Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar

Story of Seasons is by no means an unknown franchise in the video game world anymore. Even after leaving behind its previous name, Harvest Moon, the farm life simulation series has continued to iterate on itself by offering small steps or forks in its otherwise simple and monotonous life. Now it's our turn, once again, to leave it all behind to accept a rather familiar job offer: to take over an old abandoned farm in Zephyr Town and restore it to its former glory.

Of course, it's not just the farm that we have to bring back to life, but a peaceful little village whose jewel and main attraction is a market (a bazaar) where the most exclusive items in the world were bought and sold. Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar is a safe bet from Marvelous. It has all the elements and structures that any veteran of the series or lifesim fan will instantly recognise, while introducing a more commercial approach and a new line of main quests for progression. Enough to convince us to become farmers? Well, that depends.

Let's face it, when I say Marvelous is playing it safe, they're taking absolutely no risks here. I don't know if it's because they want to keep on defending that this is their way of understanding life simulation, and they're never going to break out of the mould, or if they prefer to carefully test the waters before introducing a radical change. Story of Seasons is the next in the main series, where the crop, animal, and building designs will immediately resonate with players of Pioneers of Olive Town, for example.

Focusing specifically on Grand Bazaar, we create our avatar (boy or girl) in a familiar character editor. Not that I was expecting anything detailed or sickeningly accurate like Baldur's Gate 3 or Naraka: Bladepoint might be, but even other life simulation titles like the pixelated Stardew Valley offer considerably more options for face, hairstyle, skin colour, or clothing. I would have liked to see more variety here, if only to avoid the feeling throughout the game that my protagonist has a "silly" face with wide-open yet expressionless anime eyes.

After creating our character, we arrive at Villa Zephyr on a Saturday, market day. Mayor Felix helps us to quickly set them up in the village and offers us a small trading post attached to the farm to sell whatever products we have in our hands. And after that brief tutorial on the main novelty of this Story of Seasons, we are returned to the familiar routine of learning how to cultivate, fertilise, and harvest crops, while clearing the farm and village surroundings of wood and rocks, and starting to fish and raise animals.

Even if you've never played a farm simulator before, you'll quickly pick up the essential concepts to smoothly navigate the game and start making a profit. The learning curve in Story of Seasons is extremely simple and there is nothing that can go against your plans and designs, except perhaps some poor preparation for a very, very sporadic storm or inclement weather. Crops will progress, chickens, cows, sheep, and alpacas (!!) will grow and breed more animals to offer products with, and we can continue to establish relationships with the characters in the village day-by-day, either by talking to them, running errands, or offering them gifts.

Each day will unfold in gentle repetition, seeking a routine until market day, when the bazaar opens. At this point, all the week's efforts must be transformed into economic benefits thanks to a simple mini-game of placing products according to the wishes of the passers-by and managing to sell them in a given time. Little-by-little, we will achieve milestones of market growth (opening new stalls and attracting neighbours and new villagers) in order to make the Grand Bazaar once again one of the region's tourist attractions.

The bad news is that after a few hours you realise that this is all Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar has to offer. There is never a moment when the routine breaks down, or you are confronted with a new or disruptive situation that forces you to rethink your options. There is a clear line of regularity and some disappointment at ending up turning the experience into a kind of checklist of achievements, of getting new products or upgrades, and maximum relationships with the inhabitants of Villa Zephyr. You will never lose your livestock to an epidemic, or burn down the storehouse with your products before market day. No one will steal, and you won't be able to misplace any items. Everything will be fine, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. But I found it a bit disappointing.

There are elements that shine even when I seriously considered giving up on the game, such as the music. There is beauty in the simplicity of Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar's themes, and it's one of the few elements where I feel it can stand out quite a bit from other representatives of the genre. Nor do I dislike the setting and brightness of Zephyr Town, the farm, or even the designs and stories of its inhabitants. The voice acting of the latter, by the way, is quite good.

In Story of Seasons, the character is usually a flat construct into which we ourselves must pour our personality or intention to create the magic of simulation and immersion. You will rarely, if ever, participate in an influential way with anyone or anything, except perhaps as a mostly silent spectator to the lives and stories of the villagers. Perhaps my biggest problem with Grand Bazaar is that I don't feel like I'm really living a full simulation, but only performing a series of tasks and requests for the villagers as I seek funding to turn my farm into an industrial powerhouse and the character into a born climber and adventurer.

I am left with a somewhat vanilla taste in Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar. An adventure that certainly won't disappoint those who know what they're going for, but may feel a little empty to new farmers if they don't connect with its routine. Country life in Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar is not for everyone, but it's not bad at all.