STORY OF SEASONS: Grand Bazaar Review for Steam

Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar Preview for Steam

🎮developed Marvelous Inc. and published by XSEED Games, Marvelous USA Inc., Marvelous Europe

TL:DR I spent one full in-game year reviewing Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar and this is what I achieved:

14 of 40 Achievements
268,796 G in one weekly bazaar
National Bazaar Rank
Two barns
Three fields
Three chickens, three cows, two llamas, two sheep
Four cats, three dogs
All gold + tools
A frying pan and a pot
8 trophies
Several close friendships
1 true love

Was it worth it 55 hours? YES!

Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar is a remake of the original 2008 Harvest Moon:Grand Bazaar. All SoS titles are known for their farming roots, as well as having the player single-handedly revitalize a small town, but unlike a lot of cozy farming games, Grand Bazaar actually makes all things planting and barning relevant to the story.

Set in the blustery gustery Zephyr Town, Grand Bazaar’s heart beats through its weekly bazaar. No more tossing your weeds and veg into a shipping bin for a couple of G, players need to produce high quality produce to revitalize the town and heal some generational trauma.

Coming out in August 2025, Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar isn’t so much an update as an upgrade.

Story

The story of Grand Bazaar is all about growth, not just on the farm, but of the community helping each member in town work towards their passions and dreams.

After finding a flyer for Zephyr Town, the player arrives in this famously breezy town at the end of one of its weekly bazaars. Mayor Felix immediately tells the player that the once Grand Bazaar is now little more than a Town Bazaar, and enlists the player’s help with restoring the town’s economic and cultural heart.

Felix, and the other inhabitants of Zephyr town are some of the game’s early standouts. The cast is vibrant and seems more fleshed out than other farming sims I’ve played. Each town person, whether they are romanceable or not, has multiple side quests that help to flesh out their story, and actually give the small town vibes.

And though it is a small town, it is still stacked with plenty of personalities. There are 38 townsfolk that players can interact with. While the player’s head will be spinning in the early hours keeping all the new names and faces of the locals straight, the game will stagger newcomers’ entrances. Maintaining all of these friendships and more-than-friendships can be a challenge. 38 is a lot of people to track down and talk to everyday. Thankfully, Grand Bazaar did add a feature where players can just wave at townsfolk on their way to harvest some ore, and that will count as a daily interaction.

And this might just be my own insecurities popping up, but the townsfolk can be a little passive aggressive if you don’t make an effort to at least wave at them once in a while. There were several times over the course of the game year that I was focused training for the Winter Horse Derby or trying to grow a Five ★ Crop that I sort of forgot about some of my potential bfs and gfs and bffs. When I would get around to give them a pot of hunny, they would always say something like “Oh, this is nice, considering you haven’t talked to me in a week.”

Gameplay

Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar follows the familiar rhythms of a farming sim such as planting, harvesting, and repeating. What makes Grand Bazaar a stand out in the genre is that this formula has been reoriented and put to work. Farming is still the daily bread, but now players need to prepare and sell that bread for a good price.

The titular Grand Bazaar is this game’s stand out mechanic, everything revolves around it. Each week is spent preparing merchandise for the Saturday 10:00 am start time. Players will stock their stall (which features a nice little calculator that estimates your bazaar earnings based on your stock), then they will ring their bell to attract customers, while also managing restocks in the moment and trying to respond to buyer requests. Time is of the essence during bazaar days because if players don’t move to help a customer fast enough, they will lose interest and move on.

What can you sell at the bazaar? Everything. Crops, cooked meals, bugs, old boots. Anything that you can find or create can be sold. And every new season brings a hot new trendy item that can fetch a higher price than when it’s not trending (think Stanley Cups but make it a wool ball).

Grand Bazaar does a great job of making the player walk a balance beam between choices.

Players can keep all of their items to sell at the bazaar to maximize profit OR they can choose to gift these items to the community for other bonuses. Both choices will help the player, but in different ways. Earning G at the bazaar helps the player advance the town’s bazaar rank from lowly nothing bazaar to coveted Grand Bazaar. G earned in other ways, such as selling at the Mercantile shop on a Thursday, does not contribute to these ranks.

Also, players can trade bugs, hunny, fish, and almost everything else to Nature Sprites for bazaar power ups. These power ups can affect how many items a customer will buy or how fresh your items stay to fetch a higher price. You might have just crafted Ultimate Stone which will fetch a whopping 3000+G at the Bazaar, or you can hand it over to the hotel staff for repairs and good will. That peridot bracelet will help you break your sales record, but it could also help you win the heart of the townie you’re courting.

