STORY OF SEASONS: Grand Bazaar

Definitely didn't have "butt slam to harvest crops" on my bingo card for the next Story of Seasons but I'll happily take it. Honestly, this is the most satisfying game Marvelous has made in over a decade. It finally feels like a real Story of Seasons game again. You can tell they looked at everything that worked in past games, learned from their mistakes, and just got it right this time. Remember the waving from Trio of Towns where you could just wave at characters to get affection instead of having to talk every day? That's back and it still feels great. And unlike A Wonderful Life where they had awesome 3D models but no 2D portraits, this one gives us both, and even adds voice acting! It honestly makes the world feel way more alive. They also clearly learned from Rune Factory 5, instead of a big empty world, this one is packed with things to do and places to explore. It's the complete opposite, in the best way. And like in Rune Factory 4, the characters don't just repeat the same line every day, they actually rotate their dialogue if you talk to them more than once. It makes such a difference in how real the town feels. It honestly made me so happy-Marvelous really listened to fans this time. The artwork, graphics, and voice acting are all so beautiful! I feel connected to the townspeople and their lives. The Bazaar! It was a learning curve for sure, but it's so fun planning each week, and then selling like crazy! Also planning what I'm going to buy each week spices things up. The animals and pets! I love the little details they put in for the cats, little stretches, sleeping on the roof. I love the color variations for the farm animals, I had some rare chickens and didn't even realize it at first! I like that you can play with recipe ingredients to increase their star rating. Sailing in the wind is fun! Definitely took me a bit to practice. And all the variety of things to craft! The sprites are also pretty useful in this game. Some games they can be more annoying than helpful, but they are worth it in GB. I loved the festivals! There are lots of different ones, and the crop/animal shows are motivating to get things as good as possible. I like that I can put up windscreens during storms. Even though I forgot to a couple of times! Getting mail is fun! I LOVE the new bingo cards! The town is just adorable! The game allows you to focus on a variety of gameplay methods from fishing to gardening, mining/jewelry making, and of course, ranching. I personally really enjoyed the variety of options, especially since you need to keep an eye on the trends and work around those, so the variety keeps things fresh. In other games, I'd always get stuck in a monotonous rhythm of only focusing on one or two things daily and sleeping, while this feels more like you're trying to make the most of every day. In regard to the townspeople, I actually liked most of their stories quite a bit, too! Everyone has their own stories to learn about and some enjoyable depth. I especially enjoyed watching Derek and his brother Jules mature and realize that Jules doesn't need to carry the load of caring for both of them himself, it was nice to see. Some people can feel overwhelmed, but In my opinion that's on them. There is NO TIMELINE to what you need to accomplish in a day/week/year. If you are feeling overwhelmed you can simply do less in a day. I find it helps to break my days up. You have your "everyday tasks" like tending to crops, animals, windmills, but when it comes to other tasks you will have plenty of time to do those if you break them up. For example, I only went out of my way to gift my romance target/talk to them daily, as well as Samir (because he gives a great recipe later on). As for the rest of them, if you use a "Friendship Chat" boost food on festival days and gift them all mints on festival days you can easily max their friendships by year 3. As for mining/foraging it's very easy to fit a full rotation once you get used to the locations/maps in a 5 hour in game window. I know I do all locations from 2-7 with ease. As for insects/fishing. I grab what's in my path, and I make myself focus fish on either no wind days, or non sunny days. Even on sunny days I can snag a few fish before my second watering. Again, none of these are mandatory tasks outside of caring for crops/animals. So, set your own timeline, your own pace. Honestly, In a world where "cozy/farming game" has become a signal of low-quality cash grab, it fills me with so much excitement to see Story of Seasons continue to raise the bar and demonstrate genuine care for the genre and value for player feedback. I very rarely buy games on release, but l had this one preloaded on my Steam Deck the first day. It’s a great step in the right direction for future games. They took a pretty big risk with upgrading an older game that had such different mechanics than most of the SoS games. I’m hoping that they do take a lot of the glowing reviews and reasonable critiques in mind for the future. I highly recommend it. 9/10

Yes, playing this game reminded me how good the old Harvest Moon games were. Marvelous knows their formula but it's a shame that not a lot of people know that they are the ones who made Harvest Moon and the current Harvest Moon IP is just a shell of the original since Marvelous left their publisher Natsume.

at the time of writing this review i have clocked in a total of 80 hours into this game and i haven't even done everything yet! i am genuinely surprised at how meaty and complex this game is. i never played harvest moon growing up, so there's not really any nostalgia factor influencing my opinion. this might be one of my favorite farming sims?! i really really like this game!