Review of the bazaar by a new player
I recently decided to give The Bazaar another chance after trying the open beta back in March last year. Back then, the game felt extremely overwhelming to me. My very first run took around two hours. I did read everything carefully, but the overall length and complexity still scared me away from the game, and I ended up uninstalling it.
Recently, I bought the game again together with some friends and gave it another proper try. Since then, I have played around 10 matches, and I wanted to share some feedback. In my opinion, the game has a lot of potential, but a few major changes could take it from being an okay game to an amazing one.
Run length and pacing
The biggest issue for me is still the run length. Runs take far too long. Sometimes I am honestly relieved when I lose, simply because the run is finally over and I can start a new one.
At the moment, my runs take around 1 hour and 15 minutes, which still feels way too long. I have spoken to veteran players who told me their runs usually take around 45 minutes, but that is with much more experience, item knowledge, and strategy knowledge. A new player obviously does not have any of that yet.
In my opinion, a run should take 30 minutes at most. That would make the game much more fun, enjoyable, and replayable. I do not want to surrender just to shorten a run; I want the overall game pace to be faster. I am not sure what the perfect solution is, but the structure of a run may need to be shortened significantly, maybe by reducing the number of hours from six to three? (I know this would be a huge undertaking but it's just an idea)
There are also many small interruptions that make the pacing feel slower than it needs to be. For example, on hour six, you first see the enemy icon, then you click it, then the standoff screen appears, then the carpets roll out, and only after that does the fight begin. After the fight finishes, you click continue, the win dial increases, and then the new day animation plays.
There are simply too many clicks, screens, and repeated animations interrupting the flow. After only around 10 games, I already feel tired of these sequences. I think the game would benefit a lot from drastically reducing this friction.
Monetization and hero pricing
My second major point is monetization. I do not understand why a hero costs roughly the same amount as the base game, while many cosmetics are handed out for free. To me, this feels backwards.
Heroes are not just cosmetic; they are a core gameplay mechanic. Locking them behind such a high price makes the game feel unnecessarily restrictive. At the same time, because cosmetics are given out so frequently, they end up feeling less special.
Personally, I think it would make more sense to make heroes much easier to access and let cosmetics feel more premium instead. A free hero rotation, a hero bundle, or simply reducing the price of individual heroes to something like 5 EUR would already make a big difference.
I would love to try new heroes, but right now the cost feels too high for something that is such an important part of the actual game experience.
Art, animations, and UI
That said, I want to clearly mention that the art and animations are absolutely amazing. I especially love how enchantments visually affect the cards and make them shine or glow in a way that matches the effect.
This is extremely well done, and I do not think I have seen it executed this cleanly in another game. The UI also feels very polished, clean, and visually appealing.
Playing with friends
Finally, I think playing with friends would make the game much more attractive long-term. Games like this are often much more enjoyable when you can experience them together, either by queueing together, playing a duo mode, or having some kind of side-by-side cooperative experience.
I understand that The Bazaar is asynchronous, so this may not be easy to solve. Still, being able to properly play with a friend would make me much more likely to keep playing and recommend the game to others.
Overall, I think The Bazaar has a great foundation, especially in terms of presentation, art direction, and core ideas. However, the run length, pacing interruptions, hero pricing, and lack of friend-based gameplay currently make it harder for me to fully enjoy the game long-term.