Harvest Moon: Grand Bazaar for Nintendo DS Reviews by Gamers

The latest Harvest Moon game, Grand Bazaar, is not one to be passed over! While the basics of farming and ranching haven't changed [much], there's plenty of new reasons to try out this game!

- The graphics are beautiful for a DS game!
- You start with a KITCHEN! You do have to buy your own cookware, but at least you get a kitchen from the start of the game.
- You start with a BARN! And there's a pre-made outdoor pen for chickens with a REAL fence that you don't have to maintain, as well as a large grassy field for your livestock to feed on. It's all free when you start the game!
- The Shipping Bin is gone. Instead, you sell your wares at a weekly Bazaar. There's a shop in town where you can also sell things, but you won't make as much of a profit at that store. Also, there are many special items (animals, tools, ores) that can ONLY be bought at the Bazaar, so be sure to budget enough time to do some shopping too!
- Pets are actually USEFUL! You can train your dogs to herd livestock, and your cats can carry chickens out to the pen. And you can PLAY with your pets, using a dog bone and a cat bell!
- No more paying thousands of coins for Makers. Instead, there are three Windmills that unlock throughout Year 1, and you can make all your cheeses, wool, fertilizer, etc. for free!
- New crops, new trees, new tools, new items to make and sell! There's also new Festivals, such as the Wine Festival!
- Favorite characters from previous HM games, such as Chen, Gannon and Pierre make cameos!
- You can buy premade dishes from the Cafe, and automatically learn the recipe! And since you don't automatically eat the food, you can save it, gift it, or sell it at the Bazaar.
- The day is slightly slower since the time is counted by minutes. HOWEVER, time does NOT pause when you enter a house!
- Every night you can automatically save your game.
- HORSE RACES ARE BACK!!!

If you were curious about this game, I'd HIGHLY recommend it! After all, it's just a rental right?

To be honest, in my opinion Harvest Moon: Grand Bazaar is one of the weakest in the series.

Cons:
1. The time is very slow, one minute in real time is one hour in the game. So when you finish all of your watering, caring for the animals and gathering miscellaneous (and limited) items from around the map it would be around 12 P.M. I would have no idea what to do with this spare time. Often I would sit around until 5 P.M. hit so I could put in the animals then go to sleep.

2. The world is very small in comparison to previous games, there's only six areas.

3. Money is not easy to come by early on in the game and most products in the game cost several thousand gold. Also, many products and items aren't worth very much.

4. New Freshness Rating. Although it was clever and kind of cool at first, the rating depending on the level of freshness affects the selling price. Super Fresh gets the most money and rotten you're better off tossing. I found that this heavily relates to timing because you can only sell once a week and I would often find that most of my products would end up fairly fresh by the time I could sell them.

5. Romancing bachelor/bachelorette. Not only do you have romance the man/woman you desire to be with but before you can marry them you must also reach five hearts with a specific person (each person has a different requirement).

6. No mining. Perhaps not all people like mining, but that is one of my favorite chores because it brings in good money, always available, and easy to get items in bulk.

7. No story whatsoever, the only goal in the game is to get the bazaar to become well-known again.

PROS:

1. Bazaar system was fluid and enjoyable, albeit only once a week.

2. The graphics were beautiful.

3. You had all the upgrades at the start of the game.

4. Pets are useful so you can herd all your animals.

5. Fences never rot or need to fixed.

6. New festival and horses races are back.

7. Unlockable windmills instead of buying expensive makers.

Im new to the harvest moon games. This being my first I've ever played. I like it, although it kind of bothers me that it's so repetative. But a friend told me this is how all Harvest Moon games are! It's good though, its kept me entertained for a couple days! I haven't finished it, Don't know if I will. But from what my boyfriend said, if you like the other Harvest moon games, you should like this one!

This is just horrible. There are like 3 girls and 20 guys. There are only 6 squares of places to go. The Graphics suck. Why do we need a jump button and why do they sound and look like babies?!? As a hardcore HM fan I'm extremely dissapointed. Your better off playing HM DS 1. Even though it was like GBA graphics that game sucked you in.

Let me just start off by saying I'm a Harvest Moon/Rune Factory freak. SNES to now, I've been playing the wonderful games put out by Natsume and Marvelous. Imagine my surprise when I slipped Grand Bazaar (GB) into the mail 3 hours into playing. No, it was not because it was straight-up horrible. Read to find out my reasons.

Grand Bazaar follows the usual HM premise of you taking control of an abandoned farm, bringing it up to speed, and wooing the ladies/guys (the main character can be male/female). The twist is that you must help kickstart the local town's bazaar on weekends by selling various items found and grown by you. The is what I was looking forward to doing, simply because it had never been done before.

The bazaar-selling portion of the game is the game's strongpoint and the primary motivation to trudge on through the monotonous grind of farming life. I'm fairly used to this addictive grind, so it posed no problem to me. So farming, selling, and owning a shop; what could be wrong? Unfortunately, a lot.

For one, time passes by incredibly slow at a rate of 1 real second to 1 in-game second. This means each hour in the game is one minute. At first, I thought it was nice to have so much time to spare, but then it became a nightmare when I was finished watering my crops, collecting items, and talking to people by 11am; I frequently went to sleep at noon for this reason.

Oh, and another thing: the town is literally 6 transitions on the map. In other words, it's possibly the smallest world in the HM series. There is no mining (a major component of past iterations), beach, and so many common HM continuities.

Despite what I just mentioned, GB does has its moments. The bazaar system is really nice, the graphics are fantastic for a DS installment, and so on. I wish I could say more positive things about it, but I can't find anything else worth mentioning.

