Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar

I was only a small child when I first played Harvest Moon GB on my battered and bruised Game Boy. I had no idea about animal husbandry, crop management or even how to manage my own finances, being the age that I was, but for some reason this black-and-white (or more accurately “green and dark green”) game had me rapt, doing everything I could to keep my farm afloat.

With this popular farming series now better known as Story of Seasons following a split with publisher Natsume in 2012, Marvellous Inc. has sought to bring their beloved series into a modern light through remakes of various classic titles, including Friends of Mineral Town and A Wonderful Life, the latter of which made up an enormous part of my youth (and even led to a bout of ugly-crying when my favourite cow died).

The latest life sim to join the growing roster comes in the form of Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar – an exhaustive remake of the Nintendo DS title of the same name, albeit replacing the old Harvest Moon moniker; it would be remiss of me to just call this a simple remake, however, as the game has been completely reworked to feel fresh and modern compared to earlier games – even better, no second screen nonsense getting in the way! 

Much like its predecessors, Grand Bazaar tasks you with balancing the running of a simple farmland with the day-to-day social life you would expect in the small locale of Zephyr Town. If you have played a farming sim before, you already know the drill – plant and tend seasonal crops, raise a barn full of cute animals, and craft better tools and items to grow both your farm and the wider community. You’ll also be getting well acquainted with an increasingly cute roster of townspeople, but more on that later. 

Interestingly Grand Bazaar steers away from the farm as a central feature, instead leaning further into the social side of the game and the titular Bazaar held once every week, where you can sell goods to earn a profit and use it to develop both your land and the town at large. It’s brilliant to see one of the most underrated parts of the series brought to the fore, as A Wonderful Life (arguably the best game in the Story of Seasons back catalogue) also allowed you to set up a market stall in town to sell to passers-by. Admittedly this game gives vastly more attention to the idea and expands on it further, but it is definitely a welcome change of pace.

It might be hard to envision a Bazaar with a village populated by only a dozen or so people, but in an unusual change of pace, the game also introduces a number of NPCs that, unlike the main cast, are simply there to exist, roam around and, of course, buy your produce every weekend. It’s jarring at first to see people around that you can’t develop meaningful relationships with, but it also makes the town feel more alive, enhancing the friendships you do develop and making them feel unique in a crowd of relative nobodies.

Of course you can’t talk about relationships in a Story of Seasons game without mentioning the various bachelors and bachelorettes dotted about the town – from the well-mannered daughter of the mayor to the mysterious outsider, there are plenty of options available for your smooching pleasure – rest assured that the series continues its contemporary tradition of allowing you plenty of freedom, with He/She/They pronoun options all available and the flexibility to smooch anyone regardless of gender. It’s a veritable smooch-fest – a Smooch Bazaar, if you will.

There are some unusual design choices in Grand Bazaar that, despite trailing off from the expected gameplay, do a great deal to improve some of the more tedious elements of the game. The first and biggest of these actually comes in the form of the hatchet, a tool that replaces both the axe and hammer of previous games to create a single tool for breaking down hard debris. Anybody who has played earlier instalments – especially Friends of Mineral Town – will already be aware of the tedium that comes with constantly having to switch back and forth between the hammer, axe and sickle when first clearing your farm.

As well as changes to the toolset you are given, the traversal has also gained a new level of depth – you are free to run and jump more actively around Zephyr Town, making use of vertical differences to scoot across a few roofs and launching up with the aid of red spring barrels that are dotted about. You can even clear the central river through town at points, but rest assured you’ll receive a swift rescue if you throw your clumsy self into the stream. This makes traversing the town much less of a chore, especially when you may find yourself in a rush to get back to your farm and tend to your cows before the sun sets.

As much as I have enjoyed my time with Grand Bazaar, it can’t be ignored that it also misses something that previous titles have had, namely the feeling of overcoming the odds and enduring through hard work – that isn’t to say the game needs to be more tedious by any stretch, but it’s hard to value the work you have put in when your farm remains clean and clear except for a few extra weeds here or there. The laborious parts of the earlier games made the more relaxed times feel much more poignant, a contrast that just feels somewhat absent this time around.

Despite this, I can’t completely fault Grand Bazaar for the change in pacing, as the developers clearly wanted the focus to step away from just the farm, instead showcasing the fast-paced bartering of the Bazaar that gives the game its name – whether researching what items are popular for the coming weekend or simply stocking up on a bestseller, you’ll soon fall into a rhythm that suits your style.