Despite my long-recorded love of the franchise, I actually didn’t play Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar when it first released on the DS in 2010. The series had been going through a bit of an experimental phase at the time, and when I asked my local EB Games employee about it, she said it wasn’t very good, so I avoided it.
In a lot of ways, I’m actually glad my 21-year-old self didn’t play the original Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar, because, much like with Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life in 2003, I genuinely wouldn’t have appreciated its interesting and innovative ideas. Thankfully, Marvellous has breathed new life into this unique entry, and it is a sight to behold.
Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar is a proper remake in every sense of the word. Built from the ground up on the foundation of the original, it changes almost every aspect of the game and polishes it to the nth degree—adding a suite of Quality of Life improvements and audio/video enhancements to really bring the game to life.
Much like the original, Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar begins with the player moving to Zephyr Town after seeing a job opening for a new farmer. The town, which was known far and wide for its world-famous bazaar, has since fallen on hard times, and the bazaar isn’t as grand as it used to be. The mayor entreats the player to open their own stall and help the bazaar and town regain their former glory.
“Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar is a proper remake in every sense of the word. Built from the ground up on the foundation of the original, it changes almost every aspect of the game and polishes it to the nth degree…”
While it maintains the same DNA as the original, Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar takes a different approach to the theme of its central mechanic. Specifically, in the original, there was a much more competitive aspect to the bazaar, with most of the main stalls already set up from the start, and prizes given out to the top earners of each week’s bazaar. In the remake, though, there’s a deeper sense of community, with players working to help the town meet specific milestones in order to earn higher titles of bazaar.
While this means selling as much as they can, players will also need to help townsfolk and a few surprise guests from other Story of Seasons games set up their own stalls as they’re drawn in by the player’s work ethic and passion. While it creates an incredibly engaging throughline to the farming and selling gameplay, it also drives a deeper connection to the player and both Zephyr Town and its residents. You really start to feel like a part of this little community as people come to rely on you, and in turn, you assist them in helping the town.
Gameplay is definitely what you’ve come to expect from the series at this point: the traditional farming mechanics you know and love, incredibly refined and advanced by modern gaming sensibilities. But it’s the unique elements that were specific to Grand Bazaar that really make the game a much more considerate kind of Story of Seasons.
Not only that, the game removes some elements that made the experience a bit more challenging. For example, stepping on crops no longer reduces their quality, which is a shame because it’s certainly a unique consideration to take while proceeding in your daily tasks, but I get why it might have been frustrating.
Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar is a game about knowing when to walk and when to run. It’s a combination of little things that make the game so engaging to play. For example, players can sell their crops or forage-ables at the local store, but they’ll only get the base price for them. If they wait until the Saturday bazaar, they can take advantage of their stall—which can be customized to provide bonuses for different types of items—as well as the Nature Sprites for a bigger payout.
However, holding on to your stock means keeping it stored in your warehouse, and unlike previous Story of Seasons games, Grand Bazaar introduces a freshness system, where items can spoil if players hold on to them for too long. The storeroom will keep them fresh for longer than if they sit in your pockets, but freshness isn’t guaranteed. As a result, determining when to hold onto certain items for festivals, gifts, or just selling at the Bazaar adds another level of consideration.
And while Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar’s in-game clock has been tailored similarly to Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town—where one second equals one in-game minute giving players about 20 minutes a day if they go from 6 AM to about midnight—you’d be amazed how much there is to get done in order to properly prepare for the next Bazaar, particularly if you’re trying to capitalize on the months trending items (which will sell for more and be more desired by customers.)
Lastly, there are the Windmills, which are not only an iconic symbol of Zephyr Town but also function as this game’s “makers.” There are three windmills to unlock throughout the course of the first year—depending on whether players invest the time and resources into the quests needed to complete them—and each one is capable of producing different things. But this adds yet another interesting layer to Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar’s gameplay since windmills need…well, wind to function!
Depending on the day’s wind levels, the windmills will have different completion times for processing projects. On top of that, every windmill has only six slots for processing jobs, so players need to consider when and how they want to utilize their windmills for creating trending items, upgrading their farm tools or sacrificing crops to make higher quality seeds.
Oh yeah! That’s another great thing about Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar. Basically, every item has a quality rating which can be improved by improving the quality of soil, the quality of fertilizer spread over crops, or by winning certain festivals to increase the cap on your quality ratings. High-quality items sell for higher amounts of money, so endeavouring to keep your crops in good condition is tantamount to success!
If I have one solitary complaint about Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar, though, it’s how cooking is still restricted to recipes, considering how the base game had the option to cook without them. It’s not the biggest problem, and the way you acquire recipes is incredibly generous, I just really wish Story of Seasons would go back to freeform cooking that allowed players to experiment.
Regardless of this, there are just so many interesting layers to Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar that I was continuously impressed with every new discovery. On top of that, this might be the most polished Story of Seasons I’ve ever played—remake or otherwise. The newly remade Zephyr Town and character models have been incredibly updated—maintaining their original design but more closely resembling the modern Story of Seasons art-style—and the use of colour and lighting really brings the world to life.
“There wasn’t a single moment I was playing Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar when I wasn’t completely in love with it.”
Visual effects are smooth and fluid, and there’s a solid consistency between objects that are 3D and ones that are static PNGs, and made even better on the Switch 2 thanks to improved resolution and a higher frame rate. But it was the amount of little details that really blew me away. Particularly, how petting and brushing every animal and household pet had specific animations. It was such a small thing that made a world of difference—the attention to detail that separates a good game from a great one.
Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar has also completely redone its entire audio catalogue, creating completely new themes for the farm and the town, for every season, that change between day and night. On top of this, a completely new suite of character interaction cutscenes have been given full voice over to add even more personality to these eclectic characters—if you didn’t love Felix before, you’ll definitely love him now. The only song that seemingly carried over from the original was the “Indoor Theme,” for when you’re inside your house.
There wasn’t a single moment I was playing Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar when I wasn’t completely in love with it. It takes everything good from almost every game in the series, old and new, and puts it into one of the most polished experiences I’ve seen from the series. Make no mistake, this is a MUST PLAY for fans of farming sims and the Story of Seasons series alike, and a solid reminder why Story of Seasons is still the king of the mountain.
Now, please, Marvelous, remake Story of Seasons: Magical Melody next.
