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IGN Preview of Harvest Moon: Grand Bazaar
The Harvest Moon franchise has been around for a long time, and the farming sim formula has stayed pretty consistent over the years. That's about to change with Harvest Moon: Grand Bazaar, the newest iteration of the series on the Nintendo DS. You won't just be farming anymore -- now you'll have a shop to sell your goods and deal with customers.
Instead of saving the town from an evil corporation or other direct threat, you're there to help resurrect its economy. Before the last farmer left, the town's weekly marketplace was the largest and best around, but now it's dwindled to a few stalls, one of which is yours.
The bazaar aspect changes the gameplay strategy -- you can't earn much money if you sell goods as you gather or make them, so you'll want to store them until the day of the market to make as much as possible. This also means you need to time your crops perfectly, because if they aren't ready by the weekend, you'll have to wait a whole other week to sell them.
On the flip side, you can only purchase certain seeds, animals, ores, tools and upgrades during the bazaar, so you'll need to use the cash you earn there to acquire new items that will help you produce for the next week. At first, your stand can only display three items at a time, but once you establish your business you can expand your booth. The market also has a different financial goal every weekend, and if your business surpasses that, or was the most respected by customers, you'll win a prize.
Windmills are another new feature, and they can be used to alter your inventory into new things. For example, you can use the fermenting windmill to tranform milk into cheese or eggs into mayonnaise. All of it is powered by wind, so if you move your character near the windmill and blow into the DS microphone, you can speed up the process significantly.
Back on the farm, things are relatively the same -- you till the fields, plant seeds, and fertilize/water them until you can start harvesting. You can also cook meals if you have a recipe and all the necessary ingredients, or you can mess around in the kitchen and combine items until you create a new recipe.
All of these activities deplete your stamina meter, and you can still pass out if you overwork yourself. However, this time your house also has a restroom and bath and using either will restore some stamina. All the standard equipment in Grand Bazaar is way nicer than what I received in Harvest Moon: Hero of Leaf Valley.
Of course, like every Harvest Moon game, relationships play a major role. You can pick your gender and develop relationships with the townsfolk, eventually romancing a husband or wife. Your friendship with your animals is also important -- happy creatures produce higher quality products.
Grand Bazaar also offers multiplayer for those that want to farm together. I didn't get a chance to test it out because we only had one copy, but you can connect with friends locally or over Nintendo Wi-Fi via friend codes. Visiting a friend's farm can help you get new types of crops to harvest, fish to sell and other items to take advantage of.
Visually, this is the best looking handheld version of Harvest Moon I've seen. The trees sway in the wind and you can see the shadows of clouds passing by overhead. It's very easy on the eyes, and I didn't run into loading screens as often as I did in Hero of Leaf Valley.
This version of Harvest Moon breathes some new life into the previously stale gameplay, and it's still as addictive as ever. You can look forward to manning your own shop when Grand Bazaar ships later this summer.
©2010-07-23, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Instead of saving the town from an evil corporation or other direct threat, you're there to help resurrect its economy. Before the last farmer left, the town's weekly marketplace was the largest and best around, but now it's dwindled to a few stalls, one of which is yours.
The bazaar aspect changes the gameplay strategy -- you can't earn much money if you sell goods as you gather or make them, so you'll want to store them until the day of the market to make as much as possible. This also means you need to time your crops perfectly, because if they aren't ready by the weekend, you'll have to wait a whole other week to sell them.
On the flip side, you can only purchase certain seeds, animals, ores, tools and upgrades during the bazaar, so you'll need to use the cash you earn there to acquire new items that will help you produce for the next week. At first, your stand can only display three items at a time, but once you establish your business you can expand your booth. The market also has a different financial goal every weekend, and if your business surpasses that, or was the most respected by customers, you'll win a prize.
Windmills are another new feature, and they can be used to alter your inventory into new things. For example, you can use the fermenting windmill to tranform milk into cheese or eggs into mayonnaise. All of it is powered by wind, so if you move your character near the windmill and blow into the DS microphone, you can speed up the process significantly.
Back on the farm, things are relatively the same -- you till the fields, plant seeds, and fertilize/water them until you can start harvesting. You can also cook meals if you have a recipe and all the necessary ingredients, or you can mess around in the kitchen and combine items until you create a new recipe.
All of these activities deplete your stamina meter, and you can still pass out if you overwork yourself. However, this time your house also has a restroom and bath and using either will restore some stamina. All the standard equipment in Grand Bazaar is way nicer than what I received in Harvest Moon: Hero of Leaf Valley.
Of course, like every Harvest Moon game, relationships play a major role. You can pick your gender and develop relationships with the townsfolk, eventually romancing a husband or wife. Your friendship with your animals is also important -- happy creatures produce higher quality products.
Grand Bazaar also offers multiplayer for those that want to farm together. I didn't get a chance to test it out because we only had one copy, but you can connect with friends locally or over Nintendo Wi-Fi via friend codes. Visiting a friend's farm can help you get new types of crops to harvest, fish to sell and other items to take advantage of.
Visually, this is the best looking handheld version of Harvest Moon I've seen. The trees sway in the wind and you can see the shadows of clouds passing by overhead. It's very easy on the eyes, and I didn't run into loading screens as often as I did in Hero of Leaf Valley.
This version of Harvest Moon breathes some new life into the previously stale gameplay, and it's still as addictive as ever. You can look forward to manning your own shop when Grand Bazaar ships later this summer.
©2010-07-23, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved