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It’s a brand new day. You wake up and get out of bed in time to go about your daily business. You feed the animals, an assortment of cows, sheep and chickens.You go out and water the crops. Harvest anything you can and then promptly decide to go into town. Along the way you find colorful flowers and weeds to cut down and interesting looking rocks to smash. Once in town, you visit with the townsfolk, say hi and buy food and feed from the different shops. Maybe while this is happening, you have a run in with an old friend who wants to tell you something or share some exciting news. When the day is spent, you return to your farm and turn in for the evening, excited for the weekly bazaar to start back up the next day.
That is a typical Friday in Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar. If that sounds like your kind of vibe, you came to the right place. Grand Bazaar is the latest in a long series of cozy farm sim games. Originally localized as Harvest Moon, the series has been hailed as a pioneer in its genre and has inspired several other games such as FarmVille and the immensely popular Stardew Valley. Farm sims continue to stay strong even today as evidenced by the existence of games like Core Keeper. However, Grand Bazaar isn’t an entirely new experience, rather it’s a remake of Harvest Moon DS: Grand Bazaar, an earlier entry that was originally released in 2010 in North America back before the name change.
Now remakes tend to be tricky business these days. On one hand, they’re a good way to introduce old games to a potentially new audience while giving them a facelift that returning players can appreciate. Raidou Remastered, which I reviewed a couple of months ago, is a good example of this. On the other hand, some of them could come off as lazy and lacking in creativity. Fortunately, Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar seems to fall into the former category. I never played the original myself, so I can't speak to how it improves on it, but I can say that Grand Bazaar is actually a lot of fun and well worth your time. Let’s get into it.
In Grand Bazaar, the player is a farmer who’s recently moved to the quaint and peaceful Zephyr Town. After being greeted and welcomed by the cheerful Mayor Felix, you’re given some items and are immediately introduced to the weekly bazaar that Zephyr Town hosts every Saturday. The bazaar is pretty straightforward, you place your stock on the stall and then get the attention of passersby using a bell in the hopes they’ll want to buy something. On occasion, a villager may be looking for a specific item that can be swapped in. The bazaar is divided into two shifts, morning and afternoon. It can be hectic keeping up with the customers but it’s worth it. With the first bazaar done, the player can use the earned funding to start setting up their farm the very next day.
The first week is entirely spent learning the ins and outs of farming. You’re given tools such as a hoe for plowing ground to plant seeds in, a watering can for watering them, a sickle to cut down weeds and harvest wild flowers, an axe for chopping wood and smashing rocks and so forth. Each day brings a new tool and more to learn until finally, you can get into the groove of things. One thing to be mindful of is the stamina bar up top which depletes with each farming action you take. Luckily, it can be restored by eating food that can be bought or cooked. Before long, I found myself getting into a rhythm of tending the crops and taking care of the animals before setting off to town while keeping an eye on my stamina. Oh yeah, no farm would be complete without livestock.
You’re given a single chicken to start and ease you into learning how to manage animals. You can bring them out into the pasture to graze or give them feed inside the barn. You can groom them, pet them, even pick some of them up. As you do this, they’ll grow to like you and be more affectionate. The stronger your bond with your animal pals, the higher the quality of the goods they produce will be. Once my chicken grew to love me, I started getting better quality eggs and that was lovely to see. Of course there’s more than just chickens. You can also get cows, goats and more from the livestock trader during the weekly bazaar. Your dream farm full of cattle and lovable animal friends is within reach, just gotta work for it.
Speaking of, the main goal is to rejuvenate Zephyr Towns bazaar. At the start of the game, the bazaar has fallen on hard times. But with a farmer back in town, that’s going to change. By selling wares and helping others set up their own stalls, the bazaar can grow in rank and prestige. This of course, also opens up more opportunities to expand business. You can also visit other stalls(like the aforementioned livestock one) during bazaar days to buy additional items, expansions for storage and even abilities like double-jumping. There’s a lot of familiar faces around, both selling and buying.
Which brings me to the villagers. In addition to the friendly Mayor Felix, you’ll also meet wonderful characters like the Mayor’s daughter Sophie, the bookworm Jules, the travelling merchant Lloyd, the ever helpful Wilbur and so many more. As you get to know and interact with these characters, their affection for you will grow. Sometimes they’ll have requests for the player asking for specific items. Completing these requests can give rewards like new seeds to plant or even new features like adding additional stalls in the bazaar or opening up a windmill for processing items into new goods. In fact the windmills are essential for upgrading tools and getting things like lumber, stone, perfume and items otherwise hard to obtain. Interact with the villagers often and sometimes you’ll get treated to a special event where you can get to know them better.
All of this is bundled into one extremely adorable package. This game is cute and a treat for the eyes at all times. Every single one of the villagers is uniquely designed and are very expressive. There’s no confusing any of them for each other, the character models are that good. And it’s not just the villagers either. The animals look cute and chibi. The cel-shaded graphical style they use adds a lot of vibrancy and color to Zephyr Town and its inhabitants. There’s a lot of little detail to be seen and found. The game sounds as pleasant as it looks, with Zephyr Town constantly having this very chill and relaxing vibe to its music. The characters are voice acted and the actors did a great job. Each one of the villagers feels alive and even the little blurbs add to the experience. It’s a very well polished game both visually and audibly.
Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar is another remake in a year that’s seen several of them, but it’s a good remake. And being the first time I ever experienced this series, it definitely left a strong impression on me. If you like games like Stardew Valley or Animal Crossing, don’t pass this one. You’ll come to see the bazaar but want to extend your stay after getting to know Zephyr Town and its inhabitants. I know I’ll be sticking around.
