring four stony islands floating within a lavender void.
You’ll wanna visit the large central island first though, which houses Magic Headquarters:
a multi-story building that reminds me of an Elder Scrolls Mages Guild campus.
Inside are several floors of spellcasting paraphernalia and practitioners, and if you
wanna join in on the excitement simply walk up to any one of the three sages wandering
around and ask them about magic.
Or you can skip that step by starting with Create A Sim, enabling the spellcaster life
state at the beginning of your sim’s existence.
Cuz yeah, magic-users are handled the same way as other supernatural states like vampires,
mermaids, aliens and the like, selectable from the start along with two new aspirations
to help guide your mystic journey.
However, spellcasters do not have a secondary form,
so sims that are magical stay magical, all the time.
The only thing differentiating them from normal sims is perhaps their clothing and hairstyle,
should you choose to provide them with attire befitting a supernaturally-inclined sim.
And by that I mean applying any of the new hairstyles, makeup, accessories, and all the
other stuff that’d fit right in on the set of Once Upon a Time.
Curiously, there are no new hats of the traditional witch or wizard variety.
I don’t know if this was done on purpose to differentiate spellcasters from witches
and wizards, or if it’s a glaring oversight because The Sims 4.
Either way, tick that spellcaster checkbox, or make your existing sim complete a brief
fetch quest and congratulations: you’re now a game-breakingly capable mage
with disturbingly powerful abilities!
Seems a tad careless on the part of the elder spellcasters, but whatever, you can electrocute
sims with your brain so I’ll let it slide.
[electrical buzzing]
As immediately enjoyable as this is though, it’s still a good idea
to use caution when recklessly doling out your newfound strength, since there’s a
real chance of overloading your magical charge and exploding into a cloud of enchanted death.
[sim dying of magical overload]
So yeah, there’s no mana or anything like that to worry about.
Magic can be used constantly, but each spell will increase your sim’s magical charge,
raising the risk of blowing themselves up.
There are several ways around this, so it’s avoidable as long as you’re not acting like
a maniac 100% of the time and make some effort into improving your skills.
Much like the aforementioned Vampires pack, Realm of Magic provides a variety
of RPG-like levels and perks to unlock through a skill tree.
Performing magic and taking part in training provides experience points towards your spellcaster
level, with five of these unlockable overall.
And along the way you’ll unlock talent points to commit towards earning greater powers and
shorter cooldowns, with a new row of perks unlocking on each level.
You also have a spellbook containing 24 spells and 15 potions to learn divided up into four
schools of magic: practical, mischief, untamed, and alchemy.
The first three can be performed at any time once you learn them, increasing your magical
charge, while alchemy consists of creating and ingesting potions that all have a chance
of failing in the form of a hex.
And naturally, potions are made by mixing ingredients and brewing them together in a
cauldron, either alone or with the help of up to three other sims.
Or you can just make giant bowls of chili or macaroni and cheese, whatever man, you do you.
Items from all around the Sims 4 world can be used in potions, but The Magic Realm in
particular features a garden for providing a few of them.
It’s mostly just a convenient location to harvest things like frogs, valerian root,
and mandrake, and not much else.
It does have an abandoned greenhouse, but you can’t go inside of it so who cares.
Yeah, exploration and world-building is definitely not the focus of this pack, even though it
feels like there could’ve been ample opportunity for it considering these fascinating environments
and implications of a deeper history.
But nope, it’s really all about exploiting those four schools of magic in any order you wish.
You’re not restricted to one type of magic or another either, making your spellbook a
kind of all-you-can-eat buffet of phenomenal cosmic powers.
Each spell and potion can be acquired multiple ways too, from scouring bookshelves for ancient
tomes, to enlisting the guidance of the Magic HQ sages, to practicing spells and experimenting
with the cauldron, and even dueling with other spellcasters
to extract their knowledge through supernatural combat.
These duels usually occur right on the spot, but for added drama you can take it to the
nearby Dueling Grounds.
Each fight is instigated by selecting the winning stakes, like dueling for knowledge,
magical artifacts, ingredients, or simply as a way to settle friendly or heated arguments.
And despite the flashy light show,
dueling is without much personal risk and is actually rather tame.
Ironically so, considering the untamed magic being used.
And there’s no interaction either, the outcome relies on unseen dice rolls affected by your
sim’s experience, charge amount, and luck.
Fun enough to look at initially, but after watching the seventeenth identical duel with
randomized outcomes I was pretty done with it.
Especially since my sims often ended up cursed anyway.
Yeah, one potential outcome of frequent magic usage is making the situation inadvertently
worse than it was before.
And that’s true for almost every magical activity: dueling, spellcasting, potion stuff,
all of it has a chance to go wrong and inflict a curse or three or your sim.
Curses will stick to a sim making bad things happen until they can reverse it with, you
guessed it, even more magic.
So learning new spells and potions simultaneously makes life better and increases the chance
of it getting crappier, snowballing into a chaotic reality where you’re constantly
trying to become more powerful, ruining your life, then seeking even more power so you
can correct what you ruined.
Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely?
Yeah, pretty much.
But c’mon, having the ability to turn an annoying co-worker into a cactus and set them
on fire with a wave of your fingertips is delightfully absurd.
And there’s something truly enchanting about grinding for experience points by wishing
fully-roasted chickens into existence and then setting them ablaze for hours on end.
Then there’s the surreal experience of quickly cloning yourself to hang out with your doppelganger.
Sim Duke Nukem complimenting his own looks and showing off his muscles to himself?
Yep, sounds about right!
And no, you cannot have romantic relationships with your sim duplicate,
that was the first thing I tried.
“Don’t have time to play with myself!”
[SimDukes happily chattering]
All that to say these powers are ridiculous, basically dropping a slew of cheat codes into
otherwise routine gameplay.
Mind control, cloning, fire, ice, electrical torture, forced friendship and romance options,
resurrecting the dead, making other sims ugly, instigating fights, thought scrambling, teleportation,
magical thievery, good grief!
It is both terrible and completely addictive what you can do to other sims in this pack.
[icy freezing sounds]
[magical poof]
[sim screaming]
One thing I haven’t mentioned yet are wands and brooms,
both of which are here, but neither really matter.
Caster’s Alley is the primary spot to find these, which doesn’t appear to be an alley
at all so the naming confuses me.
I suppose a cramped Harry Potter-like Diagon Alley would be tricky to navigate, so okay,
it’s an open-air shopping center instead.
It still serves the same purpose of selling all sorts of useful magical thingies.
But as I mentioned, wands and brooms really are optional, simply acting as props to whip
out when ya feel like it.
Sims can use wands while practicing magic, or choose not to, they just kind of exist.
And brooms work exactly like other methods of fast travel, like meditation teleporting
and taking on bat or mist form as a vampire.
They just take a sim straight up into the air and straight back down in another location.
Underwhelming.
Though I do appreciate there being several mop options in place of brooms, which I happily
chose due to the traditional lack of mop representation in fantasy lore.
Anyway, the other stuff for sale is more useful.
There are dozens of ingredients, gemstones, collectibles, and familiars, with limited
stock each day so you can’t buy everything at once.
And yeah, familiars: they’re back!
Ravens, pigbats, tiny dragons, voodoo dolls,
demon rabbit butterflies, this glowing skull guy, Navi.
They call it a fairy here but, hey, listen, that’s Navi and you know it.
You can even bind pets from the Cats & Dogs pack and summon them as a familiar.
They don’t float but they do poof into confused existence so that’s cool.
As for what familiars do, well, besides serving up a snarky quip on occasion, the floating
ones all help with your day-to-day magical routine.
They can assist with their own reserves of magic during duels, and even save you from
death if you don’t have the potion for it.
Cats and dogs, well, they’re still cats and dogs,
doing all the cats and dogs things as before.
They can also wander off and forage for magical items though, so that’s nice.
Familiars are also the only magical thing child sims can interact with, since they can’t
use magic until their teenage years.
That being said though, magical children are a thing,
with bloodlines having been introduced in Realm of Magic.
So if a spellcaster has a kid, the kid will have an ability boost if they pursue magic
in the future.
And this increases up to three levels depending on how long-lasting the bloodline is.
Good incentive to play through multiple generations of sims,
something I admittedly don't do very often.
What I do often do is check in on The Sims 4 chairs situation, of which Realm of Magic
provides three new chairs and a stool, each with an appropriately ornate style.
Really, there’s a lot of bewitching new stuff on offer, a welcome addition if you’re
into the whole ‘spooky fortune teller living in a gothic mansion’ aesthetic.
It all fits in nicely with the new configurable stairs too, which I’m happy to say were
added to The Sims 4 free of charge in a recent patch.
And that’s The Sims 4 Realm of Magic!
As far as wish fulfillment packs go,
this pack is perhaps the wishing-est fulfillment-est one yet.
Practically anyone can use magic at any time, so it’s easier than ever to create your
ideal sim existence using crazy godlike powers,
and also ruin the lives of anyone you see fit.
Realm of Magic is absolutely game-breaking stuff and it makes no apologies for it.
And if that’s the kind of wild digital fantasy you desire, then for $20, this pack delivers that.
Arguably it warps the balance of the rest of the game with how much it rewrites the rules,
so if you’re looking for realism then I don’t have to tell you to stay away from this one.
Especially since spellcasters aren’t limited to the realm of magic itself, spawning all
around the world performing supernatural nonsense in public, hosting duels in the middle of
downtown and blasting children in the head as collateral damage.
So yeah, even though I won’t be keeping it installed since it blatantly clashes with
almost every other aspect of The Sims 4, I can’t help but kind of admire it a bit for
the sheer absurdity and chaos it provides for the type of player that wants that.
[raging flames, fire extinguisher sounds]
Sorry this review took a little longer than usual to put together, I’ve been away on
a trip and yeah, life happens.
But I hope you enjoyed it, and if you did then check out my other Sims 4 videos, or
any of the other things I post here on LGR.
And as always, thank you for watching!