This review is 9298 words the bottom of the page includes the video review that goes over the same information if it is easier for you :).

This game is rated for E for everyone!

Today I’m revisiting one of my all time favorite farming game series, Story of Seasons. Today I’m specifically playing Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar made by Marvelous which I’ve been playing for a bit. This game is actually a remake of Harvest Moon DS: Grand Bazaar. I’m not gonna get into Harvest Moon vs Story of Seasons in this video. Essentially all you need to know is that the Story of Seasons games have the characters and developers of old Harvest Moon games and that new Harvest Moon games are their own thing. Expect spoilers, but I’ll try to keep them to a minimum. You can get this game on Steam and on Switch.

There are actually a good amount of changes between this remake and its original. I'll be going over the most notable ones but I’m going to be honest with you in that I’ve never actually played the original. I wasn’t even old enough to be in school by the time it was released in America and it was a bit too much for me to get along with the remake for this video. I’d be totally open to playing it in a future video if you guys wanna see that, but honestly we aint monetized just yet so I can’t mark it down as a business expense.

I think the biggest change between the two games is that there are no nature sprites in the original. Nature sprites are a big part of the story, bazaar, and improving the quality of your resources which we’ll go over later.

The other major change is the marriage candidates. Almost every candidate has a different name, there are some new ones, and one sort of replacement. Diana and Arata are new additions to the cast and Maple is a sort of replacement for Daisy from the original. They play the same role but have completely different designs and a bit of a change in personality. If this interests you I’ll be talking about it in more detail in Maple’s section.

Now really quickly I’m going to go over the story of the game while trying to avoid as many spoilers as possible.

You, the farmer, move into Zephyr Town’s abandoned farm and after you are taught the basics you are asked by Felix the mayor to help bring back the town's bazaar back to life. Without a successful bazaar the town has fallen into obscurity. Tourists and money just aren’t being cycled through the town like it used to.

As you improve the bazaar we learn more and more about why the town has fallen into obscurity. We learn that the farm was once run by the mayor’s mother. After she left the town’s bazaar sort of left with her. As the new farmer it is our responsibility to bring the bazaar back to its former glory to bring more traffic to the town.

We also are given another reason later on in the story as we learn that the mayor’s mother left without telling anyone anything including her own son. If the mayor ever wants to see his mother again we have to reach the world bazaar rank supposedly. You’ll see what I mean.

Every character you talk to in town also has their own story that you can influence. And of course the player makes their own story and family as they play.

Bazaars happen every Saturday in two shifts. It lasts from 10 am to 7 pm and is broken up into two shifts with an hour break in between them. To sell things you must stock your stall, display them, and attract customers with your bell. You’ll also notice that you have a meter in the top left that fills up as you sell items and it allows you to call nature sprites over to help attract more customers and to get a good bonus in a sort of mini game.

At your bazaar you can essentially sell whatever you want. I really like how we can sell so many different items. I personally made a lot of my money the first season by collecting flowers to turn into perfume and I really liked having the feeling of things I specialized in. I found myself doing what I wanted instead of trying to min/max what would sell best. This is helped by the fact that there isn’t actually a time limit to rank up the bazaar as much as the dialogue might imply.

As you rank up you get more stalls, products, and services to buy. You also can customize your stall to help improve profits with their different effects. Multiple items have the same effect and it's actually a good thing in my opinion. All tables have the same effect so you can make a pretty stall based on your own style while not sacrificing profit.

There are 7 ranks of the bazaar. You rank up by making profit at the bazaar and helping other stalls get set up. Expect a quick cutscene before you open your bazaar every time you level it up. All of them except the last one will interrupt the time you have to set up your bazaar.

This next section will contain spoilers for the final level of the bazaar. I highly recommend that you skip ahead if you haven’t played the game and if you want to experience it yourself. Anyways we learn after leveling the bazaar up to rank 7 that there are actually 99 ranks. The 7 were essentially a tutorial. Within the story this is explained as Zephyr town using its own funds to help smaller bazaars. Each time you level up you get some sort of perk. For example after reaching level 60 you can get the unlimited freshness storage upgrade unlocked.

I’ll very briefly go over the shops and stalls and what you can find from them. Some of the people running the stalls are important NPCs while some are ones that don’t really matter. You’ll know for sure who is who in the NPC section.

There are two town shops. One being Café Madeleine where you can buy an assortment of dishes. And the other is Miguel's Mercantile which is essentially a general store.

There are 21 Bazaar stalls.

Rank one Bazaar stalls include Felix’s stall where he sells techniques that make the game easier, fertilizer, and processed items. Ramon’s stall where he sells livestock and pets. Miguel sells seeds, fodder, and treats. And finally Wilbur storage upgrades, more fields, and general construction such as the bed upgrades.