If you choose to sell your items, what do you do with all that G? Well, you can upgrade your stall or your kitchen. You can buy seeds or buy chickens. You can even buy techniques to power up your plowing. No matter what, players will likely be spending their G faster than they can bring it in.

In a lot of other farming sims my experience has been that the farm eventually takes a back seat to the other mechanics. In some games I’ll completely abandon my farm in favor of other parts of the game, but the weekly bazaar means that the farm stays front and center. Thankfully farming is smooth and becomes smoother as players unlock the aforementioned powerups. Players can water a whole field with just three ultra jumps, cutting down the time needed for morning chores. The one thing that I found could take up a solid 90 minutes of in-game time, with no shortcuts, were my pets. Cuddling and playing with all seven of my fur babies could really eat into my morning in a way that milking the cows never did.

And where many farming sims start to wear you down with the repetitive grind, I found that having the weekly bazaar meant I always felt like I was a little bit behind where I wanted to be. There was always a little bit of urgency because I needed to get the batch of Herb Mayonniae ready to sell. The frequent festivals and competitions would more often than not interrupt my to-do list, making me run back to my farm as soon as they were done to process more walnuts.

The weekly bazaar means that progression can happen fast. Instead of trickling in profit each day, players work toward one large satisfying payout that can be immediately put to quality of life improvements. There were a few weeks that I nabbed 250,00+ G in one day and was able to get a second barn, expand my hunny fields, stock up on gold ore, upgrade my fishing technique, and still have enough to stock up on seeds.

Romance

Let’s spend a moment and dig into the games characters and look at them through the lens of someone who has spent their 10,000 hours at therapy.

When starting the game I was going around meeting all the townsfolk, subtly looking them over as a potential future spouse. I’m not going to spend 50,000 G on a double bed for just anyone!

I was immediately drawn to Lloyd, the traveling merchant who has made Zephyr Town his home base. Physically he’s my type, love those nerdy glasses and I was excited to hear about all the places he had traded. I’m a loyal person so once I set my cap at Lloyd I didn’t really clock anyone else. But then, it seemed like the more I would stop by to say high or drop off an omelet the more Lloyd couldn’t have cared less about me. Things came to a head when I activated one of his cut scenes and he was like “I’m getting ready to leave town bye.” When I said I would miss him and wished he would stay he kind of hit me with an “Oh, uh, right. You probably shouldn’t feel that way about me.” What the heck?! Lloyd is a romance option? Why was he acting like this????

Then it hit me. Lloyd is more than just my physical type, he’s my fracking kryptonite! He’s a Dismissive Avoidant! The bane of my existence and the downfall of more than one of my relationships. I absolutely brought this up at my next therapy appointment. I paid a very nice lady a lot of money to rant about how I fall for the same kind of person even in a video game! (Not to mention the fact that his final-boss-love-side-quest is IMPOSSIBLE!! What they say is true, a person will let you know when they don’t like you, even if they never say it! 😤)

After this I brought a real critical eye to the marriageable contenders of Zephyr Town.

Straight up, the men are trash. Every single one of them.

All the women are fantastic, over performing people pleasers who would love to love someone.

After much intense study, here are my gaming chair therapy notes:

Jules The Tutor 🚩

Likely Diagnosis: Parentification survivor with generalized anxiety disorder.
Raised in a role that forced him to act like an adult far too early, Jules now lives in a perpetual state of stress. His diet consists solely of safe, bland herb soup—anything spicier threatens to overwhelm his nervous system. May exhibit covert narcissistic traits; possibly undermines younger brother Dirk’s confidence to keep him dependent.

Derek The Café Worker 🚩🚩🚩

Likely Diagnosis: Anxious-preoccupied attachment with emerging oppositional tendencies.Jules’ younger brother, stuck in a late-blooming rebellious streak. Desperate to prove he’s independent, Dirk might impulsively marry just to demonstrate his adulthood—then quietly recreate the dynamic he had with Jules, leaning heavily on his partner for basic life management.

Gabriel The Artist 🚩

Likely Diagnosis: Low self-esteem, maladaptive coping, possible avoidant guilt cycling.
A romantic idealist without steady commissions. Needs constant external validation. The relationship risk: you’ll invest all your emotional energy convincing him of his worth—only to one day discover an affair, which he’ll justify as your fault for “making him feel good about himself.”

Lloyd The Traveling Merchant 🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩

Likely Diagnosis: Classic dismissive-avoidant attachment.
Has built such high emotional walls they may qualify as historic landmarks. Marrying Lloyd means accepting a lifetime of begging for scraps of affection while he maintains a safe emotional distance.

