By 
As a long-time lover of the Sims franchise and a loud critic of 4, I’ve been waiting for Paralives with bated breath, hoping for something to shake up the life sim genre. Though the game shows a lot of potential, there are a few aspects to it that don’t mesh with me, despite my ongoing excitement for the project.
In Paralives, you can make a family of “Paras” and help them navigate the ups and downs of everyday life. You can also build and decorate houses for them. Making a Para is really easy and fun, as there’s a lot of customization and the sculpting is intuitive. Each Para can get Wants dependent on their emotional reactions to their needs or interactions, as well as opportunities or requests they can work on. These wants can be annoying though, since the same ones can keep triggering, making every day feel the same. You also can’t cancel or refresh them, meaning you have to accept them before you can delete them.
An interesting twist to the genre is that in Paralives, you have a Storyteller who will grant you a card once everyone falls asleep for the night. These cards can give your Para a long-term want, such as starting a family, or perks for the next day. This system is insanely broken, even with the “hardest” Storyteller. I almost never looked at or cared about how much money anyone was making, because I genuinely didn’t need to worry between Storyteller cards and the crazy perks that Paras can get when you level up their personality or their job.
Paralives takes a very RPG-esque approach to the life sim genre. Fulfilling wants and such can level up your Para, giving them perks such as passively gaining a Skill when they’re working. Everything about the Paras’ “personalities” directly correlates to usefulness, and there’s little room for individuality to shine. It makes me wonder if the developers intended for you to focus on the grander community and town, rather than on one specific family.
There’s a very weird mix of too much freedom and yet not enough so far. Paras don’t have any real long-term goals (the equivalent of a lifetime wish for The Sims), so you can focus your Para’s time on anything you want. You can’t treat this as a virtual dollhouse for you to do whatever in, though. The game puts you at the mercy of cards and RNG. Even an entire day of kissing and hugging wasn’t enough for my married couple to want to be intimate or have a baby, because the cards just never showed up.
Paralives has a lot of potential as a new life sim, though its UI and some issues with the game formula might make it hard for some people (including myself) to enjoy. That being said, if you’re only interested in building or decorating, I think you can sink a lot of hours into this. Still, I look forward to how the Paralives Studio will update the game, and will continue to play it on and off to see its evolution.
Paralives is available in early access on PCs.
We may earn a commission if you purchase from certain links. Learn more here.