Rank two Bazaar stalls include Kat’s stall where you can rehome your livestock and pets. Rebecca’s stall sells bazaar decorations. Karina sells outfits. Nature sprites sell different gliders, power berries, sprite boxes, seeds, and some food.

Rank three Bazaar stalls include Joy who offers a gift wrapping service. Garon who improves soil quality, your kitchen, and the barn. Lloyd sells ores and gemstones. And finally Arata creates and upgrades the mushroom log and beehive.

Rank four bazaar stalls include Ronaldo who sells rare seeds and items needed in windmills. Charles is a bit more unique as you bring him recyclable trash items to exchange for useful items. Sophie sells tree seedlings and fertilizer. Madeleine sells dishes different from other food stalls.

Rank five bazaar stalls include Rich who takes medals in exchange for a random item, it's sort of like gambling. Clara sells more dishes. Felipe sells a lot of special items such as wonderstones as well as more normal items.

Rank six bazaar stalls include Nadine who also sells dishes. I honestly don't know why there are so many food stalls. I haven't used them once yet. And finally Destiny who sells fortunes that boost your bazaar sales in some way.

I’m going to tell you right now that you’ll mostly be at Wilbur’s and Garon’s stalls, especially in the early game. I really liked the shop variety until we got 3 food stalls back to back. At that point it seems like overkill and like they didn't have enough ideas to go around. I’m just saying we could have had 2 food stalls and 2 fashion stalls if June could have had her own. Whatever its fine im totes not annoyed at the lack of customization while a lot of work got put into the food for some reason. Food that will likely not be touched or used again as soon as a better alternative is learned. Totally not overkill. Anyway, moving on.

Honestly this game has exactly what I want when it comes to the art aspect. I’ll be honest in saying that Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns is my favorite farming game and it's the one that got me to love the genre. Now in saying that I feel like it's pretty obvious why I like this game's art since its so similar to my all time fav.

I think the portraits are done really well and that they are really good at conveying emotions. I really like how you can tell each character was taken into consideration. For example while every character will have a happy sprite their happiness is shown in different ways. Jules will seem much more composed than Derek for example because of his more quiet and timid nature.

The 3D models for everything in the game, environment and characters, is perfect in my opinion. I love the character models a lot and I love how there's some diversity in there. It feels like every character is unique and not the same model with different hair. There's wildly different heights and body types for the most part. Diversity within body types are mainly reserved for non-marriage candidates for some reason. I think it's mostly because this is a remake since the new male marriage candidate Arata is the only guy you can marry with the buff body type. I really like this choice as it makes him a lot more unique since it's more than a height difference with the other guy candidates. I do find it annoying how this decision wasn’t extended to the women candidates however. They all essentially have the same body type. Even when it comes to the non marriageable women there still isn’t nearly as much diversity when it comes to the guy characters. Hopefully this can be more improved upon in their next releases.

The customization did not impress me at all here. Let me go over what I liked first before driving into my rants. At the start you are asked for your name, birthday, farm name, and pronouns. You can choose between she/her, he/him, and they/them. I think this is a really nice touch considering what I think the demographic of cozy/farming games tends to be now. It's never a bad thing when more people feel included and represented. This is also expanded upon as when you have a child you get to specifically type in what you want to be called by them.

Going into character creation you start with picking a body type since you aren’t given the stereotypical option of being a boy or a girl. Your body type and pronouns are completely separate. Going further into customization I liked how many faces we were given to choose from. You get 20 face types to choose from. There are 22 eye color options and I found them very pretty. There's a pretty big variety of colors and I found the couple gradient colors included very nice. The same goes for the hair colors. They look amazing. You can further customize your face by adding a beard, moles, and freckles. I found it weird that you can choose a voice but after playing it makes more sense. The options are pretty varied and you only hear your character's voice in specific situations such as doing actions such as fishing, petting animals, breaking stones, or calling customers at the bazaar. You won't hear yourself talk in cutscenes which is honestly fine with me.

Now onto what I don’t really like here. I don’t like how there are only 5 skin colors to choose from with only 2 darker skin options. There are 20 hair options in the base game and I hate nearly all of them. I feel like a lot of them look bad and there isn’t truly a long hair option. The longest you can get it is a little below shoulder length which really upsets me. I hate how we aren't given long hair. It's especially annoying when NPCs like Sophie exist since it's obvious it can be done. I understand it's probably done because of all the varied animations the player does while NPCs have less they need to do. I still want the option though I don’t mind it maybe looking a little funny. It's also been done before in the Story of Seasons with the farm girl's default hairstyle in Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns. Honestly, just give me that hairstyle that's perfect. The one hair I think looks decent enough is stuck behind a DLC which is very annoying. Also I will note that there aren't many textured hair options.

