Paralives Review: A Life Simulation Game Full of Charm (PC)

The highly anticipated Paralives has finally been released in Early Access! Does this game live up to the hype for life simulation fans who have been waiting for many years since it was first announced? 

Even as an Early Access title, Paralives is brimming with charm that ultimately makes the game stand on its own merits. Anybody jaded with The Sims series and other alternatives may find a lot of joy here.

1. Gameplay – A Refreshing Love Letter to Life Simulators

An in-game example of the type of random Parafolks you could create

Paralives is a life simulation game where you can create Parafolks and shape their lives through various events like building relationships and work. You have several pre-made families to choose from at the start of the game, although you also have the option to create your own household. Options for life stages include:

• Baby
• Toddler
• Child
• Pre-Teen
• Teen
• Young Adult
• Adult
• Elder

When creating your own Parafolk, you have plenty of clothing options ranging from ordinary casual shirts to silly costumes like a sandwich top. More apparel expected to release in future updates. According to the official FAQs, Paralives is going to have free expansions without any paid DLC.

It’s a promising start, since one flaw of the biggest life simulator series on the market, The Sims, is the excessive number of small DLC packs that add up to well over $1,000 for a single game. Getting new expansions in a video game for free sounds delightful, although it’s too early to tell how well that will work in practice.

A Familiar Gameplay Loop Executed Well

Some of the many pre-made Parafolks that you can play as

Now back to the core gameplay. You can immediately tell how much love was put into Paralives just in the opening sequence alone. Let’s take the tutorial as an example. It is easy to follow, but how it’s implemented is much more interesting.

In the tutorial, you see all the households in a train with some nice camera angles whenever you select one of the Parafolks. Then you get a description of their in-game lore. Simple, but charming in its execution. Other basic gameplay features outside the tutorial include:

• Customizing Parafolks: You can make up to 8 Parafolks per household. You’re able to change appearances, personalities, and more minor details like voices, among other things.
• Building Homes: Building walls and moving objects around is straightforward, and there are no strict tile requirements when placing objects. You can even rescale the size of some objects.
• Moving Parafolks: Clicking on any spot of the map will let you move your Parafolk there.
• Interactions: Clicking on any spot of the map will give you various prompts on what to do, based on what exactly you clicked on. 
• Controlling the Pace of Time: You can pause the in-game world, or let it play out in default or faster in-game speed.
• Dialogue Options: You can choose certain dialogue options, such as a toddler saying their mother’s name or an adult asking someone about their job.
• Work and Go to School: Like any good life sim, you can just send your character to work or school and do something else in the meantime.

Each life stage has its own gameplay loop, as you’d come to expect from a game of this genre. For example, a toddler can’t do much like in the real world, but they can still have unique interactions in this game. They can be picked up by older Parafolks or throw a random tantrum, something you wouldn’t see an adult Parafolk do by default. 

Character Customization (Paramaker)

There are sliders that you move to change how big or small your chatacter’s body parts can be

One of the most important aspects of any sandbox life simulator is the ability to create whoever you want, however you want. Thankfully, Paralives provides a fairly robust character customization suite known as the Paramaker.

There ideally would be more clothing options, since there are only a few dozen shared between genders, but the color wheel makes things more diverse.

You can adjust the color of various clothing items through the color wheel, which is neat

Core features of note include a robust customization suite that truly allows you to create many different types of characters:

• Color Wheel: You can change the color of your Parafolk’s hair and clothes with a color wheel.
• Edit Height: Adult Sims can go from 1.52m to 1.98m.
• Various Body Sliders: You’re able to change the size of multiple facial and other body parts.
• Gender Options: Your Parafolk can be male, female, or non-binary. Customization parts are shared between genders.
• Advanced Personality: These settings include pronouns, pregnancy, breastfeeding, and jealousy in relationships.
• Stats: You can put points into your Physique, Mind, Creativity, and Charisma.
• Miscellaneous Personality: Other than stats, you can edit the Vibe, Social, Perk, Talent, and Lifestyle of your Parafolk.
• Changing Name Details: You can do Last Name first, use Nicknames, or even include a Middle Name.

