The Japanese Garden Kenrokuen

The second sim I visited this weekend is the Japanese garden of Kenrokuen. I expected a nice, natural park with the Straylight (botanical) trees, but what I found was an absolutely amazing mix of cultivated land in the traditional manner, completely integrated in its natural environment. It felt so real it am thinking this has to be based on some real life park.

At the entrance the sim proudly displays its award for best virtual experience, and after taken a few steps this is not all that surprising. Besides a beautiful park with some of the best shadow effects and texturing I've seen so far, the sim houses a huge traditional castle, and a small Japanese village including the sumo wrestling arena.

The eye for detail in the sim is simply overwhelming. They even placed Koi carps in the huge pond in the water. The only downside is to be able to pick up one of the amazing 2 to 9 prim trees you need to be willing to part with anything between 800L$ and 4000L$. A neat feature worth mentioning about the single trees of 2000L$ (no copy) is you can control the seasons trough a HUD.