Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar struggles a bit with its pacing, but the familiar gameplay loop of farming and harvesting crops and such to sell is as fun as ever. It’s perhaps not the strongest entry in the series, but there’s plenty of enjoyment here for series fans or people looking for a more laid-back gaming experience.
Credit: Marvelous
Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar
Developer: Marvelous
Price: $60
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2 (reviewed), and PC
MonsterVine was provided with a Switch 2 code for review.
I’ve played a good few Story of Seasons games in my ten years at MonsterVine, and they typically serve as enjoyable and relaxing farming simulators between the many more action-packed games of the year. Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar, a remake of 2010’s Harvest Moon DS: Grand Bazaar, is no exception, though it features an interesting switch-up to the formula that both helps and hinders the title.
This major change is that the vast majority of your selling is done on one day of the week – Bazaar Day. Each Saturday, you set up a stand at the bazaar to hawk your wares as people walk by the stand. You spend the rest of the week farming, gathering, and crafting things to sell, all in preparation for the bazaar. This is rather different than the structure of most of these games, which don’t typically focus on one specific day for selling.
Credit: Marvelous
This feature has advantages and drawbacks. Saturdays are especially exciting in Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar, as you get to rapidly sell off your bounty of goods while building up your finances. You then use your earnings to improve your stall with new decorations and to buy more seeds and the like. Plus, the more you earn, the bigger and better the bazaar itself becomes. It’s a very satisfying system, especially once you mix in all the other expected features like fishing, building up relationships in town, and doing side quests.
“It’s a lot of fun to work towards friendships and marriage in the game while also improving the bazaar and adding new stalls to the area, so if you’re patient enough to get past the slower beginning, you’ll find a more varied and consistently satisfying flow.“
On the other hand, having one important day seems to mess with the pacing a bit towards the beginning of Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar. You only have so much storage to start with, and it takes a bit to get the money to meaningfully expand how much you can carry and store, meaning you could wind up filling it up pretty early in the week, leading to somewhat empty days near the start. Additionally, the structure of having six days to prepare for one big one leads to a lot of days blending and occasionally feeling a bit repetitive.
Credit: Marvelous
These issues get a bit of relief as the game goes on, with more features being introduced as you get deeper into building relationships with the town’s denizens. There are various festivals and celebrations spread throughout the weeks, as well as side quests to complete as you get closer and closer to each of the NPCs.
Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar picks up as it goes on.
It’s a lot of fun to work towards friendships and marriage in the game while also improving the bazaar and adding new stalls to the area, so if you’re patient enough to get past the slower beginning, you’ll find a more varied and consistently satisfying flow. You even start to unlock handy upgrades like being able to till soil or water crops faster, or the ability to double-jump and glide through the air. These add an extra sense of progression to things while also making it easier to take on more and more tasks as you expand your farm.
Credit: Marvelous
The music is fittingly soothing throughout Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar, always keeping you at ease as you sow seeds and explore the town. The visual style is charming, though I prefer the style of previous games to this one specifically, as the characters look especially cutesy in this installment.
The Final Word
Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar is a pleasant and relaxing farming simulator that mixes up the usual formula in an interesting way. The pacing is a bit wonky towards the beginning and can feel a bit repetitive, but playing at your own pace helps to make this a worthwhile game to kick back with.
MonsterVine Rating: 3.5 out of 5 – Fair