When it comes to clothing I think the starter options are pretty nice. In general I do think the clothing options aren’t that great at all however. You unlock more options by leveling up the bazaar but you hardly get any at the end of the day. I think you get two per level up with a more masculine and feminine option being provided each level, and keep in mind clothes aren’t locked to your body type. You also can earn some outfits here and there with specific quests. There are some DLC outfits but those don’t impress me either. Forgive me for bringing it up again but in Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns there was so much customization. Theres gotta be hundreds of items you can choose from. I just feel like Story of Seasons: The Grand Bazaar could have had a lot more. It really sucks to see that an older game has a lot more and in my opinion a lot better customization than the newest addition to the series.

Let me note here that crops, food, and some animal byproducts can get bad and expire. Your storage keeps them fresh for longer but you have a very limited time to use and sell your goods especially early game. The item's freshness quality dictates how much it can sell for. You gotta always keep this in mind when playing which can feel a bit stressful.

Another reason farming feels a bit more stressful here is mainly because you have to do so much to improve the quality of your crops while keeping in mind what may be needed in the future. There's also so much variety that it's easy to not only stress out about what makes the most money, but also what you may need in future quests/ recipes. Since you can’t really keep your crops fresh and hoard them in early game it can be harder to complete quests or know what to grow. This however does get a lot easier as you upgrade the bazaar and your storage. If you take things a bit slower when it comes to these games I can guarantee you that the freshness issue will get annoying.

At the start you get one plot and you are able to unlock two more through upgrading the bazaar and purchasing land upgrades. You also eventually unlock the ability to buy a basement to grow crops in. I haven’t done this just yet but if I had to assume it probably works as a greenhouse type thing where you can plant anything no matter the season. You will feel limited when you first start, which makes upgrading your farm and buying new plots feel more rewarding. You’ll be able to upgrade your soil through upgrading your bazaar and purchasing the soil upgrade from Garon. You upgrade the max amount of stars your crops can have by submitting them to the crop festival and winning.

Farming will take a lot of stamina even if you have really good tools. So I would like to introduce the bath, food, and power berries. It replenishes your stamina but keep in mind it takes 30 minutes out of your day and that it has a cooldown. I recommend taking a bath as soon as your stamina reaches the red so you have a better chance of being able to use it again before the day ends. The bath is a very good early game as power berries don;t appear until later. Power berries not only replenish your stamina but it also increases your stamina cap. If you have a lot of money or ingredients you can also make or buy food to replenish your stamina. Every meal has a different amount of stamina it replenishes from slight to significant. You also can get buffs from eating specific foods and every time you eat a new food you gain its recipe.

There are a few ways to farm without using your stamina with the main one being it rains or snows as it automatically waters your crops. I also think your spouse and kid can help out randomly but it hasn’t happened to me yet so I don’t know the odds on that. You also can eventually make sprinklers but I haven’t done so and I honestly don't think I really need them.

Also let me mention this here before we move on. There's a chance for extreme weather to occur during the summer and winter. During this time your crops, honey, and mushrooms will be destroyed unless you craft and set up fences around them before it hits. I recommend listening to the radio every morning so you are prepared, but if you forget you will be notified through a cutscene either the day before or two days before it hits I can’t exactly remember specifically.

Now you can’t really have a farm without animals! We’ll technically you can, but you are given your first livestock, pet, and horse for free so you are really pushed into embracing that side of farming. There's also livestock, pet, and horse competitions throughout the year so you’d really be missing out.

Like crops you upgrade your animal byproducts by entering an animal to the livestock festival and winning which depends on your bond. Your first animal will always be a chicken as you are given one for free right before the first livestock festival. Every animal gives you what you expect. Chickens and selkie chickens give you eggs. Alpacas, brown alpacas, sheep, and suffolk sheep give you wool. Cows, brown cows, black cows, and buffallos all produce milk. I wouldn't worry about getting feed for them too much as they can graze everyday as long as it isn’t raining, snowing heavily, or there isn't extreme weather. I haven’t needed to buy any chicken feed or fodder throughout my 55 hrs of playtime because of grazing and the fact that when you win a livestock competition you are given the feed of the animal you won with. After upgrading you can have 10 chickens and 10 livestock max.

Pets don’t give you anything and are just to help around the farm. Instead of you needing to herd your animals in and out of your barn your pets will do it for you. You can buy or make their kibble. Cats will herd your chickens while dogs herd the rest. You’ll be given a dog to start and all pets will only be able to herd 1 animal when you first get them. They level up their training by doing their job and by buying treats to train them with. To train your pets and during the pet festival you’ll be needed to hit the corresponding buttons that appear on the screen. It's kinda like a quick time event but more forgiving and easy. There are 8 cat types and 8 dog types. They all do the same thing so it's just for looks. You can have 8 total pets.

