MySims Cosy Bundle (Switch) Review

The Sims franchise has been a staple in the life simulation game sphere for nearly 25 years and for the first time the Sims has come to the switch in the form of MySims and Mysims Kingdom, collectively the MySims: Cozy Bundle.

For many people these games hold a lot of nostalgia as they were originally released for the Wii and the Nintendo DS in 2007 and 2008, but despite being an avid Sims player I never played the originals, so I was excited to dive into the remastered versions on the Switch. Both of these games feature a very cute chibi-like style that is vibrant and fun, and I really enjoyed the stylisation choices they made. Visually and audibly, it doesn’t look or sound like older games just ported to the Switch, you can tell there has been work and effort into making them look and sound modern.

Unfortunately my first experience with MySims was an unpleasant one. The game opens with a charming cutscene explaining the history of the town you’re about to move into and the first thing you get to do is create your character. Now this is notoriously my favourite part of any new game but the controls immediately took me down a path of frustration. Not only is it difficult and unintuitive to navigate the character creation menu when going through the options you have no choice but to cycle through each of them — in itself not the worst mechanic if there are limited choices, which was not the case here — if you went past an option you like or are trying to pick between options the game just does not make that easy.

I will say the options are pretty good – despite the little variation skin and hair colours – with no gender separation and there’s a wide variety of styles to suit everyone. The lack of customisation was a bit disappointing, though — for instance you can’t pick different shoes or add a jacket. 

The biggest problem I had with MySims however is the camera, and I cannot express to you how unbelievably motion sick I was when playing this on my TV. The camera movements during the in-game cutscenes are very strange, often zooming around in unexpected directions like a really bad cinematic mode. The worst of it hits during gameplay — the game gives you some amount of camera control but it’s very clunky and the camera pretty much does what it wants regardless of your inputs if you’re moving. I did negate some of the motion sickness and frustration with the camera by playing in handheld mode and only touching the camera controls while standing still, which for some reason works perfectly fine. In case you were wondering; No, there aren’t any camera options in the settings. I checked multiple times.

In terms of gameplay, I think it offers a charming and accessible twist on the classic Sims formula, focusing on creativity, building, and getting to know your community. You’re able to choose who moves into your town – excluding the essential NPCs, of course – and for each of them you have to design their houses. The building controls do take some getting used to, and it takes time to unlock everything you will eventually have access to, but it does let you build some pretty cool and silly buildings.

Overall, the game is more lighthearted and less complex than the main Sims games, it’s great for players looking for a casual relaxing experience, it is also excellent for younger players as the content is very child-friendly with a slow easy progression of tools and the different areas of the game. The gameplay does get repetitive quite quickly but if you’re looking for just some simple tasks to do like harvesting flowers and digging for treasure you really can’t go wrong here.

My experience with MySims Kingdom was like night and day, as I absolutely loved this game. MySims Kingdom takes the gameplay of the original and adds more story and structure by introducing quests and goals tied to kingdom-building, things that I found seriously lacking in MySims. The mix of adventure and creativity works well, with the game sending you off to explore new areas while completing tasks that help expand your kingdom.

When it comes to character creation the two games are very similar, although I did find I had much less trouble navigating the different options in MySims Kingdom. I think this is mostly due to the original coming out a year later and having a more refined system. I did have similar issues with the camera as well, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as MySims and I could play it on my TV which was great. 

The gameplay is still light and non-competitive, which makes it enjoyable for a laid-back experience, but the cute animal characters and fun world-building mechanics are the highlights for me. They genuinely made building a bridge or stairs a fun experience, you can immediately see the improvements to the Kingdom as you travel from place to place. Though it can feel a bit slow at times I think that’s part of its charm, if I want to spend 10 minutes patting pigs I can do that without feeling like I have to be off doing something else — I will spare you how long I spent interacting with animals in this game, but just know it was probably too much. Again, this game is great to get cosy and relax to, or to enjoy with the younger gamers in your life.

Both MySims games deliver on their promise of fun, relaxed simulation experiences with a lot of charm and creativity, each with its own flavor; one focused on free-form creativity, the other on structured adventure and kingdom-building. Whilst I found major issues with some of the menus and with the camera controls – or lack thereof – the overall experience was still an enjoyable one.

Rating: 3.5/5