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| Title | STORY OF SEASONS: Grand Bazaar |
| Developer | Marvelous |
| Publisher | Marvelous USA |
| Release Date | August 27th, 2025 |
| Genre | Farm/Life Sim |
| Platform | Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, PC |
| Age Rating | Everyone |
| Official Website | |
As I mentioned in my preview article a few weeks ago, I was dying to get my hands on STORY OF SEASONS: Grand Bazaar. The trailers made the game look extremely cute and charming. Also, it’s the first of these recent Bokujō Monogatari remakes that I actually have some nostalgia for. I bought Grand Bazaar for my DS back in the day, not too long after it came out. I remember it being a really great entry the first time around. While I loved the style and atmosphere of Sunshine Islands, Grand Bazaar was easier to play. The clock wasn’t nearly as fast and there was no wasting time traveling across various islands. The town had shortcuts and was easy to traverse in a timely manner. I also look fondly on crafting products with the windmills rather than having to use makers. Now having played Pioneers of Olive Town, a much more recent game with way too many makers, I appreciate that aspect being simplified. Since I’ve already covered the basic plot and first month of Grand Bazaar in my preview, I want to focus on other stuff in this full review. After reaching the end of Year 1 Spring, I wanted to experience the seasonal changes and also find out if the game has decent longevity. Feel free to check out my preview article (linked above) if you want to hear about the basic plot and my earlier game thoughts.
First of all, let’s talk about the different seasons. Going from Spring to Summer I didn’t notice a huge change atmosphere wise. The music differences I think were more subtle. I noticed it a lot more going from Summer to Fall. This game has relaxing music and the atmosphere is quite nice. The music fit in well, and no songs are so short and/or annoying that you get sick of hearing them loop over and over. I remember having that issue, I believe, with the very first 3DS STORY OF SEASONS game. I remember not being able to play it for numerous in-game years, simply because I couldn’t stand hearing that Fall tune on repeat. That is not an issue whatsoever in this new reimagining of Grand Bazaar. One flaw however with the seasons in this game, is that even once you’ve upgraded your hatchet enough to get better ore, Spring will still mostly have copper and silver. The better ore, mainly orichalcum, isn’t as abundant until later in the year. There is one spot you can get some orichalcum in Spring, pretty high up on a windy day. But other than that, you’ll be waiting for Fall and Winter every year to collect more of it. You can eventually buy some at the bazaar, but you’ll save money collecting it yourself. Plus, the bazaar will have bottom of the barrel quality for products sold at other characters’ stalls.
Another part of the game that relates to the seasonal changes, are crops. There are a lot of crops that are multi-seasonal. Some crops you can grow in both Spring and Winter, some in Fall and Winter, some are even good Spring through Fall. There are also still some that can only be grown in one specific season. Later on, I do believe there is a unique basement greenhouse where you can grow stuff out of season. I spent just over 80 hours on SoS: Grand Bazaar and I haven’t unlocked the greenhouse yet, so I can’t confirm if you can only grow one season’s crops at a time, but that should still be how it functions. Still, having the option to pick a season which has the most profitable crops for you, such as trending products at the bazaar, or ones you can most easily use in recipes, I can see being a huge help.
If you’re interested in a really relaxing slow-paced farming game, you might find yourself a bit disappointed with this one. I find that I’m always moving in Grand Bazaar. This game does have a freshness system as well as a star quality on everything – which you can upgrade on the various crops and products you make. Crops, you’ll constantly be fertilizing and have to save an amount each time to turn them back into seeds, which can raise their star quality. That leads me to one of very few complaints I have about the game. Crops that only produce a couple more than you planted, you’ll constantly be wasting to turn back into higher quality seeds. I do wish this title had the option to start buying crops as higher leveled seeds to begin with, after you’ve sold them as crops. Once again though, I haven’t 100% unlocked everything.