Horses are the last animal you can get. You get your horse for free before the first horse race in the summer. Horses work the same way as livestock in terms of eating and they can be given treats to help increase your bond with them. You’ll get all the horse treats you’ll ever need by winning the horse races. The more they love you the faster they are. I’m gonna be completely honest in saying that I don't use the horse at all. It's supposed to be faster but I get around just fine by gliding. I just didn't find my horse all that useful, especially since I wasn’t sure if it would wander off or what would happen if I forgot it. There are 4 horses to choose from and you can have a max of one.

All animals can be bought from Ramon in the bazaar and you can rehome them by talking to the lady next to him.

Crafting is very important to this game. If you want to make good money you need to craft. The windmills are used to craft items and they each craft their own things, except for fertilizer they all craft that. They allow you to craft anything from tools, preserves, animal products, seeds, jewelry, and much more. Crafting is essentially an upgrade to whatever you were planning to sell. If you have crops it's much better to turn it into preserves, ores sell better as jewelry, and so on. You should essentially always be crafting and using the windmills if you want to make money.

The red windmill is on your farm and unlocked in the first month after giving Isaac 10 stone and 10 wood. It crafts the most basic things such as some preserves, perfumes, basic animal products, and your first tool upgrades. Even nearing the end game I feel like I use this windmill pretty often.

The blue windmill unlocks on bazaar rank 3 and Issac will repair it after we find and deliver his lost item. The blue windmill unlocks crafting the gold upgrades, seeds, honey, better preserves, better animal products, and more expensive jewelry. This is honestly the windmill I use most often. The queue for it is always full.

The last windmill is the yellow one. It unlocks after bazaar rank 4 and for Issac to build it you'll need to craft 100 items in your windmills. This will be very easy so don’t even worry. You’ll unlock the final tool upgrades, the most expensive jewelry, plus animal byproducts, teas, more preserves, and some very special items if you have the purple wonderstone in it.

Wonder stones can be bought from Felipe in the bazaar and players can earn a free blue wonderstone from Issac. Wonderstones have special effects on your windmills. The red wonderstone increases the quality of the items made by half a star. The orange one allows you to make 30 pieces at once instead of 10. The yellow one gives you an extra item for every five made. The green doubles the windmills crafting slots. The blue makes the windmills craft faster. And finally the purple one will unlock special recipes within that windmill.

As I briefly mentioned before, you can unlock honey and mushrooms by buying them from Arata’s bazaar stall. I didn’t really utilize the mushrooms, but I found honey to be a good money maker for me. I fully upgraded the bee hives before even touching a single upgrade for the mushroom log.

Fishing and collecting bugs are also options to make money, but I never utilized them either. Personally I found it to be a lot less effective and I only really fished or caught bugs when needed by a quest. This kind of messed me up later in the game however as I had a really annoying quest from Clara I think I needed like 4 star fish while my fish were only like 1.5 stars. I’ll touch on how to upgrade things like fish very shortly, but I just want you to keep it in mind.

Mining and making jewelry is really good in my opinion. Jewelry has some of the most expensive items you can sell. You will however need to upgrade your hammer and unlock all of the windmills really quickly to fully use mining and making jewelry to its fullest potential.

I guess there's also technically cooking. I only did this a couple times with fish so they wouldn’t take up so much room. You don’t really see a profit unless your ingredients are really good and you add the optional ingredients though.

Foraging is another thing I did often although it isn’t really profitable. Harvesting flowers and herbs can allow you to make perfume which I loved making because of the look of the bottles and the feeling of specializing in something. I do recommend collecting herbs though even if you don’t want to make perfume as it can be used to make herb cheese, butter, and mayo which sells for more than its regular counter parts.

Essentially there's a lot of ways to make money. Since there's no time limit I really recommend you focusing on what you like the most. As I mentioned before it feels fun to make certain items your specialties even if they may not be the most profitable.

Nature sprites are a new addition to this remake and they play a really big role actually. There are 5 nature sprites and they each correlate with something different. You should really keep these guys in mind as they are not only important to the story but they also allow you to improve the quality of your items by half a star every 5 levels or so. Each nature sprite correlates to a different type of item in the game and donating those specific items to level up which increases their star quality and gives you happiness points, something we’ll touch on later.

Ivy is usually next to the windmill on your farm and you give them foragables such as wood, plants, ores, and stones. I highly recommend you focus on them if anything they are so very useful and honestly to me the most useful. When used in the bazaar they boost item quality.

Finely is next to the river near your farm and they specialize in fish. Try and level Finely up soon because you’ll need at least 4 star fish for future quests. I neglected them and it really hurt me later because of Clara’s quest. When used in the bazaar they boost item freshness.

