>>725171185
This. Too much control, making it into a designer SIM (outside your own house) rather than you just living in the town and experiencing life for what it is, really changed the focus and therefore feel of the gameplay.
It stops being about stopping and smelling the flowers, appreciating the world around you and having social interaction.
The residents almost shift into obstacles rather than companions in the later game. Players stop wanting to get to know the neighbours they happen to have because they are waiting to swap them to the specific collections of popular characters they want to psychosocially engineer.