After 80 hours of playtime, I’ve hit every bazaar goal except for the last one. Every Saturday is a bazaar day, where you’ll organize all your products from the week and sell them at the bazaar. Like I mentioned in my preview, your bazaar stall can have different decorations you’ve unlocked to make more and more profit as you progress. There are also sale goals for each rank. Fortunately, your progress between each bazaar day you participate at, will carry over and add up until you reach the goal. When you reach the next rank, you’ll be able to unlock more stalls and existing stalls will increase the variety of products you can purchase. The bazaar is where you will purchase everything important. Need more storage? Buy it at the bazaar. Need another cow? At the bazaar. Want products in your storage to stay fresh for longer? Purchase the upgrade at the bazaar.
While constantly having to turn crops back into seeds to raise their star quality can be annoying, there is some stuff you can permanently upgrade the star quality on. Anything you forage, herbs, ore, rocks, et cetera, you can permanently upgrade. There are a handful of nature sprite characters and each one will ask you to donate certain products to them. Each time you hit a specific donation goal, those items will go up by .5 stars. So while the ore you can find might start at half a star, after you hit that first goal, every piece of ore you find yourself, every herb, every gemstone, will forever on be the full 1 star quality. Fish, honey, bugs and mushrooms are the same. There’s a sprite that accepts fish, one that takes honey and one that asks for bugs. The stuff you forage and fish you catch, aren’t the only products you can permanently raise. Specific animals will also permanently produce higher quality products as you get closer to them. For example, if you forever keep your first cow and raise their relationship, they will always produce milk at a higher star quality. Not only that, but both crops and animal products can be improved by winning festivals. When you bring say, wheat to the crop festival, or milk to an animal festival, from then on you’ll be able to go above 5 star quality on that product. Well, so long as you keep fertilizing and re-seed your crop enough, or get close enough to your animal.
One last thing I should discuss are the relationships you make with the people of Zephyr Town. Marvelous has definitely spread out the relationships this time and made it take a lot more time and effort. Each time you hit the next heart rank in your relationship with a character, they’ll have a request. You can’t raise their heart rank any further until you complete that request. It took me until the beginning of Year 2 before I was able to get married to Samir. The higher the relationship you have with a character, the more difficult the requests will get. For example, eventually someone might want a 3 star forageable. You’ll then have to donate a bunch of that type of item at the currently available lower quality to the relevant sprite, to even be able to collect the requested item at a high enough quality.
Speaking of how long it takes you to raise relationships, I’d also like to discuss the longevity of the game. Yes, I did complete most of the bazaar goals in the very first year. However, the whole first year of the game took me a total of 65 hours. So while yes, you can unlock and get a lot done in only one year, you should keep in mind that it is one very long year. Also, if you don’t play super efficiently, maybe you don’t go to the bazaar every single week, then it might take you a lot more game time to hit each rank. You’ll want to do the bazaar regularly though, since in the beginning your storage fills fast and perishable items will rot quickly too. Even after you hit most or all of the bazaar ranks, I can still see some longevity in this latest iteration of Grand Bazaar. There are a ton of characters I didn’t raise my relationship all that high with. On rare occasion the quests they gave me unlocked new color variations of outfits as a reward, ones which can’t be purchased at the bazaar. I love having new outfits to wear. Also, there are quite a lot of different crops to grow and raise the quality on. I still haven’t maxed out my nature sprite ranks to raise the quality of fish and forageables and whatnot either. And, there are a lot of recipes I haven’t made yet. I feel like once I hit that final bazaar rank, I’ll be able to play in a more relaxed manner and not need to go to the bazaar every single week.
After over 80 hours of playing Grand Bazaar, I can still say this is a wonderful new entry in the series. And yes, I do think this is the very best STORY OF SEASONS game to be released on the original Switch. If you don’t mind a more hectic farming game, where you’re constantly running around growing stuff, collecting stock to sell at a weekly bazaar and raising the quality of your products, then I highly recommend Grand Bazaar over the other STORY OF SEASONS games currently available. This one might not be for you if you like a more relaxing Bokujō Monogatari game, such as Animal Parade. Nonetheless, I adored the time I spent with Grand Bazaar. I was pleasantly surprised to see Marvelous turn things around and put more time and effort into releasing a fantastic new entry in the series. The game has a lot of life and personality, and I don’t believe it’s at all too short either.
| Review Score | |
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| Overall |   |