Next is Honey who specializes in honey, who woulda thought they stay in the mountains near the beehives. I personally leveled them up pretty quick since as I mentioned before I made a lot of my money off of selling honey. I’m pretty sure honey is also needed in some quests later down the line. When used in the bazaar they can extend the nature sprites' cheer time.

Then there's Webby. They are located in the mountains near the mushroom logs. They specialize in mushrooms. I donated to them here and there and mushrooms are probably needed for a quest later, honestly it's safe to assume you’ll need to level up all the nature sprites for quests and to make more money. I didn't find mushrooms to be especially profitable for me, so I didn't put that much work into them. When used in the bazaar they can boost the chance of customers buying two items at a time I don't exactly know how this boost works especially since the last nature sprite is a bit similar.

Penny stays near the cafe in town. They collect bugs and critters you can catch around the world. I fully neglected penny. I don't find the bugs or critters to be useful at all. When used in the bazaar they help sell more items overall. Honestly their boost really saves them here.

As I mentioned briefly they also can give happiness points/ happy energy. Doing almost any task also does this so you’ll rack up points pretty quick. Happy energy can be used at the nature sprite’s bazaar stall to buy stuff for your bazaar, power berries, and sprite boxes which allow you to put and take out items from your storage as well as being able to teleport to your storage after they are upgraded. I recommend focusing on the sprite boxes and power berries first before anything.

Now let's talk about the non-dateable NPCs! You might not see them as important as the dateable ones but these guys really make the world feel alive. There are actually cutscenes you can walk into including a lot of these characters to get a better idea of their story. With all characters make sure to see if you are able to build your relationship with them. Sometimes you’ll be locked out of relationship progress until you finish a quest or special tasks.

Let's talk about the most important guy first. There's Felix the mayor. The story revolves around him and he's the one to teach you how to play the game. He can be hot-blooded and loud but he really cares about his town and its bazaar. These next guys will be in no order of importance really.

Miguel runs the general store in town and he has his own stall in the bazaar. He is very money centered. He has two brothers Felipe and Ramon. He is also very in love with Mina but it seems unrequited. I will mention here that in the original these 3 brothers were stereotypy which has been improved upon in their redesigns.

Then there's Erik. He's the father of June, a bachelorette. He is very family and business focused.

Sonia and Stewert run the hotel and they are a very sweet old couple. They are actually the ones to inform the player on what they need to do so they can get married.

Madeline and Mina run the cafe. Madeline also opens a stall with your help. Mina is Madeleine's granddaughter. Also I have to admit something. I spent the whole game thinking Mina was a bachelorette and only through writing for this video I’ve learned that she isn't. She really is designed like a bachelorette so it really surprised me. After you have a kid Mina will actually offer to watch your child on bazaar days.

Clara, Wilbur, and Kevin are a small family living in the town. Wilbur is the town's carpenter and he runs a stall in the bazaar. You’ll have to help Clara set up her home food stall. Kevin is very adventurous and mischievous. This family is louder and more open than the other in town.

Nadine, Issac, Sylvia, and Laurie are the other young family in town. Issac is the one who repairs the windmills. You help Nadine open up her own cooking stall in the bazaar. Sylvia and Laurie are twins with Sylvia being more outgoing and Laurie being more shy. Overall I feel like this family is quieter, calmer, and less exaggerated than the last.

Harold is the reliable older brother of Diana. He works in the mail service. He cares a lot about his sister and the bazaar, but he's a lot more laid back than her.

Sherene gets introduced pretty late into the game. She's actually the weather reporter you hear on the radio. She comes across as elegant and calm.

There are some other NPCs but they aren’t really important. They are either bazaar stall owners or festival judges. You can’t increase your relationship with them.

There are six bachelors in the game. I’ll be honest in saying I spent most of my time and attention on this group. Also I won’t be going over their heart events individually, just the general gist of what they lead up to.

First I’ll go over Jules since he's actually the one I married in my playthrough. Jules is a private tutor and he has a younger brother, Derek, another bachelor. If you want someone very smart and proper he's your best bet. He is probably one of the easiest bachelors to marry because of his gift preferences and the relative ease of his quests. It took me less than the full year to propose and marry him. Jules’s story line revolves around letting him relax and not worry about his younger brother so much. Their parents died when they were young so Jules was always responsible for his brother Derek. It's a sweet story line overall but honestly it isn’t that interesting after going through it. Jules is very sweet and proper but honestly his heart events weren’t something that made him more appealing. I like him, don't get me wrong, but I do wish I gave the other bachelors a chance before fully committing.

Since I’ve mentioned him, let's go over Derek now. He's basically meant to be the opposite of Jules. He's loud, outgoing, and energetic. He works at the cafe in town. Derek’s story line is interconnected with Jules and you’ll be going through them at the same time basically. Your job is to help Derek prove to Jules that he's not a kid anymore and that he's capable of doing things on his own. I really didn’t feel that engaged with his heart events either. Thinking back on it, it kinda feels like you aren’t really doing much since these two have stories that rely on each other while the rest aren’t like that. Derek didn’t really call to me appearance wise or personality wise.

