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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.
What we learned is that the game still starts out with you traveling by ship to find a new lifestyle for yourself, only to sail into a storm and be shipwrecked on a derelict island. The storm that messed up your boat also caused a lot of damage to the island and its precious lighthouse. It will be your task to repair the villager's houses, shops, and rekindle the lighthouse's beacon. Ideally, you'll also entice former villagers to return as you fix the place up. To help the villagers with their repairs, you will receive requests in your farmhouse mailbox and then get more details by tracking down the villager who made the request. You'll then fetch the items (and possibly the funds) that the person needs.
The island has several environmental areas to it such as a beach, mines, and swamp. The game does not have terraforming, but there are crop mutation that trigger when you plant on different types of land. The mutation's details will tell you how to replicate the mutation, so no more guessing as to how to grow it again.
Besides growing crops, you also will be caring for animals. This includes the standard cows, chickens, and sheep, but also include the DLC animals from Seeds of Memories: the brown cow, cotton sheep, and brown chicken. The poitou donkey also returns along with a horse and dog. In this version of the series there will even be a dog festival for your canine friend to participate in.
The contextual controls have returned where you just have to press a single button to do all of your farm tasks. Push the button to till, plant, water, cut down a tree, cast your fishing line, break rocks, harvest, and so on. The Nintendo Switch version will allow you to either use the Joycon buttons or the touch-screen to control the game. Tool upgrades are also returning so you aren't taping away one square at a time.
The game itself has a flat, 2D background with 3D characters such as the animated conversation portraits from Lost Valley and Skytree Village. Another feature that is returning are the characters from previous versions of Natsume's developed series. Since the at-booth reps were stating there will be five marriage candidates per gender, and the E3 booth artwork itself featured several of them, it seems pretty safe to assume that includes Melanie, Jeanne, Elise, Nova, and Tabitha (for boys) and Dean, Cyril, Edward, Gareth, and (probably) Gabriel (for girls). Note that DOC IS NOT INCLUDED IN THAT GROUP OF FIVE?! Nooooooooooooo :'( :'(
Doc is returning in Light of Hope though, along with other unannounced characters from the past few games.
Until next time!
- Cher
(Now I must start this year's Christmas light inventory count!)Feedback: Add | View (3)| << Previous page | Next page >> |