The year was probably 2000 when I played my first Harvest Moon game, which was Back To Nature on the original PlayStation. It is hard to look back and remember a time when you honestly had one franchise in the farming sim, now cozy game genre, apart from a few spin-off franchises that had that game’s name in its title. With Stardew Valley achieving an audience that most couldn’t even begin to believe would flock to a type of game that existed relatively niche up, that Story of Seasons, formerly Harvest Moon, has gotten heavily lost in the shuffle of a genre I have reviewed at least ten new games in over the past few months alone. This was no clearer than it was with the release of Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town, which felt like a combination of borrowed ideas with no real direction. Which is why I am so happy to say, Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar is the grand return to form we have all been waiting years for, and the golden template for the future they should build from and embrace.
Originally released on the DS, Grand Bazaar is one of the games that was released during the dead space in which I wasn’t playing the franchise since I skipped the DS, and eventually bought a 3DS years later. While looking at a side-by-side, it is easy to tell the love poured into both remaking the title, but pushing forward the series in the process. It is always great to jump into a game that you missed, not feeling like you are retreading old ground, though I can’t imagine the game feels like that; regardless, it feels too new and optimistic to feel old. Like usual, you take the role of a farmer who moves to Zepher town to take care of the old farm right outside of it. The village takes on an Eastern European feel in the clothing characters wear, the aesthetics of the village, and the beautiful countryside filled with mountains and vistas. Even a key mechanic of the wind that transports you emotionally to that region.
Where Story of Season takes its subtitle from this time is that the game, unlike most, where you sell your goods daily if you want to, refers to a bazaar that the town holds every Saturday in-game, which the main character becomes involved with, with growing the bazaar being the crux of progression in the town. The player brings in new shops, better customers, upgrades for your home, and new residents, all by doing what you do naturally: selling your goods and completing quests. Make no mistake, that is not where the story ends, as this is the most robust narrative that Story of Seasons has ever had. The game has relationship scenes like usual, triggering under the right conditions with townsfolk and romanceable options. In addition to these, though, you also have scenes for individuals in town to get a deeper understanding of the relationships around you, as well as a lot of quests to undertake as you build your relationships, while again getting more information on the side narratives that exist in this town.
The best part of all of this, there is actual voice acting in the cutscenes, and it is good! Really, really good! Having had to create voice personalities for these characters in my head for so long, hearing them in the game out loud, and fitting the characters so perfectly, might have been the most magical moment I have had with the series since that first time I stepped onto the farm in 2000. In fact, the entire sound design is the game at its best, creating tranquility through beautiful orchestral pieces across every location and every season, which causes you to get lost in your own little world that the developers at Marvelous have created for you here. One critique on the narrative to make here, though, is the pacing, which quests often serve to limit. Increasing character hearts eventually hit a wall until you do a task for them, which is usually easy, though you might find yourself season-locked from completing it in rare cases. These characters can then accept gifts, but do not increase their relationship with you until the task is complete, which can often feel like you have stalled with the meaningful progress you want to make, sometimes for several days. When introducing jumps in relationships from festivals, you can find yourself sitting on a lot of tasks you need to handle, while townsfolk sit in limbo.
The loop of a farming sim feels so fresh, too, with so many great ideas that keep it addictive and rewarding. Farming is fun, but without many changes. Outside of that, upgrading feels far better than the previous game, with upgraded tools allowing you to quickly handle tasks rather than charging up to use upgraded abilities. The game actually takes great care to both upgrade yourself, as well as upgrade he bazaar to offer shortcuts in your farming that make life easier. An example of this is a shop at the Bazaar that offers almost all gems and ore for sale at reasonable prices, letting you skip farming low percentage ore points for drops. Upgrading tools, making seeds, and upgrading crops are also unlocked quickly with no cost to the player before they are allowed to start using them, which expands the game greatly from the get goso the player can focus almost entirely on learning the best way to use the advantages they have, rather than needing to learn how to encorporate them into theit tasks later on.
Unfortunately, the one place Story of Seasons doesn’t quite match its peers is in the clock, which many now give options to expand the time of day. Completing my farm tasks, especially later on, can end at 3 pm, then I go mining, and suddenly it’s 6 pm. This is with upgraded tools that make the tasks easy, just because I am fully trying to take advantage of everything I can do. Time plays a role in the Bazaar, so I get it, I just don’t think it would hurt regardless. However, the sleep mechanic allows you to stay up till 5 am, but your character will sleep in accordingly, which is a great touch. You definitely don’t want to wake up right as the bazaar is starting and have to make like Marty McFly and get across town.