Next we’ll go over Gabriel. He's a soft-spoken artist who seems carefree for the most part. His story revolves around you helping him find his artistic spark once again. Honestly it's pretty sweet. He says that after you’ve moved to town it's like he's seeing it in new colors. His story is cute especially as an artist myself and I think he looks really cute. Honestly he’d be a really good option for me if he didn’t have the same name as one of my uncles. It's very annoying.

Lloyd is the final bachelor that is in the village when you start the game. He’s a traveling merchant who runs an ore stall in the bazaar. He's more of a loner type but he never comes across as rude. Again he's actually pretty sweet when he warms up to you. Honestly this game is pretty good with the marriage candidates. They all are sweet while having their own qualities. His story revolves around you convincing him to stay in town. He’s been asked by other towns before but his mind is changed by you. It really makes you feel special doesn’t it. The main thing that made me not choose him is his fish fossil quest. If he's the guy you're interested in I wish you luck getting that thing can be annoying as hell. Even though it's already taken me a bit to make this it likely woulda been much longer if I chose anyone other than Jules. Lloyd is a pretty popular choice for the community and I can see why he’d be one of the main contenders if I had to play through the game again.

Arata is a more hidden bachelor I guess. What I mean is he doesn’t appear and isn’t mentioned until you reach Bazaar rank two. If you didn’t look into the game beforehand you wouldn’t have known he was an option. With that being said it doesn’t take him long to appear. Arata is a martial artist and he later opens up a bazaar stall for mountain upgrades. He is also the only marriage candidate to have their own unique body type. He lives up in the mountains until he is forced to move after the person he came to meet up with arrives. I suppose he could fall into the himbo category if you're into that. He's sweet, strong, but a bit lost when it comes to what he wants. His story revolves around you helping him realize why he wants to get stronger. After helping you with two visitors fighting he realizes his strength comes from the want to protect those he cares about. I think he's also a pretty popular choice which is very understandable after going through his heart events. Admittedly I was stuck on his poached egg quest a lot longer than I’d like to confess.

The final bachelor, another hidden one, is Samir. He's actually the person Arata came to meet and he’s the one that makes Arata move into the hotel with him after you reach bazaar rank 4. You very quickly learn he's a prince from another land who came here to see a different kind of life through a slip up from Felix. When you first meet him he comes across as cautious, reserved and closed off. Of course this changes pretty quickly as he warms up to you. His story revolves around you helping him to see he could express himself and not be so mistrusting or cautious around others. He also learns to have meaningful relationships and what it feels like to have them since he was limited by his royal title before. I mean lets be honest before moving to Zephyr Town he very likely didn't have that many people who truly wanted to be friends because of who he is rather than his title. Samir would be my other main option on who to marry if I was forced to do another playthrough of the game. Honestly his 4 heart event really dragged me in but at that point I was already dating Jules.

There are six bachelorettes in the game. I honestly didn’t spend that much time with the girls since I wasn’t planning on marrying one of them, but I still got to know them enough to learn their personalities so don't worry.

Sophie is the mayor's daughter. You eventually help her open up a stall in the bazaar. She's kind, caring, polite, and helpful. She's essentially made to be a perfect mayor for when Felix retires. Her whole story arc is actually pretty similar to Derek as it revolves around Felix letting her help more with the town’s duties.

June is Erik’s daughter. She loves fashion and she really wants to be a fashion designer like her mom in the city. She comes across as closed off, quiet, and antisocial but of course that changes as you get to know her. Her story revolves around getting used to being away from her mom, finding the good in Zephyr town, and learning that she can still follow her dreams even in this small town. June probably has the most striking and unique design. I love her design a lot actually and it sort of emphasizes how she starts out feeling like an outsider in the town. I personally think it would have been nice to have June run her own clothing/accessory bazaar stall. I feel like the one we have doesn’t have that good of options and they all fall under a similar style.

Freya is career-minded and very independent. I don’t remember seeing her all that much actually, but when I did she always seemed very sweet. Like from her looks and her whole character typing, being independent and all, you might think she would be similar to June, a bit antisocial. In reality Freya was always really sweet and outgoing whenever I spoke to her or saw her in cutscenes. She can also be a bit silly from time to time which really humanizes her. She's strong, independent, and loves to focus on her career, but she's also a normal person with a personality outside of work. Freya’s story revolves around finding hobbies to keep her occupied and happy instead of just following the loop of going to work and going home to sleep. She picks up baking and cooking with the help of you and Mina. She's still going to work hard at her job and aim to get the most out of it, but she also has some fun hobbies that she aims to improve upon as well.

