Anyone that's ever met me can tell you that I utterly adore farming games. One of my favorite games growing up was Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town, and I have adored the series ever since small Cat sunk countless hours of her time in Mineral Town trying to profit off crops and win over Elli. I kept going over the years, playing Back to Nature, Magical Melody, Innocent Life, and sinking the most time into Story of Seasons and Trio of Towns on the 3DS.
I never did pick up the original Grand Bazaar back in the day, so when a remake of it was announced, I was excited to give it a shot without having to lose modern quality of life. Now that I've had that chance, I'm here to share my thoughts on it.
Visuals
Grand Bazaar is a nice looking game. The visuals are nothing mind blowing, and it isn't exactly graphically intensive, but by no means is it unpleasant to look at.
The style of it kind of reminds me of the 3DS games, but with a higher resolution and better models and textures. The style of it kind of reminds me of the 3DS games, which I found very appealing since that was my favorite era of the series visually. The game also sees the return of dialog portraits, which the last couple entries have left out in favor of more expressive models. This game has both, and I for one am a big fan of that.
Music and Story
Neither of these aspects are anything to really write home about, hence why I'm putting them in the same section, but neither is necessarily bad either. The music is nice and soothing and does a good job of setting the mood, but it isn't anything particularly unique or memorable. It is; however, very in character for the series and will make you feel very quickly like you've gone back to any previous entries you may have nostalgia for.
The story, similar to most games of the series, mostly just exists to establish your primary goal in the game, with the narrative being driven more by characters than actual plot, which I will get into later. The game is set in Zephyr Town, a place whose weekly bazaar once drew customers and sellers from all over the world, but that has stagnated and decreased in popularity over the years. You are a newly arrived farmer whose participation in the bazaar will hopefully rebuild its reputation to its former glory.
Gameplay
I'm going to need to split this part into multiple sections, since there are a lot of different aspects to it and therefore a lot for me to say about it.
Farming & Livestock
I'll start with the cornerstone of the series: the farming. At its basic level it's pretty much the standard farming gameplay for the series. You till your farmland with a hoe, plant some seeds, and water them once or twice a day until they're fully grown. You can fertilize them as they're growing, and when they're ready, you can harvest them either by hand or using a sickle depending on the crop. A lot of crops will have a rarer version of themselves that has a chance to appear on harvest as well. Unlike previous entries, you can also jump and use a tool in midair, which causes it to cover more spaces on the farm than it would normally. It's quite the time saver! You can also forage for various wild plants, do some fishing, and break logs and rocks to get wood and ore respectively to upgrade your tools with.
And the farming isn't just about the fields, you can also raise various kinds of animals, including but not limited to cows, sheep, and chickens. They need to be fed daily, and can also be brushed and pet to bond with them. As they grow they'll produce eggs, milk, wool, or other products that can be profited off of on their own, or used to create various things. It's also possible to breed animals to obtain new ones. There's a lot of options to get various products for various purposes.
Crafting & Wind
I mentioned before that the various things you can grow, collect, or have your animals produce can be used to make things. This brings us to one of the more unique things about Grand Bazaar: the importance of the wind. Most of the crafting is done using three windmills around Zephyr Town. Crafting takes time, and as the crafting is done by the wind, the time it takes depends on how windy it is on a particular day. There are also means of traveling around town using the wind, and in some instances the town may be hit by a typhoon that can damage your crops if you fail to set up protection in time. All this considered, it's pretty important to keep track of how windy each day is.
Friendship & Romance
As with most games in this series, a big part of progression involves befriending the other villagers. This can include making it a point to talk to them every day, giving them gifts, doing quests for them, or participating in the various festivals in Zephyr Town. Talking to villagers can involve actually going through dialog, or using a convenient feature the game has added that allows you to quickly say hello to everyone around you. This is much since you skip the dialog, but you don't get as close to a person when talking to them this one. Gift preferences vary by villager, though their profile and things they say can give you some hints as to what they like, such as June who is known to like blue things. As you get closer to people, you will get various Heart Events where you'll get to know them better, and certain villagers can be pursued romantically as well!
The Bazaar
Every one of these games has one of your major goals being the profitability of your farm. You can sell various products directly to the general store, but what you really want to do is plan around the namesake of the game: the bazaar. Held every Saturday, you have a stall that you can run for two shifts, one in the morning and one in the evening. You need to stock it beforehand, and when you open for business, set out some of your stock and ring your bell to attract customers. They'll approach if something interests them, or if something is in stock but not displayed, they may mention it, allowing you to put it out to sell to them. When you aren't running your own stall, there may be other stalls you can buy from as well. Some of these may offer things you can't get during the rest of the week, so it's worth checking them out.
As you sell more and more at the bazaar, Zephyr Town's Bazaar Rank will increase. As it goes up, more customers will come every Saturday, increasing your opportunities for profit. More stalls will open as well, giving you more options for things to buy yourself. Some of the people interested in opening new stalls may have something they need you to do before they can open up, so it's worth checking out the bazaar grounds now and again to see if anyone has a request for you. Various items will occasionally be trending, which can effect how profitable they are each week, so you have to plan your farming a bit differently since it all comes down to what you're going to be able to sell each weekend to get your rank up!
Overall Thoughts
There's so much more I could say about this game, but I don't want to give away everything to prospective players. I will say that this is one of the better games in the series as far as gameplay goes. It doesn't have quite the same depth as Trio of Towns, but it gets pretty close, and it has you think about your farming differently than usual since you want to plan around not just the seasons, but the weekly bazaar. I like the characters, though I think I liked the ones in the 3DS entries better than this one. Overall I'm really enjoying my time in Zephyr Town and am looking forward to quite a bit more. If you like farming games, this one will definitely not disappoint.
VERDICT: RECOMMENDED
Reviewed on PC
Review Copy was Provided
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