I used to be pleasantly stunned to listen to that the following STORY OF SEASONS recreation can be a remake of Harvest Moon DS: Grand Bazaar as a result of I view it as one of many extra obscure within the collection. After I noticed it introduced in a Nintendo Direct, I knew I wished to evaluation it if attainable since I had performed the DS recreation. Taking the nostalgia goggles off, it’s a largely nice recreation with a number of nitpicks right here and there. Nevertheless, I can confidently say that in case you have performed it earlier than, you’ll love the quality-of-life updates Grand Bazaar has made on the Nintendo Change variations.
One change I actually like is the addition of the glider. The world of Zephyr City already permits you to leap round behind buildings and on roofs with surprisingly few invisible limitations, so having a glider you possibly can catch breezes in to trip throughout the city is an additional enjoyable technique to journey. However I do are likely to get carried away, faceplanting into rivers. I usually discover myself being rescued by the Nature sprites, shedding stamina, and unintentionally depleting it sufficient to go out. One other constructive change is the addition of a stall that you may invite to affix the bazaar, permitting you to rehome any pets, whereas within the DS title, I used to be caught with so many pets as a result of there’s no technique to do away with them as soon as you purchase one. That’s partly why I fell out of enjoying the DS recreation, since I felt dangerous neglecting my immortal pets.
Talking of the titular Bazaar, your major purpose, not like different video games within the collection, is to breathe new life into the city’s bazaar by going up in ranks. Your life on this recreation will largely include operating round doing numerous actions to achieve supplies, crops, and livestock merchandise to promote at your stall on the finish of the week. You may adorn your stall to get sure buffs and, when you promote sufficient, you refill a bar on the high of the display screen that can mean you can invite a number of of the Nature Sprites to do a Lightning Spherical kind of promoting earlier than the time runs out. I discover the mechanics mildly irritating since to go to the slot and put an merchandise in your desk on the market, you should transfer there and place your self. I want it will snap you to the slot as a substitute, as a result of in the course of the rush of promoting issues, I saved lacking the place the slot was to promote to a ready buyer. You get a sure timespan to promote within the morning and the afternoon, so being flippantly inconvenienced by one of many recreation’s details irritates me generally.
Let’s discuss extra concerning the characters. I like that you may select to have a personality’s sprite artwork by their dialogue field as a substitute of simply seeing the in-game mannequin. However the sprites have additionally been given a blinking animation that I discover pointless and a bit distracting. (Particularly when the 3D mannequin blinks as nicely.) I like that voice appearing will get included for full scenes and a few dialogue, together with the flexibility to alter the voice language to English or Japanese. I just like the voice appearing within the Japanese dub greater than the English one. However my favourite voice actor for the English dub can be the one for Gabriel, beforehand Angelo, within the DS recreation. He offers an endearing, “adorkable” supply that jogs my memory of Tom Holland’s appearing for Spider-Man/ Peter Parker.
And since we’re on the subject of affection pursuits, there are twelve! On high of the unique ten, STORY OF SEASONS: Grand Bazaar provides two extra. There’s Arata, a dense however type man who trains within the mountains, and Diana, a workaholic and agent despatched by the Bazaar Overview Board to evaluate Zephyr City’s bazaar.
I’ve already talked about Gabriel, the city artist, however apart from him, I’ve a smooth spot for the brothers Jules (beforehand Ivan) and Darek (beforehand Dirk), and their battle with opposing personalities and principally elevating one another with their dad and mom gone. I actually didn’t acknowledge Daisy, now Maple, along with her redesign trying extra bland and fewer distinctive than earlier than; was this accomplished to make her look extra mature? I want the bachelorettes had extra distinct personalities in comparison with the bachelors; like Maple and Sophie (beforehand Sherry) are fairly comparable to one another in each character and voice appearing. On a extra constructive observe, with twenty save slots, you possibly can marry every bachelorette with eight extra slots to spare, which is a huge enchancment over the unique’s two!
So as to add one thing concerning the gifting mechanic is my want for extra specifics about characters’ lists of likes and dislikes. An instance of this may be after I gave one of many twin women, Sylvia (beforehand Cindy), a Magic Blue Flower, and she or he disliked it, regardless of her profile itemizing one among her two appreciated issues being ‘Blue’. I feel gadgets ought to be particularly listed of their profiles, or perhaps a system to maintain observe of what gadgets every character appreciated and disliked as you study extra about them, like what Stardew Valley does with its characters. Later, within the Fall, I gave Sylvia a Magic Pink Flower that she appreciated, which is sensible to me since she wears crimson, so I feel this can be a legit error and she or he’s supposed to love the colour ‘Pink’ as a substitute.
There are additionally references to different video games within the franchise, with cameos and plots of books Jules recounts studying, which I discovered cute. There are loads of notable references to Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness. Is that this a tease for a STORY OF SEASONS: Island of Happiness or, perhaps, Sunshine Islands? And I might be remiss as a Sonic fan if I didn’t point out that whenever you eat meals to regain stamina, the bar filling up seems like Sonic drowning.
Total, STORY OF SEASONS: Grand Bazaar is a trustworthy remake with nice music and enjoyable gameplay. This Nintendo Change 2 Version addresses stuttering seen on the unique Change when issues are too busy on display screen, and the framerate enhancements make the sport run significantly better and smoother. It’s like going from a DVD to Blu-ray, albeit at $10 extra, because it’s priced at $59.99 on Change 2. I’d nonetheless advocate this recreation (on both platform) to all STORY OF SEASONS followers, and extremely advocate it to followers of Harvest Moon DS: Grand Bazaar, as it’s a well-done remake that carries the spirit of the unique.