The namesake of the game bleeds into every aspect of the experience, which makes it extremely valuable. While there is a general store in town, almost every shop you will need is at the bazaar, and the general store even has a much more expanded stock. You will need to buy animals, upgrades for your farm, ores, and character upgrades, all during this small window on Saturday. One ability you can buy here allows you to harvest nine crops at once. Festivals, as well, usually benefit your stall and your selling price. There are crop festivals every month and animal festivals twice a year that, should you win, increase what you can sell these items at your stall for. Other festivals, like the pet festival, offer a fun mini-game that allows you to instruct your pet through button prompts. These festivals don’t go straight into the bazaar but help you with your social standing regardless, and offer a fun time. Anything you gather can be displayed at your stall with a mini game playing to attract customers, and sell your goods during the two blocks of sales time you have, and all sales accumulated from your stall go towards the growth of the bazaar as a whole, which can be a little annoying, giving the player only brief periods to do their shopping, but it is a welcome break from the usual grind.
That usual grind also feels like such a breath of fresh air you might not actually want to stop. Air plays a significant role in this title, with the player being able to use it in a multitude of ways. All crafting is done in windmills, so wind velocity can increase the speed at which you make items. It will also make hidden areas more accessible through gliding. Jumping is also a major part of this experience, feeling much more fluid and well-designed than it ever has in the franchise prior. The game puts very few restrictions on exploration, so through the combination of these movements, it is very easy to quickly get yourself around. Unfortunately, wind only comes from one direction, which limits exploration in some weird ways. On medium to strong gusts, you can only glide left to right, with the glider being incapable of moving the other way. One area in particular, where you glide across the lake to an area that cannot be reached otherwise, has no way to glide back across, requiring you to run the full way around the lake to return to where you were, proving quite annoying. For its part, the game is mostly designed around this wind trajectory, but having it slightly less patterned could have made for even more varied traversal. It does not stop the exploration this time from being the absolute best a Story of Seasons game has been, like ever, and it does so much with so little.
The ONE area where the game feels like it could have done more, feeling like it is dated in its scope, is the customization. On the one hand, the character customization and the character graphics for both you and the townsfolk are great. You can choose to have a character portrait when speaking to people, but it never felt needed, as characters are very identifiable, being both cartoony and easy to make out, something that, going back in time, would be replaced with characters whose models have very little detail, hence the need. That definitely isn’t the case here. No, where the customization feels lackluster is in your home, which can be upgraded but barely changes. Buying new fields opens up some areas that are locked, but you start with a fully furnished house that all customizations seem to avoid adding to, with upgrading storage just adding slots. You can buy new clothing, and you can buy customizations for your bazaar stall, both cosmetic, but when it comes to where you spend the most time in-game, there is no way to inject personality, despite the series having done so before. It almost feels like they shot themselves in the foot because the ONLY reason this bothers me is that they did such a perfect job upgrading the rest that it feels far more noticeable.
Verdict
Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar lives up to its title; it’s absolutely the grandest game the series has ever produced and a perfect love song to everything great about the series, and that drew people into the franchise. At its heart, it’s fun, keeping a grind that can easily become repetitive without feeling bland or boring. The wind and the jumping offer the player so much versatility in how they traverse the town, with invisible walls feeling few and far between. Between the Bazaar, offering a great diversion, and the tools to make farm work less of a chore, allowing players to tackle the massive amount of content the game has, beyond all that, in the form of side quests, and fully voiced narrative moments! Everything about the Grand Bazaar gives new life to a franchise that has been in desperate need of it, and like its main protagonist, flips the page to a new chapter, one I cannot wait to keep reading, or in this case, playing.
Beyond this fact, it is a Cozy game that stands in the sea of games that exist today with confidence, showcasing why this franchise was worth imitating in the first place. It isn’t just a great Harvest Moon or Story of Seasons title; it is a top title in the genre, something I have been waiting a long time to finally say.
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Reviewed on Nintendo Switch 2, also available for Nintendo Switch and PC
Developer: Marvelous Inc.
Publishers: Marvelous Inc.
Release Date: August 27, 2025
Good:
+Fully Voiced and greatly expanded Narrative
+Deep Exploration
+Fun Farm work
+The Bazaar is a great feature
+A Remake that feels Grand in scope
+Soundtrack
Bad:
-Some pacing issues
-Lack of Customization in some places
-some minor gripes with wind
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Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar
