A harvest under the moon.
Picture this: After another stressful day of swimming through the stressful mire of city life, you pass by a billboard of want ads and stop. A colorful paper that's been cheerfully decorated catches your attention. The small idyllic town of Zephyr is looking for a farmer to join their community! You'll be provided with a farm, and in return, you'll be involved in the revival of their once World-Renowned Bazaar! If you are serious about changing your life and the lives of those around you, you are to contact the Mayor of Zephyr town, Felix!
Story of Seasons: The Grand Bazaar for Nintendo Switch and Switch 2 is a remake of the original game for the Nintendo DS, way back in 2010. The story itself remains the same, while the gameplay, graphics, and even town residents have been given wondrous visual upgrades as Story of Seasons: The Grand Bazaar makes its stunning debut in 2025. You are the bright-eyed, optimistic main character seeking change in your life and take up the job to become Zephyr Town's newest farmer. You begin your journey by creating your character. There are a few varied choices for body type, face type, skin tone, hair styles, and colors, eye shape, and even 3 different pronoun choices to flesh out your adorable anime-style self or fresh out of the box town person.
While there are 2 voice spectrum choices, each with many different pitches, don't get too excited about realizing the dream of a fully voice-acted main character. Unfortunately, this is limited to basic agreeable noises of affirmation and excitement, and a few words of endearment spoken to your farm animals while taking care of them. The only points that I feel I am slightly dipping out of immersing myself in this heart-warming story is feeling like I'm not really part of the conversation and merely an observer by being the silent protagonist. This is, however, not a “make or break” decision, as they have done a wonderful job fleshing out the town, landscape, and inhabitants around you.
There are many people who reside in the town, and they make it really feel lived in. Everyone seems to have their own story/life woven into Zephyr and the surrounding area that comes to light during conversation and the odd request job. Many of them can become good friends the more you talk to or help them, and some, should you choose to, will come to see you as something more, with charming love interest branches.
Now onto the farming aspects! You begin with a small section and a handful of generously donated seeds gifted to you by the boisterous Mayor Felix. Throughout much of the game, he is the one who introduces you to new features related to do with gameplay. He gives you your first seeds, introduces you to new people, and he will also donate animals when you first become ready to gather animal products. I found this to be a rather charming and entertaining way to instruct you on mechanics, through jovial conversation and comedic scenes with Felix, or once in a while, a different character that is introduced to you.
Felix will also introduce you to the main focus of the game. While farming, gathering, crafting, and relationships with the townspeople are still the bread and butter of this Story Of Seasons sandwich, the namesake is still the main filling. The Bazaar! You start small, of course, but grow to bigger and better things. You have a single basic counter, tent, and stock to start your shop of your dreams. As you progress through the story and level up the town's Bazaar level, you unlock more counters, decorations, and designs that, in turn, will have different aspects to aid you in gaining more money per product or even higher freshness levels. The more the town rises throughout the ranks, the more service stalls you can unlock by helping visitors and townsfolk alike open the stall of their heart's desire! They will often have goods you can't always get your hands on in town, and some will have normally unavailable services or power-up abilities for your farm or Bazaar stall. Not only does this give you a landslide cash flow, but the Bazaar process itself is a fun minigame aspect that is different from anything offered in the title so far.
So, how are we to do all this, being that there is time and day progression during the Grand Bazaar? Well, my dear would-be farmer, that is where the only real challenge of the game comes in. There is limited time during the day to accomplish everything needed or wanted to be done, whether that be from harvesting, gathering resources, or going on a nice date with your chosen love interest. The unfortunate side of SoS: GB is how fast the day progresses. I have played many farming/adventure sims, and this game has some of the fastest time progression I've experienced. Stopping to pet all of your sweet and adorable farm animals and pets can quickly eat up a few hours. There are still plants to water, resources to gather, fish to catch, and so on. Not to mention, a busy farmer will need to keep an eye on their rapidly depleting stamina bar during this flurry of activity. If you don't, and it becomes completely empty, you pass out and wake up the following day with far less stamina than you usually start with.
These aspects are a very normal and realistic staple for games of this genre. While I was a little disappointed with how fast time flies and your stamina depletes, I am happy with the number of options and buffs to help maximize time spent and what can be done to refill stamina. My favorite is the bath you have in your house. After, say, a busy morning of caring for your crops, it will replenish a good chunk of your strength, leaving you refreshed to accomplish more tasks. You can also cook a variety of foods in your upgradable kitchen (which unlocks even more edible possibilities) to carry with you or even pay a visit to the local café for a bit to eat in case you forgot to stuff your pockets with muffins.
Let's have a quick conversation on the nitty-gritty. The disappointments I had during my time spent with Grand Bazaar. Bear in mind, there are only a few. We've already briefly talked about the speedy time progression and stamina depletion, and while there are ways to strategically surpass these moments, some moments could use a small update. The jumping can be tricky due to a lack of accurate depth perception, and sometimes the added difficulty of wind strength when gliding. I feel that this would greatly benefit from a clearer landing depiction, ie, darker character shadows or a highlighted destination spot on the ground below. Another small quality of life update that would aid in crop organization would be something that tells you when your crops are due to be harvested. Perhaps when you approach the crops and the name pops up, a small indicator of how many days are left till you can pick them will pop up as well. If you're anything like me and are easily distracted by the plethora of activities, you might forget what was sprouting right away and how many plants you need to replace. This would help in not being caught with bare fields on a Friday when the shop is closed and you don't have crops to process for more seeds.
We need to momentarily address the functionality across both the Switch and Switch 2. Also, is it worth getting day one of release before any updates or patches? The Switch version of Grand Bazaar plays quite smoothly on both handheld and docked modes. Handheld, it can run like melted butter at times at a rather nice 60fps, only running into minimal stutters during heavily populated areas, like at the Bazaar with lots of people shopping, or if you have two full barns of animals running around the field on your farm. Docked modes still looks quite crisp in motion and runs much the same way. The Switch 2 version, which costs $10 more USD. The new console does boast better performance across the board, taking advantage of the new and beefier hardware. Whether you have a Switch 1 or 2, planning on purchasing it or upgrading later, Story of Seasons: The Grand Bazaar is a rewarding addition to any farming sim fan's collection, and I highly recommend it!
Other than a few gripes, Story of Seasons: The Grand Bazaar is a beautiful and chill experience. Something to relax to when you want to take an idyllic break from the hustle and bustle of life in general or hectic, combat-heavy games. Grand Bazaar is a well-crafted and charming story with gorgeous and colorful landscapes, ripe with vegetation swaying in the wind and populated with endearing folks more than happy to help or welcome you to their quaint, breezy town of Zephyr.
Developer - Marvelous. Publisher - Marvelous Europe Limited, XSEED Games. Released - August 27th, 2025. Available On - Nintendo Switch, Switch 2, PC. Rated - (E) No Descriptors. Platform Reviewed - Nintendo Switch. Review Access - Review code was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.
Rebecca is a huge fan of JRPG’s, RPG’s, and Survival Horror. From Silent Hill to Resident evil. Xenogears and Final Fantasy. When she isn’t tinkering with skill trees or equipping the right rifle to take down numerous monsters, you can find her farming away on Stardew Valley.