There are few things in the world of video games as comforting and cozy as a Story of Seasons game. Outside of Animal Crossing and indie darlings like Stardew Valley, it's difficult to find that combination of pastoral peacefulness and stress-free socializing. That's why a new franchise installment is always good news, whether it's a brand-new farming adventure or, as is the case of Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar, a remake of an older title. Built off the bones of Harvest Moon DS: Grand Bazaar, Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar is everything you'd expect from the long-running simulation series, with a twist.

Grand Bazaar starts with the player-created character (a man or woman, depending on your preference) stumbling across a flyer that reads, "New Farmer Wanted!" Soon, the would-be farmer is on their way to Zephyr Town, a breezy community nestled in the mountains. Once home to a world-famous bazaar, which attracted merchants and peddlers from far and wide, the town is now rather sleepy, with its previously-bustling marketplace now filled with empty stalls. The mayor of Zephyr Town, a muscular, bombastic man with a booming voice, assigns you a task: take over the farm, tame the land, and, ultimately, restore the bazaar to its former glory.

This focus on the bazaar makes the narrative in Grand Bazaar more intentional and urgent. Where many Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons titles focus mostly on rejuvenating a dilapidated farm, this newest installment focuses on a bigger, more community-oriented goal. You're not just tilling the earth and making a living; you're taking the legacy of the town upon your shoulders. Don't misunderstand, though. This is still a cozy, approachable farming and life sim. While the stakes are greater than normal, you can still go at your own pace.

The bazaar isn't only a narrative device. It also serves as a major mechanic. Unlike many games in the franchise, where you can deposit goods in a shipping container at your convenience and collect the proceeds the next day, Grand Bazaar focuses the selling phase around the bazaar, which opens once a week on Saturday. You open your stall at the designated times, place your goods (crops, crafted materials, forageables, etc.) on display tables, and then ring a bell to attract nearby customers. 

There's a problem, though: the bazaar just isn't that engaging from a gameplay perspective. Of all the moving pieces in Grand Bazaar, the bazaar, the signature mechanic of both the DS original and this remake, is arguably the least interesting. Placing items on a shelf and selling them to patrons in real time isn't significantly more satisfying that placing them in a drop-box overnight. Now, to be fair to developer Marvelous, it weaves in certain elements to make the process more strategic. You can keep track of monthly "trending" items, add decorations to your stall to increase your proceeds and popularity, and even call on friendly Nature Sprites to cheer you on — allowing you to sell your wares faster and at higher prices. Still, the bazaar doesn't add all that much on a mechanical level.

Actually, in some instances it detracts. Many shopkeepers and stalls are available only on bazaar day, which means that if you want to expand your storage, enrich your soil, or pick up a new alpaca, you must wait a week for the opportunity. It creates something of a bottleneck. Pro tip: expand your storage space as quickly as possible, to avoid a lot of headaches down the line.

While Saturday is reserved for the bazaar, and all its buying and selling, the other six days of the week are entirely your own. It's here where Grand Bazaar shines the brightest. When you wake up each morning, you can proceed as you please. You can head to the barn to check on your chickens, cows, and sheep, which will reward you with love and byproducts like eggs, milk, and wool. You can head to the fields to plant and nurture seeds that will one day transform into turnips, potatoes, flowers, cherry trees, etc. You can forage around Zephyr Town, collecting herbs, reeling in fish, and breaking down rocks and fallen logs for stone and wood, respectively. You can then take all that stone, wood, milk, and wool to one of three windmills (frustratingly located in three different corners of the map) to process them into more refined items. Or you can chat with 30+ NPCs, 12 of whom can become a significant other.

If there's a downside to this sense of freedom and all the little rewarding interaction points around Zephyr Town, it's this: there's often not enough time in the day to do everything you want to do in a leisurely manner. Each in-game minute is roughly a second in real time, and you can't work too late in the day without risking sleeping in and losing stamina, so you must keep moving. As soon as you hop out of bed in the morning, you need to rush to the farm to let the animals out to pasture, then rush to the field to water and fertilize your seeds, then rush into town to trigger story cut-scenes before they expire, etc. Now, Marvelous did add a new glider that allows you to sail the windy currents to take shortcuts through town, but it doesn't really save you that much time. Playing through the game, I often found myself missing Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma, where the flow of time stops when you're manipulating your plot of farmland.

That said, there's something rewarding about collapsing into bed at 11pm with a fraction of your stamina left, knowing your crops are growing strong, your animals are safe and warm in the barn, your windmill crafting jobs are in process, and there's a special someone waiting for you in town. Story of Seasons games are all about falling in love — falling in love with the land, with your community, with your soulmate. Grand Bazaar is no different.

Well, it is different in one significant way. It's fully voice-acted, a first for the series. This adds a lot of personality to the game, helps bring some secondary characters to life, and might even cause you to pursue different romantic entanglements. The biggest beneficiary of this change is Felix, the hot-blooded mayor. With his bulging muscles, comedic gesticulation, and new baritone voice (courtesy of Brent Mukai) he's a total riot. 

In its effort to raise the stakes in terms of audio, Marvelous hasn't ignored the visual side of the equation. Grand Bazaar is a massive step up from the original, as you'd expect by the 15-year gap. Gone are the relatively flat sprites and tight camera from the DS days, replaced with more lively 3D models and a wider field of view. And while the game certainly doesn't push the technological envelope on Switch 2, it looks quite lovely in places.

One thing that hasn't changed considerably over the last 15 years? The amount of content the game has to offer. While Grand Bazaar isn't all that large when it comes to its geography, it's absolutely massive in terms of content. You could complete the main quest and "beat" the game in 45-50 hours, but there are many more seasons, years, and personal milestones to hit after that. This is one of those games you could theoretically play forever.

I certainly plan to play it for a long time to come. It may not be the best game of its kind — its uneasy relationship with the weekly bazaar makes sure of that — but it provides the comforting, enriching, reliable farming and life simulation you've come to expect from the Story of Seasons franchise. And it's better than ever before, thanks to Marvelous' audiovisual and mechanical overhaul. With more leisurely pacing and fewer bottlenecks, it could be even better.