Games Happy

The Story of Seasons collection is making a giant comeback with its newest outing: Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar. As you will have guessed from the sport’s subtitle, this sport is all about organising retailers and having a go at promoting varied items on the open market. It’s a much more laid-back affair, and that’s one thing we found after we had an opportunity to play among the sport ourselves at a latest Marvelous media occasion. 

For extra studying, we even have an interview with Story of Seasons collection supervisor Hikaru Nanako.

Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar begins with a easy premise: it’s as much as you to make Zephyr City thrive once more, and that may solely occur by way of the each day life actions involving farming, elevating animals, and promoting wares in your brand-new bazaar. 

Earlier than that occurs, nonetheless, there’s a bit of little bit of character creation to be carried out. As a result of this can be a life simulation sport, it appears particularly necessary that you simply craft your best “avatar” because it have been. There are loads of choices right here too – from the standard hair, eyes, pores and skin colour, and voice, you possibly can select physique varieties, eye form, identify, and even most well-liked pronouns. You’re probably not locked out of something, so basically the one limitation is your individual creativeness.

As soon as that’s accomplished, the demo shifts to the story correct. It’s right here we’re launched to Zephyr City and a person named Felix who introduces each himself and the village. He’s right here to persuade you to arrange store, and do you have to settle for, he provides up some gadgets to promote and a short tutorial of how that each one works.

The bazaar itself is pretty easy in the way it operates – you’ll place gadgets into your inventory for the day, then you possibly can place them on the promoting desk for patrons to see. When the consumers come out, you possibly can appeal to consideration to your items by tapping a button to ring a bell. From there, they’ll collect over by whichever merchandise they need, and you may work together with them to finish the sale.

When you’ve bought out, or restocked then bought out, it’s time to shut up store and proceed to the opposite facets of each day life, comparable to farming, interacting with folks on the town, and even romance.

By far the most important a part of Grand Bazaar, nonetheless, is the farm and useful resource administration between seasons. Within the demo, we skipped forward into our playthrough to the Summer time, the place issues have been going fairly nicely. Our character has their very own home the place they’ll relaxation, their very own secure with loads of animals, and naturally, the farm itself simply outdoors.

As time ticks on, you possibly can discover round, petting and feeding animals, or amassing gadgets from them, comparable to wool and eggs. You’ll be able to have a tendency the farm, water vegetation, seed new ones, and collect different supplies on the sector. There’s rather a lot, and it’s all held in your stock, which could be portioned off at windmill areas if needed. Windmills are additionally useful as a result of they’re basically crafting areas for brand spanking new supplies.

The seasonal facet comes into play right here, too. There is likely to be a hurricane coming, so it’s necessary to arrange fencing across the farm area to ensure your crops keep secure. When you don’t, nicely, they won’t be there after the storm passes.

The remainder of the day entails a little bit of trekking into the village, the place you possibly can discuss to NPCs, tackle duties, and construct relationships. Regardless of the village measurement, your character can simply get round with leaping platforms and a useful glider with the faucet of a button.

You’ll have to return dwelling at dusk to get some relaxation, nonetheless, so you’ll want to handle time rigorously. Again on the home, and after you relaxation, you possibly can customise your self additional with completely different outfits and extra.

As soon as Saturday rolls round, it’s time to reopen store on the bazaar, and it does so at a selected posted time. Because the preliminary tutorial confirmed, it’s extremely simple to get arrange and go for each morning and afternoon shifts – you possibly can even beautify the bazaar to look nonetheless you need. 

You’ll be able to even spend time purchasing for your self – you’re not required to run your store on a regular basis, it’s all very elective. Purchasing for your self permits for much more customization, too, together with creating outfits and equipment like hats and glasses.

In Grand Bazaar, you’ll be chatting up folks across the group as nicely, a few of whom you possibly can ultimately develop a deeper, extra romantic relationship with. There’s a little bit of depth with these, too, together with voiced situations that dive into spending time with each other.

After a short time with Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar, it’s clear that is very a lot a comfy, low-stakes sport constructed with loads of love. The lovable and colourful fashion pairs nicely with the whimsical mountain scenes and characters discovered alongside the way in which.

That is the kind of sport one may play to chill out with, or not less than that’s the impression it offers off to this point. Whereas it’s actually a reimagining of kinds, it’s being carried out on a a lot greater scale, full with voice performing and an even bigger, residing world to go together with it. On PC specifically, the visuals are sharp, and the presentation is nothing however easy to this point.

As for the place this expanded story occurs to go, we’ll simply have to attend and see when the complete model of Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar releases for each PC and Nintendo Swap on August 27, 2025.