Sims 4 Realm of Magic is Available Now. Here’s My Opinion On the Pack

This.. is the Magic HQ. There’s next to no lore here, down to the name of the area.

I was initially very excited to get my hands on Realm of Magic, and definitely liked the amount of effort they put into ensuring there is a nice catalog of spells and potion recipes. I am grateful for the opportunity to play with it over the weekend thanks to the EA Game Changers program.

Bella Goth makes potions in the Magic Realm. The whole gang’s invited, it turns out.

The new world is definitely pretty and unique. It always appears to be a bit dark but it presents a nice contrast to all the spell particles you’ll encounter there. It’s pretty small though. There’s a lot of pointless, unused space and it feels like everything could’ve fit into the one large lot at the center. There are portals to help you get around, but once you’ve got a broom (or the Teleport spell) you’ll completely ignore them.

You just ask, do a fetch quest that takes less than 2 mins, and you’re a Spellcaster. This moment foreshadowed how easy everything else would be.

Digging into spells was my priority #1. I was at first really enjoying myself. It felt meaningful to get the first few spells, but that feeling would quickly change as I came to realize how ridiculously easy everything is. Sims has never been hard, per se, but I found that you can simply stand about practicing, talk to the Sages in the Magic Realm, and swiftly collect every single spell in probably a couple days’ time max. We’re talking Sim days here. The only barrier is the level of your caster.

Duels are cool at first, but other Sims repeat these animations so frequently they lose all meaning.

I discovered there is actually very little to do in the Magic Realm, and not a lot going on there. Random Sims like the Goths show up and reveal they, too, are spellcasters. Evidently everyone is one. The same animations repeat endlessly with there being no purpose to the duels. It’s all eye candy with no substance. Yet, it’s not really eye candy at this point because Sims 4 is not designed to take advantage of modern hardware at this point.

With all 3 “Sages” here, I simply ask them each for a spell and potion recipe – and bam, 6/39 learned. Now while on cooldown, I can practice magic and fill in the blanks then continue to farm them for spells.

At one point I gathered all 3 Sages around my Sim, talked to them and asked for potion and spell recipes repeatedly and knocked off about 10 of the 39 items in just a couple Sim hours. This is the moment that my usual regret for how simple things have become crept up on me and changed my opinion. Fundamental problems with the way the system is designed and feeds you spells rapidly are not likely to be fixed. Even if it is, it’s spoiled the adventure of building up my spellcaster for the first time.

There’s a spellcaster perk system, which gives you some choices… but since you can get them all, a smart player will pick up the XP gains and boosts to leveling and just speed up the process.

Games give players rewards and players enjoy unlocking new abilities and growing in power. This is the appeal of a Spellcaster system in Sims 4. We already know it’s going to be OP as hell, and we’re not wrong to assume that. It’s quite fine. You should be smoking normies as a Spellcaster. It’s to be expected, right? The problem is I got so stuffed full of spells at such a rapid pace I stopped counting and appreciating those rewards. Everything was handed to me on a silver platter and I maxed out really fast.

I’m a total bully, yeah. They’re frozen for a couple hours, but other than -10 relationship there isn’t any point to this. Just enjoying tormenting Sims, and that’s the case with a lot of spells. Does it matter to make an NPC Sim -10 Sad for 4 hours?

If you just want to play the same old Sims with a super-powerful witch wizard spellcaster whatever, you got it. Just don’t expect new types of effects. There are a couple but nearly everything that came with Spellcasting is from some other ability in the game, like resurrecting ghosts or scientists’ freeze ray ability. It’s almost like a greatest hits of special abilities including cloning. Potions include a lot of let-downs for me. I don’t like emotional boosts and I feel there isn’t any reason to make a Sim sad or to have two Sims fight, because there is very little going on with friendships/rivalries in the game. It’s only to satisfy my own cruelty as a player.

You can completely fill needs 4x with one apple. With excellent quality crafting it jumps to 6 potions. They can fail, sure, but the cure for failure is at your fingertips as well.

The balance here is completely non-existent and in fact destroys much of the game’s loop in caring for your Sims due to what seems to be an oversight. For instance there is a potion that replenishes needs to full. Now, ingredients should gate potions to help balance things out right – you can make a few of these, and take advantage of them at times… but the problem is , the required ingredient for that potion is.. an apple. One. Apples are common and extremely accessible. If you find one apple, successfully brew a potion with it, you not only get the potion.. you get four of them. Four full days of need refills from a single apple. I don’t know how well you play the game, but I am of the opinion you will most certainly pick up another apple within those 4 days.

Forcing Sims to fight or kiss, morphing a Sim into an object. It’s not the spells that are a problem so much as there not really being any purpose to any of it.

