If you had asked me a month ago what I wanted to see next in the Story of Seasons series, I would ꧙have said “a brand new title”. Marvelous has been mostly alternating between remakes and new games since it rebranded from Harvest Moon to Story of Seasons. As much as I love those remakes, it felt like we were due for somewhere new to settle down and enjoy after A Wonderful Life. However, Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar quickly changed my mind.

Harvest Moon DS: Grand Bazaar launched for Nintendo Switch in 2010, and like a lot of games released for the dual-screen console, it’s harder🌠 to port or remaster them for current-gen hardware that lacks said functionality. This means remaking old DS titles for modern consoles fundamentally changes the way they used to be played.

Though Story of Seasons has a healthy back catalogue of games fans would love to see again, this time, it’s not just about what the fans want. Marvelous tells me that while A Wonderful Life was a fan favourite to bring back, Grand Bazaar is instead one that the developers loved so much that they wanted to remake it, which means it’ll bꦰe a real labour of love.

The location, characters, and concept are all the same, but Marvelous’ devs✨ say nearly everything els꧑e has changed, making it an exciting new adventure in familiar territory.

How Bazaar

Most Story of Seasons games follo🔯w the same format of moving to a town, starting your new life as a farmer, falling in love, and living happily ever after while turning a profit from the veggies you grow. However, Grand Bazaar adds a new element to freshen up the old template. You guessed it: the Grand Bazaar itself.

Rather than just pop your crops and items into a box to earn some money, each Saturday, Zephyr Town hosts a bazaar between 10am-2pm and 3pm-6p💙m for you to sell your produce. But this isn’tಞ just swapping a box for a stall, the bazaar is the central focus of the gameplay, and you need to get ready for a bustling market environment.

Your stall can be customised, and how🧸 you decorate it affects whether you might entice more customers, how fresh the produce is, or what price people are willing to pay. You have to choose when to swap out items while the bazaar is in full swing to beckon people over to your stall and sell as much as possible. It becomes a minigame where you’ll be kept on your toes, maintaining your stall stocked and pushing your wares on all the local townsfolk.

Some wandering NPCs will show what they want🐭 in little thought bubbles above their heads, so you know when to quickly change what’s on sale, but otherwise, you need to put your best foot forward and decide how best to clear your inventory.

There’s also a cheer gauge, which, when full, can be used🦋 to summon the Cheer Squad, a little troupe of Nature Sprites to help sel♋l your items much more quickly.

Adding the bazaar as part of the core gameplay loop introduces an inter🀅esting layer to a familiar cycle. As well as improving your farm and unlocking more upgrades, you can do the same for the bazaar, helping others to get their own stalls up and running. Zephyr Town will grow as the town develops, with others flocking to join the bazaar, and you can explore the other stalls and buy things yourself.

Uplifting Farm Life

Everything you know and love about Story of Seasons is still here, though. You have your little slice of farming heaven where you can perfect the quality of your crops, expand your land, upgrade your tools, and craft raw produce into sellable products. You can also jump to use your tools with more effort, allowing you to till more soil in one go, or water more c🌃rops at once.

You’re also not alone, as you’ll have aniꦛmals to care for, with companion pets and mounts, and you can find love amongst the many available marriage candidates. There are even two brand new romanceable characters. There are seasonal eventဣs and minigames, while the much-loved nature sprites make a return.

There are 38 townsfolk in total, bolstering the original roster with new characters, and now you don’t have to worry about chatting with everyone as you can just greet people with the press of a button. This means you can still maintain relationships with everyone around town, but you only have to listen to those you really ca꧃re about. There are requests to complete, gifts to give, and even if you want time away from farmwork, you can go fishing, cook up some delicious dishes, or explore the world around you to uncover new secrets.

Zephyr Town lives up to its name in that the wind here plays a huge role. There are windmills that you can use to process your goods. Bad weather might make it a little treacherous to get around town, with the wind activel🐎y pushing you aside, but the windmills will spin faster, processing items far quicker. This remake also introduces the glider, and you can jump on trampolines around town to get some air. As the town is on tiered layers, getting around with the glider makes this the best way to travel.

Breathing New Life Into An Old Town, And An Old Game

The benefit of a remake means Grand Bazaar looks utterly charming, and on top of the modern visuals and new gameplay elements, there’s a brand new soundtrack, and fully voiced dialogue. Players can pick their marriage candidate regardless of gender, and players can choose their pronouns in the character creator, including they/them. But it’s no𒐪t all about adding new features. This new iteration chooses to nix the multiplayer mode the DS version had so that players can focus on the single-player gameplay fans love best.

Grand Bazaar has a whole new lease of life for Nintendo Switch, and from what I’ve played already, this is the best way to experience this title. I🔥 love my old DS games, but with hindsight I think many titles were squeezed onto the platform because it was so popular, and so many would have been better on a console that 💯focused on one screen instead of two. Grand Bazaar is one of those games, and now we finally get to experience it at its best.

While I originally wanted something new for Story of Seasons, I admit that I am now far more tempted to play Grand Bazaar. Giving an old DS title a second wind and breathing new life into i๊t already makes me really intrigued, but knowing ✱that the developers personally wanted to do this title next makes me think it’s going to be something special.