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The Ushi No Tane websites specialize in information, FAQs, and guides about the Nintendo console versions of the Harvest Moon, Story of Seasons, and Legend of the River King video games. These game genres are created and published in Japan by Marvelous (JP). In other regions, you'll find Natsume, XSeed Games/Marvelous (USA), Marvelous (EU), and Rising Star involved in the series' release.
The latest version of the mainstream farming series that have been released in various regions of the world are:
The latest version of River King, in all regions of the world, is River King: Mystic Valley (JP 2007, NA 2008, EU 2009).
Since 2000, Ushi no Tane has been run by a grouchy old lady who happens to be fond of video game agriculture along with two feline helpers: Intern Captain Bootu and Intern Hondo Mewnaka. The website is not officially affiliated, sponsored, endorsed, or employed by the developers of Harvest Moon, Story of Seasons, or River King. This is simply a fan site.
Happy Friday!
At the Gamestop Expo last week, there was a preview of Harvest Moon: The Lost Valley aired on Twitch.tv. Graham from Natsume explained a little bit more about the game while a video demo was aired to viewers. You could see that the season was Spring, yet it was snowing as that's part of the stuck-in-winter storyline. There were also some new crops revealed such as pansies (pink, purple, and yellow colored), Pink Dahlias, Carnations, "great" quality crops, White Berries, and Celery. The interview also highlighted the "dirt customization" where players could raise and lower the level of the land, with a maximum of 16 levels in either vertical direction. There are also different types of animal feed such as Great Animal Feed, Silent Feed, and Active Feed.
Another aspect is that when your personal bag is full, the harvested crops will automatically go to your storage instead. No more "your bag is full" message. If you watched the video really close, you could see another character that hasn't been officially introduced yet: the inventor/scientist, Doc.
In other Natsume news, Legend of the River King 2 is now available for purchase from the Nintendo 3DS eShop. The old Gameboy Color game costs $4.99 and requires 49 blocks of SD card space. The game follows the story of two brothers who are sent on a request by Yuki, who accidentally broke the Heaven Jewel into two pieces and asks for your help to retrieve the broken gem. The kid brother starts in the inland area and moves towards the sea, and the teen brother starts in the sea area and moves inland. Their stories are the same but just start in reverse of each other.
There's also an ancient Fogu guide for the game, circa 2000, as well as a text FAQ if you prefer to go that route. Note that the COMM option at the grocery store doesn't do anything in the Virtual Console version, since that was how players would connect their River King and Harvest Moon GBC 2 games together via the Gameboy link cable, allowing them to trade bugs, fish, flowers, and other items.
As for Story of Seasons, we already know that the added Novice mode reduces shopkeeper prices and conserves stamina when using tools, but it also decreases the amount of shipped items required for unlocking the last two Trade Depot vendors, Ice Country and Tropical Country. Players are still required to ship at least 3 million G worth of goods, but the specific items required for each vendor to unlock have been reduced by 30%.
For example with the Ice Country requirement, players are required to ship at least 100 fences (among other things) to the vendors at the Trade Depot. When playing Novice mode, you only have to ship 70 fences to meet the shipped-fences requirement. That’s a little bit easier compared to the original Veteran mode of the game.
Will the game still have two modes when it is released in North America, or will the standard be Novice mode? *shrug*
Also coming out of Japan is news from Marvelous about a crossover between Bokujou Monogatari and the classic strategy RPG, Popolocrois. The game is called Popolocrois Bokujou Monogatari and will be for the Nintendo 3DS system. It isn’t a full Bokumono game, but rather a Popolocrois game with farming aspects added in. It is being produced by Yoshifumi Hashimoto, who has just finished up Forbidden Magna (3DS, Oct 2 Jp release), and Tamori Yousuke, the creator of the Popolocrois manga series. It looks like our farming video game producer doesn’t get very many breaks between games.
Marvelous has launched their official website about the game at http://www.marv.jp/special/game/3ds/popoboku if you want to check it out. There are screenshots of Prince Pietro growing and harvesting crops, which will be shipped for money. It looks quite pretty.
The game has only been recently announced, so we’ll have to wait and see how much of our farming game is rolled into this new 3DS game.
And here is the October Nintendo DREAM 4-col comic!
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