It was expected to make the game easier to be a Spellcaster. I just didn’t really want it to be this easy. Every other potion but the needs one takes some other form of ingredient that might be harder to come up with. Like, a specific type of element or crystal. RNG will keep you in line on those, but when you can never sleep, never poo, and have no need to eat, it almost doesn’t matter. Once you have acquired a duplication spell those remaining few gates are removed because you’ll have infinite… nearly everything.

This is really strange. This is the Untamed Magic Sage in my living room, who has a strangely townie-look to him when in another outfit. He won’t teach me spells outside the realm, which gives me a reason to visit there I guess.

RoM turns The Sims 4 into your personal playground. You can bully Sims however you want, just not kill them. No one in your family ever need suffer. RoM is probably worth the $20 when compared to other packs, I just hoped for more unique effects and a pacing that made each new spell unlock feel meaningful. The ability to live in the Magic Realm, or more to do there, would have helped.

Even though Spellcasting isn’t a skill, I’d wager it takes about the same time to max out. This is a trend that has been going on a while now – a more recent example is the decision to offer the player a Mermadic Kelp for 500 satisfaction in the rewards store. No reason to look for it, when it’s available right there. Grafting was destroyed in Summer 2018. You can still do it, but you can buy rare seed packets for $1,000 Simoleons or, as with RoM, get a death flower from one of the shops.

My Sim dies to overcharge. It is entirely avoidable with a rank 1 perk that lets you discharge magical energy. Making magic more costly or dangerous might have helped with some of Realm of Magic’s problems.

There are only 3 spells that have any kind of requirement to attain, and they’re all exactly the same. Hit the max rank, have a little friendship established with the Sages, and ask them for the final spell. Done. Now just grind each of the practice magic abilities you have by clicking your Sim, and you’ll pick up the remaining spells in those schools. Just as easy as asking for the power to be a Spellcaster in the first place. Even minor hurdles and complexity to this system would’ve been more entertaining than just giving it to you.

Want more spells? Just ask every few hours.

Realm of Magic is the ultimate power injection for players of the Sims ,and it’s power that is handed to you rapidly, from the first needs potion you’ll learn all the way to the ability to bring back the dead. Because there is so little to do in the Magic Realm, you will quickly return to the same game, just with no need to do any of the micromanagement and routine stuff that makes Sims.. the Sims. It’s a power fantasy and you are likely to get some kicks out of it, but you will feel no sense of accomplishment along the way.

3 comments on “Sims 4 Realm of Magic is Available Now. Here’s My Opinion On the Pack

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.


Make Seasons Better!

Sims 4 Seasons CheatsThe Sims 4 Seasons expansion now has options! Want to disable weather or make plants in season year-round? You can do so with my new Seasons Tuner Mod

  • Disable Seasons individually
  • Always Sunny! Set to Base Game Weather
  • Grow Year Round - Make Plants Always in Season!
  • Healthy Year Round - No more Winter twigs
  • Disable Color Changes - on ALL Plants & Trees
  • Disable Fall Leaves
  • Disable Ground Snow
  • Keep the Stuff You Paid For!

A Deeper Game

The past month, I've spent every day tinkering The Sims 4, making quality of life improvements, gameplay changes, and new difficulty settings for the game. If you'd like to learn more about my project, visit the post on Patreon where you can download it now.

Cottage living

The Sims 4 Cottage LivingCottage Living Guide! Here is my guide to new features in the Sims 4 Cottage Living Expansion

You can also find handy Cottage Living Cheats

I have much more to come, since you can actually write a few guides about this pack!

Calling all Blender Users

Blender has been incredibly useful in video production, so I made my own Physics and Simulation Improvement Addon that lumps a ton of unique tools into one compact interface.

Sims 4 Snowy Escape

The Sims 4 Snowy Escape launches November 13, 2020 and my coverage has started. Until I get my review ready, you can learn about the following:

Snowy Escape Cheats
Lifestyles in Snowy Escape
Climb Mt. Komorebi
Sentiments in Snowy Escape
Rock Climbing
Skiing Skill
Snowboarding Skill

Sentiments & Platforms (Free Patch!)

I've released a guide to Sentiments in The Sims 4 & Snowy Escape.

There is a new platform tool in The Sims 4. There's also a new Sentiments system, but it'll take some time to create a guide to that. Players can also use rental lots in any world now by changing lot types of builds in manage worlds.

Best Mods in Sims 4

I've created a massive List of The Best Mods in The Sims 4 that should be very helpful to new players and those who have not yet explored modding and how much it can do for your gameplay.

Search my Sims 4 Site

shopify traffic stats