I would not recommend GB. Try Rune Factory: Frontier (Wii) or Harvest Moon DS.

Thank you for reading.

If you like working toward goals and don't mind repetitiveness in order to accomplish them, you're probably already a fan of the HM series. You have many things going for you at the start of the game but there is still plenty of work to do. If nothing else spend time talking to people morning and evening if possible(some people are only around in the evenings). There are plenty of bugs to collect and things to pick up(weeds, branches, rocks are actually worth selling even before you get the tools to change them into materials). The bath and restroom will replenish your stamina slightly(though it won't work twice in a row or fastforward time) and there is no fullness gauge to worry about. I've heard some people complain that there are no mines in the game and less area to explore but I've seen one area where a mine might be in time. I think there is room for expansion(boulders on the left) once the Bazaar gets more famous etc. Look at how small the area was in Sunshine Islands or Happiness. One of the main drawbacks for me was the inablity to look at your assets etc. while away from your farm(not to mention the inablity to save when and wherever you want). On the whole, though, I think this game is a good addition to the series.

The game is half way decent.. It seems restrictive at first, but even then you STILL have options.. You can collect bugs, rocks, branches, and even weeds and sell them, but they won't get you alot of money! To really bring home the revenue you will need tools, and your character will need experience like cooking, critter collecting, farming, fishing, and the like..
Which is fine and all but the rarity of this game currently problematic.. It also has some issues with regards to the fact that you don't get a shipping bin, because of the fact that you need to use the bazaar to do the most of your selling.. Fair game overall though.. Try before you buy!

This game was so boring I had to return it the next day!! There was no plot to it. You have to wait around forever doing nothing. A huge waist of time!!!!!!!!! I don't think its for adults way to boring. Mabey fun for kids under 10years of age. But nothing above that!!!!

Alright, allow me to break the pattern of 7's and 8's and give it an average score. I'm a die-hard Harvest Moon fan, I've played just about every game in the series and I've thoroughly enjoyed most of them. The farming simulation has always been addicting enough on its own, but what makes the series truly shine is how atmospheric and deep it tends to be. Most Harvest Moon's have memorable characters and tons of other things to do on the side, so it's kind of your own fault if you get bored.

But not this time. I'm not going to go into huge amounts of detail about the game's mechanics, since if you're reading this you probably already know about it. But you see, outside of tending your farm, there is virtually NOTHING to do. Character's have absolutely zero personality and only say the same two or three things over and over, mining has been taken away, fishing is kind of useless since fish don't really sell for anything (Not to mention you have limited storage, so you don't really want to stock up on lower-selling items)...there just isn't any life to be found within the game's world.

Which is a shame, because the new Bazaar mechanic is actually really good. It's a clever new twist on the formula that forces you to think about how to properly grow your crops, and it suddenly makes cooking and item crafting much more important then ever before due to the high selling prices of your creations. But the problem is that there's just nothing else to look forward to. Even the busiest farmers will be done with their work by 10:00am, and all that's really left to do is forage for more stuff to sell. There's just no incentive to keep playing without all the extra activities and rewards Harvest Moon usually offers.

Harvest Moon Grand Bazaar isn't the worst game in the series, but it's definitely the most boring. It has its moments, and it may still be worth a rental for the die-hard fans out there. Just don't go expecting a new Friends of Mineral Town or anything.

Interesting at first, but eventually boring...
The game is easy to jump into, you start off with a lot of upgrades, and get more of them later on for free. No longer must you spend an entire year's earnings on stupid "makers" that only work for one or two items, and no longer must you spend endless months harvesting wood and stone to get a kitchen or a bath.

The only upgrades you must pay for are extra fields, and expansions of your stable and storage.

The new selling system is interesting, and encourages you to strategize and think about when you plant your items and when they'll be ready for harvest. It's easy to rack up profit via this system, even if you only get to sell once a week.

Unfortunately, at the core of it, the game is still the same. There is not much to it besides farming, theres no mining and fishing is less accessible during winter, so that season often drags on uselessly. The NPCs are bland and say the same thing every day, (so far) regardless of your heart level. Gaining heart levels is excruciatingly slow as well, and you will need a few years minimum to get married due to these harsher requirements.

I'm not sure if you can have a child in this game, as I've not yet played long enough to be able to marry anyone. After getting every upgrade, filling all my fields, and watering, fertilizing, harvesting... a thousand times over, it gets bland. After a year, pretty much everything that can be introduced in the game has been introduced, you've experienced all the festivals, and you've heard all the NPCs have to say.

Part of me wants to keep playing just for the sake of completion, but overall? this game is really boring once you've tried everything once, and that doesn't take long to do. If you're looking for a quick fix of farming, this game might be for you, but its not going to keep you hooked for more than a few days- a week at most. There isn't even any end goal to the storyline to keep you going.

I'm a big fan of the Harvest Moon series,and I am enjoying this recent
addition.For me,the biggest "problem" I had with the other DS versions
was that after awhile,the game would get repetitive and I would quit playing and trade the game in.But with this one,the bazaar makes it alot
more exciting for me....I like the fact that you start out with a kitchen,a
barn,and an outside pen for your chickens.And when you buy a dish at
Joan's restaurant or at the bazaar,you automatically learn the recipe.
And I love the windmills too....you can take stuff like milk,eggs,crops,
ores,ect. and make things that can sell for more at the bazaar than the item itself.This probably would be considered a "newbie" game,but I don't think that's a bad thing.I think it's a good starter game for someone who's never played a HM game.So maybe rent it first to see if
you'll like it enough to buy it.