One of Paralives‘ greatest strengths is that there is a lot to do when it comes to making a household. You can make realistic-looking characters or unorthodox ones without a problem. Crossover content like an Among Us outfit are even present. A promising selection of clothing is available, making future updates seem all the more exciting.

As it stands now, I can easily see myself sinking dozens of hours into trying to create all sorts of Parafolks of all ages, and that’s just one part of the game!

Fun to Play for an Early Access Title

You can do a lot of things for fun in this game, like dancing in random spots

An Early Access game typically doesn’t have everything at launch and it often has several notable glitches. Paralives is no exception. Several animations stutter, and I encountered some minor bugs (like a toddler spawning out of bounds after coming back from daycare). These are easy to fix on the player side, but these glitches can get in the way of the gameplay.

Speaking of gameplay, the potential in what Paralives offers is immense. It’s no secret that this game has a huge community for a new launch, having over 78K peak players on Steam in its first day. That’s not even getting to the game having quite the following on various social media sites like Reddit.

Classic interactions, like playing other games on your computer, is present in Paralives

Why is Paralives so popular? Simple: It’s fun to play. If you love life simulators, then Paralives should feel right at home for you. It’s a legitimate competitor in its niche since the core customization gameplay is already well-designed, especially if the developers do the following:

• Fix the obvious bugs.
• Speed up the gameplay a bit for Live Mode and add more interactions.
• Optimize performance (even though I didn’t have any issues playing this title, I know many gamers did have an issue here).
• Add more interactions and personality traits.

The build mode is complex, but in a good way. You can design homes in several creative ways, whether you’re aiming for realism or absurdism. Being able to upscale or downscale items is very interesting for this type of gameplay as it helps provide you more flexibility in your creative vision.

This genre isn’t for everybody; if you don’t like the idea of spending a lot of time creating characters and building homes, then you probably won’t enjoy Paralives. Still, I think there is something brimming with potential here for fans of customization and building the perfect home.

Gameplay Potential: 9/10

2. Graphics & Art Direction – A Good Mix Of Realism and Cartoony

This game has a unique art direction regarding its stylized aesthetic

Paralives has a mix of realistic and stylized graphics. The game’s unique style is distinctly its own. I personally like the “toon shading” as the art team calls it, because I feel the Parafolks can look pretty good at times without straying into the territory of being uncanny valley.

Overall, it’s nothing breathtaking, but this game looks solid. The in-game UI is also clean and nice to navigate through, as it feels intuitive without needing to rely on guides on what to do next (at least, if you’re familiar with the life simulator genre as a whole). While there can be a lot of stuff on a screen, it never felt overbearing.

Character animations are smooth, although there are a few stutters in some cases. It could also be jarring to see Parafolks pass through each other if you’re a fan of realism. Personally, it’s more convenient not to be limited by how much space is around your character, but your mileage may vary. Ultimately, the game looks cozy, which is appropriate since the gameplay feels relaxing, too.

Graphics: 8.5/10

3. Sound Design – A Relaxing Experience

There are multiple tracks to listen to through various radios

One of the weaker aspects of Paralives is its sound department. It’s not bad, by any stretch of the imagination. The music tends to be cozy, and it can even adapt to your Parafolk’s current emotions and situation. I just don’t feel like the music in this game is as memorable as what you’d hear in several titles from The Sims series, but that is an admittedly very high bar to clear.

Even so, the songs in Paralives set the mood for what you’re doing and don’t hinder my enjoyment of the game. One thing that Paralives does very well is the little random misellaneous sounds. For example, the clicking you hear when you try to do something is nice. It’s just a nice pop sound effect that instantly gets your attention.

Parafolks speak in Parli, a made-up language for this game. The dialogue sounds nice (albeit a bit quiet even with maxed-out audio). There are four pre-made voices in the Early Access, so you do get to hear a variety of different words without sounding too repetitive. 

Sound Design: 8/10

Paralives was reviewed on PC.