Maple actually seems to be surrounded by a lot of questions and arguments so I want to touch on that real quick since if you never played the original looking into Maple to see what her likes and dislikes are may also pull up a lot of reddit threads debating her existence. I also find this issue a bit interesting, but if you’d rather not hear about this skip to the next paragraph to hear about her personality and story. While all other marriage candidates are essentially the same as the original or are completely new, Maple is actually a replacement for Daisy. There hasn’t been a statement or comment telling us why but many fans have speculated it's due to Daisy’s childlike nature and design. I’m sure you can see where this is going and why she may have been changed. I’m actually really surprised by the push back on this decision however. I can sort of get the people who would have rathered the same color palette. I mean I love pink to afterall but it was likely changed to fully try and distance the remake from that character archetype. Some say they don’t see any problem with Daisy which I feel like is just a bit ignorant. She's the smallest of the bachelorettes, her proportions are closer to the child characters rather than the other bachelorettes (this problem can be seen a bit with June as well, or I guess Antoniette, but her personality helps with this issue), she has a childlike personality, being clumsy and overly cheerful, and her likes being sweets, flowers, and jewelry while having a fear of bugs. I think when taking all things into consideration it is obvious who she was likely made to appeal to, especially with the game being so old. I mean lets be real here she was likely made to fit the little girl archetype that has and still is common in media. I see the change to Daisy the same as taking away the racist stereotypes from Miguel or removing characters such as Wada cause, yeah, obviously.

Maple works at Sonia and Stewerts hotel and she is sort of like a granddaughter to them. She's hardworking and committed to her job as a housekeeper, but she often tends to be pretty clumsy. Her clumsiness can lead to issues, but Maple always gets back to work with a smile on her face. She is revealed to have a big family that lives in the city. Her story revolves around her not feeling good enough to continue following her dream of working at the hotel and you helping her realize she's perfect where she is. Her heart events all revolve around her messing up her job in some sort of way and you cheering her up. This in all honesty does get annoying and repetitive, honestly most of the heart events tend to do that but it's really apparent for Maple. She’s silly. I like her and I love how her outfit is themed to her name.

Diana is the first hidden bachelorette. She joins the town after you reach bazaar rank 2 and she is a new addition to the cast as she doesn't exist in the remake. She works for the Bazaar Rank Review Board. She aims to help the Bazaar level up its rank so support isn't pulled. She has this sort of opposite personality to the mayor. Every time you rank up the Bazaar the mayor celebrates while Diana brings the town back to earth by listing I guess the negatives you could say. It honestly can make her seem really negative and nitpicky especially when paired with her factual, proper, and more business like personality. This is explained by her past of not being able to help a previous bazaar and her taking all of the burden and guilt because of that, but I do fear her personality and at times overly negative nature turned players off of her. Let's be honest woman characters are never given the same grace as male characters when it comes to things such as a standoffish or negative personality. While this could also be applied to June I feel like she is given more grace because she was an existing character whose storyline was likely explored by some players. Anyways her story revolves around her pushing herself to the extreme when it comes to her working and helping with the bazaar. You help her find time to relax and help her realize she isn’t alone. I personally really like her heart events and her story.

The final bachelorette and marriage candidate is also a hidden one, Kagetsu. Let me be so insanely clear here I know the least about Kagetsu. She is unlocked after reaching Bazaar rank 3. A mysterious seal appears on the floor in the mountains. I can’t remember a cutscene playing when it happened, I just kind of saw it, a long time after it was open. I think I didn’t even notice it until after I had already met Samir so a whole bazaar rank later. She’s essentially the Harvest Goddess of the game and she only stays in her shrine until her 4 heart event. I don't really know how to describe her. She's committed, quiet, and somewhat closed off I guess. I feel like she really falls into the same sort of vibe similar characters of her type in the Story of Seasons games do. I honestly don’t find her that interesting and it's very hard to remember she exists. I don’t think I've leveled our relationship up once and I only wanted to because she can give you a blessing for buffs after you reach 4 hearts with her. Her story revolves around her seeing the world she's spent all her time praying over and leaving her solitude more often, allowing herself some time to live. She’s very pretty but I honestly found her very forgettable unfortunately.

Every Story of Seasons game allows you to marry your chosen bachelor or bachelorette and you are able to start a family with them. I will admit it's a lot easier to do so here. Your map actually shows when and where heart events are and what you have to do next to unlock the next set of hearts. I really really like this. Before you’d have to randomly run into heart events or look them up to know where to go. This game improved the ease of building relationships a lot.

