u/AnastasiiaLove

I have a funny observation. When I play The Sims 2, I don’t feel like the game is old at all. It’s already 20 years old, yeah, and there are a lot of little things that don’t exist in real life anymore, like landline phones and newspapers. But I just don’t feel like the game itself is outdated.

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I mainly play focusing on personality, and personality-related problems always stay the same, no matter the time.

How is it for you? I play without mods.

Disclaimer: I’m not trying to invalidate how people feel about other games in the franchise. I just want to share my own thoughts and observations.

To me, The Sims 2 has an incredibly nuanced and layered personality system. All the mechanics work together so seamlessly that sims in TS2 feel the most alive out of all the games.

Let’s start with personality points. Yeah, it’s just a few sliders. But the important part is that you’re not just picking traits, you’re defining how strong they are. A neat sim with 7 points isn’t the same as one with 10, and you can really see it in their behavior, autonomy, and even animations.

Zodiac signs are tied into personality too. But even sims with the same sign can feel very different. For example, my Libra sim met another Libra downtown. He asked her out, everything was going great, and they both rolled a want to sing karaoke together. But when he invited her, she refused, saying she felt uncomfortable. At first I thought it was because they weren’t close enough, so I maxed their relationship — and she still refused. Turns out she had just a couple more shy points than him. Same zodiac, totally different outcome. I love stuff like that.

The aspiration system is another thing I adore. It gives sims actual values, things that matter to them. Their wants and fears come from it. And secondary aspirations? Even better. They can complement each other or create internal conflict. Like a Family sim with a Romance secondary who wants both a stable family and affairs on the side. Or a Romance sim who secretly wants to settle down. Or Fortune + Popularity. It’s perfect for running a business. It adds so much depth.

And if you throw in the influence system, you can roleplay all kinds of dynamics — a manipulative businessman, a strict family head controlling everyone’s lives, a matchmaker pushing sims together, or someone who breaks couples apart. There’s just so much freedom.

I also love the aspiration meter. Sims can feel genuinely fulfilled or miserable, even have breakdowns when things go wrong. It feels real. Even kids throw tantrums when their aspiration is low. And the fear system? I really miss that in later games.

Same with memories. I love that sims actually remember things, and that those memories have positive or negative impact on their lives and behavior.

One of my favorite systems is interests. It affects compatibility in such a natural way. Not just romantically, but socially in general. You can talk to one sim and it’s just okay, another one and you instantly click, and with a third the relationship tanks immediately. In my game, Lilith Pleasant even autonomously became friends with a classmate while I was busy with her parents. I know you can cheese it with neutral interactions, but I don’t like playing that way. It’s such a shame this system got simplified in later games.

Attraction and turn-ons/turn-offs are amazing too. And it’s not just the three traits you pick — that’s only the surface. Attraction is influenced by everything: personality traits, aspirations, zodiac, etc. And it’s not always mutual, which is great. You can also work towards being attractive to someone: change appearance, build skills, gain or lose weight, get a job, become rich, even turn into an occult. That’s so fun.

The hobby system has its issues (like the imbalance of wants once you pass level 5), but it’s still another layer that adds depth. Same with reputation, which I honestly haven’t even fully explored yet lol.

I also love how big and complex lifetime wants feel, and how the lifetime aspiration meter works. Even if a sim doesn’t fulfill their LTW, they can still be happy if they live according to their wants. And vice versa.

In the end, it’s the combination of all these systems that makes TS2 sims feel so flexible and alive. You’re not limited to a few traits. Everything works together without clashing. Even internal contradictions feel natural and organic. That’s why I love The Sims 2 personality system so much. And I didn’t even get into all the aspiration perks :)

Until recently, I underestimated the influence feature in The Sims 2. But it actually offers a lot of room for creativity. I really love the social aspect of this game in general, and influence doesn’t have to be limited to the university setting.

I thought it would be interesting to create a Sim with the Fortune aspiration and a secondary Popularity aspiration (or vice versa), make him not particularly kind, build a network of contacts, start a business, and use influence to make other Sims do what’s convenient for him.

You can also use this feature to bring couples together or break them apart. For example, if a teenager starts dating someone their parents don’t like, you could try to break them up or, on the contrary, set them up with someone else. Starting from friendly interactions, you can build their relationship up to friendship and then gradually push them toward romance.

Or create a highly influential head of the family — a whole clan — who determines the direction the family will take.

I love playing The Sims 2 and The Sims 3. But over time, I’ve started to feel like story progression is more of a downside than an upside for me. I much prefer rotational gameplay, like in The Sims 2. I love that The Sims 3 has many families, each with their own personalities and backstories. But I don’t have time to play them all, and I want to experience every family and every Sim.

Everyone has unique traits, something is happening in every household, and I enjoy playing the whole town, being involved in what’s going on in each family. In The Sims 3, a lot happens off-screen while I’m playing another household. When I switch to a different family, they might have had children without my knowledge, given them random traits I never intended, and suddenly I have Sims I didn’t plan for and don’t know what to do with. They can get divorced, change or quit their jobs, or start new relationships. It feels like every time you return to a family, you’re starting over with them.

The Sims 2, even without an open world or story progression, does a great job of simulating the feeling that life continues when you leave a household: you can meet neighbors on community lots, invite them over, and watch them build friendships or fall out with each other right in front of you. Affairs can even happen if there was a hint of attraction. At the same time, important milestones won’t happen without my involvement. And the fact that time freezes for them while I’m playing another household doesn’t feel like a drawback to me—it actually feels like a way to simulate that they all have long lives.

I know this can be adjusted with mods in The Sims 3. But here I’m talking about how the game was originally designed by the developers.

I started a new save in Pleasantview. Don was having affairs with both Dina and Nina. Then he married Cassandra Goth and moved into her house. After that, I switched to play the sisters. Dina got engaged to Mortimer Goth, and Nina rolled a want to go on a date. I sent her on a date with Don. At some point, she got the want to invite him over to her place. I thought: why not add some chaos to the game?

So Nina and Don went back to her house, and Dina caught them in bed. Now she hates both of them. But what’s even funnier is that she’s about to marry Mortimer, which means Dina and Don will be living under the same roof. Both of them are after wealth. That’s the kind of storyline you couldn’t come up with on purpose.

Unfortunately, the game doesn’t have an option to reveal someone’s cheating to another Sim. But even if it did, Dina wouldn’t be able to do it, because her own affair with Don would come to light too.