The Sims has always been a strange beast. Just the initial concept of taking over someone else's life and guiding them through the mundane tasks that make up our own existence takes on kind of a sinister tone when you think about it. Of course if you think a little more, the RPG genre is all about taking over another person's life, and if you grind enough, monster slaying can become as monotonous as attending a nine to five job and having to cook yourself dinner every night. It's kind of amusing then to see that the latest installment of The Sims is set back in medieval times, with the express purpose of making the franchise more like a traditional RPG.

The game starts at character customization. You can pick from pre-made sims or take the time to craft one to your liking. After that you pick out of a few origin stories, and are thrown into the world. Luckily the game's tutorial helps you on your way, and before long you'll be questing, and filling your house with furniture. Yes, the bulk of the game hinges around questing. As you befriend members of the town, they will have quests available to you. Completing these quests will level up your attributes, incur fame and favor, and give you job titles that hold certain perks with them. Complete enough quests and story quests become available which shape the direction of your town and the world.

While questing, you also have to keep an eye on your status. If your sim is hungry, sleepy, anti-social, or stressed out from not enjoying themselves, you need to spring into action and take care of these basic needs, otherwise your sim will start dragging their feet and impeding your progress (and addressing these needs awards your sim with points needed to get things done). Like other sim games, you can purchase all manner of furniture for your house, with such purchases like the dart board helping you train certain attributes.

For fans of The Sims, this game is a wonderful hand holding introduction to some of the mechanics of the RPG genre. It's a little slow paced, and that will put some players off (especially since it takes a while for the story mode to reveal itself), but if the melding of The Sims and a medieval world sounds  like fun to you, grab yourself an ale, sit back and immerse yourself in the world of Merry Ol' Wherever this place is.