Anyways once you reach max relationship points with your partner you will be given a blue feather from sonia and stewart. Give it to your partner to propose and your wedding will happen a few days later. It may be pushed back if any events overlap to when it was supposed to happen which is what happened with me. Anyways before the wedding the mayor comes to help you choose what you’ll wear for the wedding and on your wedding day a cutscene will play. It's actually really really cute. Nothing changes all that much except your spouse moves in with you, but there are some special events now. Your anniversary will be marked on the calendar and you can celebrate it at home. Your spouse will make dinner for some festivals, for their birthday, your anniversary, and I assume you and your child's birthdays. I really like this as it gives more life to your relationship and it makes it feel a lot more real. I do wish that you could eat meals with your family without needing a special event. In Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns, who woulda guessed I cant shut up about that game, sorry but it has a lot of good qualities, anyways you could eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner with your family. That's so so cute! I really wish they used the dinner with your family thing a lot more often. It feels a bit like a waste for it to be limited to a few days a year.

After you’ve been married for a while and if you have the last bed upgrade then you can have a child. Your spouse will talk about wanting to wait a little bit longer from time to time, but eventually (I think a month after getting the bed) a cutscene will play. You and your spouse go outside to be greeted by the nature sprites. They tell you that you’ll be blessed with a baby soon and they ask you what gender you want your child to be. This always happens in the Story of Seasons games but in this one they didn’t give you a choice to have it random which was a bit annoying since I always pick that choice. You and your partner will go to sleep and eventually your child will arrive. I do find it weird how there isn’t pregnancy like in older games but I assume its due to the player not having a gender technically. Players choose what their child calls them and their looks are determined by yours and your spouses. It takes a long long time for your kid to grow. Don’t forget that you still have to raise your relationship for your child. They’re pretty silly and cute.

I’ll go over the festivals pretty briefly. I’ve mentioned a lot and I think they’re best experienced in game for yourself and you’ll have an explanation from Felix when you first encounter them.

Keep in mind every season has one crop and animal show since I went over them before I will not be doing so again. I also explained the pet show and horse derby so I won't be going over them either. They both happen twice a year, once in the summer and once in the winter.

Spring holds the flower festival. You're tasked with giving as many flowers out to the villagers as you can over the course of two days. Wildflowers are good, flowers grown by you are better, and bouquets are the best gift you can give. There's also Honey Day. You’ll want to give honey to the marriage candidates to easily raise your relationship with them. Finally there's the tea party. You can bring tea leaves, tea boxes, or drinkable tea to participate. It's just a little sweet cutscene and depending on how good the item you bring it will provide a friendship boost and a treat.

Summer actually doesn’t have any unique festivals, weirdly enough.

Autumn has the cook off and bake off. You bring an already made dish to be judged. I honestly find this event annoying along with a lot of people in the community. I think winning is determined by how much the meal price is, but I’m not sure. The juice festival is essentially the same as the tea festival just with juice. And the final festival is the pumpkin festival. The kids of the town (I’m assuming your child also participates if they're old enough) will come to your farmhouse throughout the day expecting a treat. You’ll need at least two treats one for Kevin and one for Sylvia and Laurie, they share one treat for some reason. And of course if your kid is counted you’ll need one for them as well.

Winter has hearth day. You’ll want to give warm meals to all the villagers in town to increase your relationship and to get food back if you have 3 or more hearts with them which is essentially them giving you recipes. Starlight Night is a social event. Talk to your chosen marriage candidate to see where they’re going for that night and join them as their date. You get a friendship boost with those who attend and especially your date. I actually have missed out on this festival completely. You see after you get married your spouse will cook dinner and you’ll go home to eat with them. I married Jules before seeing this event for the first time so I’ll never have the community experience since I’ll be with my family. I guess I technically could go with someone else but that feels rude so I will not be doing that I actually cannot be rude ever in these games. The New Years countdown takes place on the last day of the year. The town gathers in the plaza to watch the fireworks and you’ll end the night with higher friendship with all who attended.

You’ll see the credits after important moments in the game like after getting married. Don’t worry though as this game can go on for as long as you want to play. I just want to put this here since you do see the credits more than once and if you haven't played a story of seasons game before it can be a bit surprising.

You’ll be given the freedom to keep making money, upgrading your farm, upgrading the bazaar, and making friends.

Overall I really like this game. It's a lot better than the last more recent Story of Seasons games. I actually found a lot of the marriage candidates enjoyable which is admittedly pretty rare in these games. I also found the loop really enjoyable! The look of the game really keeps me in it and I honestly really want to 100% it! There's a lot that can be improved upon, especially the customization, but it's pretty good. It's not Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns good but from the few hours I put into Story of Seasons Pioneers of Olive town it is definitely better than that. I honestly think this game is worth a try whether you're a new or returning fan of the franchise. I 100% recommend this game although it is 50 dollars so you might want to wait for a sale on steam if you aren’t that convinced.