Samir The “Scholar” 🚩

Likely Diagnosis: High-functioning anxiety, possible social phobia.
More comfortable bonding with animals than people—they don’t carry the crushing weight of expectation. Childhood shaped by relentless parental pressure, leaving little emotional availability for a partner. His father’s approval will always be the primary love language.

Arata The Gym Bro

Likely Diagnosis: Mild avoidant attachment.
Young, loves simple pleasures. Loves protein. Not deeply toxic, but overly values independence in romantic partners, yet will happily drop everything to help his friend. Bros before farming tools mentality. Still, the healthiest male option in town.

Sophie The House-Daughter, Entrepreneur

Likely Diagnosis: Intergenerational trauma survivor.
Raised to fill an emotional gap in her father’s life, Sophie shoulders domestic responsibility with quiet grace. Would make an exceptional partner and is genuinely grateful for shared household burdens.

STORY OF SEASONS: Grand Bazaar Preview for Steam

June The Fashion Designer

Likely Diagnosis: Perfectionist avoidant attachment.
Neglected by parents who were more focused on each other, June holds herself to impossible standards. Trust takes time, but once earned, she’s fiercely loyal and thrives with a partner who offers a safe, nonjudgmental space.

Maple The Maid

Likely Diagnosis: Anxious attachment, people-pleasing tendencies.
Optimistic to a fault, Maple pours herself into caring for others until burnout. Keeps sentimental objects, like a cleaning tool from her brother, as tokens of love. Needs a partner who helps her dismantle her internalized patriarchy and learn that her worth isn’t tied to service.

Diana The Consultant

Likely Diagnosis: Anxious attachment with overfunctioning tendencies.
Though the younger sibling, she still does her brother’s laundry to help his wife, signaling emotional maturity in the face of weaponized incompetence. Warm, driven, and perfect for a high-powered couple dynamic.

Kagetsu Priestess

Likely Diagnosis: Perfectionism with depressive features, possible social anxiety.
Lives under constant pressure to maintain flawless conduct. Feels guilty for indulging in personal pleasure. Her internal world is rich, but the weight she carries can make connection difficult. Perfect partner for an introvert gamer.

Freya The Office Worker

Likely Diagnosis: Secure attachment (rare specimen).
Independent, adventurous, and refreshingly authentic. Possibly ADHD. The only one to actually visit your farm to learn about your work. The clear choice for anyone seeking a stable, equal partnership. Also, my future wife. I look forward to spoiling her with shiny handmade jewelry.

In conclusion, in a town where half the eligible singles need therapy to be worth dating and the other half need a vacation, romance in Grand Bazaar is less about finding “the one” and more about deciding which red flags you’re willing to hang as curtains.

Visuals, Audio, and Technical Stuff

All of the SoS games have a strong visual aesthetic rooted in cuteness aggression. The uber charming, Ghibli-adjacent style is bright and cheerful, capturing cozy vibs. Each environment feels lush and full of motion thanks to the ever present wind. Seasons bring real changes to the landscape, not just in the colors but in the type and placement of resources.

Character animations are lively, especially during bazaars and cut-scenes where body language and facial expressions do as much storytelling as the dialogue. In fact little visual touches everywhere add to the game add to the appeal of the game. But the real standout is probably the full voice acting. Every major character is now voiced, with performances as vibrant and expressive as the eyebrows. This choice makes the game more emotionally engaging than I was expecting.

I also appreciate the move towards inclusivity. Players can choose their pronouns, and romance any marriageable partner regardless of gender, reinforcing the player’s ability to shape a world that feels personal and welcoming.

I played SoS: Grand Bazaar, from Steam on both my computer and SteamDeck. The game ran consistently well on the preview build, with only one freeze that caused me to restart. I had worn out my stamina bar and the game froze as I was passing out. Thankfully, the game autosaves frequently so I did not actually lose hours of gameplay. Load times between areas were quick and unobtrusive, I never felt like I was climbing a 2 minute ladder.

Overall

The 50+ hours I’ve already poured into this preview say more than any score could.

I haven’t played the original, so I can’t speak to that, but Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar, is a delightful upgrade of the traditional farming sim formula. The bazaar systems injects a jolt of energy that transforms the daily routine into something more lively and strateegery

Definitely worth checking out for fans of the series, the genre, or newcomers who want to pet a chonky cow.

Score: 10/10

Story of Season: Grand Bazaar will be releasing on Steam and Nintendo Switch August 27, 2025.

Related: Reviews by Michelle Jones

Michelle Jones

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I'm a completionist gamer who just needs to find that one last object and clear that final dungeon. I love all video games, from open world sandboxes on a console to a mindless match three on my phone. In addition to gaming and writing, I am a graduate student working on a thesis about the ancient Icelandic Sagas. Feel free to ask me anything about Vikings.