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:

• Japan: Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life (January 2023)
• North America: Harvest Moon: The Winds of Anthos (September 2023) and Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life (June 2023)
• Europe: Harvest Moon: The Winds of Anthos (October 2023) and Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life (June 2023)

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.

Latest Farming Video Game News

Happy Farm'n Friday! There have been two big farming game releases over the past week, so let's just jump right into it!

HM One World Release

The latest game from Natsume, Harvest Moon: One World released this week for Nintendo Switch and Playstation 4. Natsume noted on their community blog that the Limited Run Game's special bundle has not shipped yet due to the bonus goodies being held up in customs. We'll have to wait a bit longer before I can show you the special music showcase that comes with the LRG version. The Gamestop preorder plushie chickens are also delayed and will be delivered later.

In the meantime, I'll continue to play the Nintendo Switch version instead! I must have my Doc fix! Though Doc is now personified as his descendant, Doc Jr, he is still just as ka-blamy as he always is. Doc Jr helps the protagonist with ore processing, house upgrades, and fancy inventions like the sprinkler that waters the crops in the morning. He's even to befriend simply by giving him Material Stone.

One World sets players out in a search for a way to revive the Harvest Goddess and save the world's bountiful soil. Along the way, they'll discover new crop seeds and five villages that have their own unique problems relating to the poor quality of their environments. Crop seeds can be found all over the place, for free! They'll also appear based on different weather, time of day, and season. Seed wisps hold both base crops (tomato, potato, etc.) and their mutations (crimson, sweet potato, and so on).

The world is large and has few loading scenes. Running around is smooth from one area to another, with just a short display change when moving in and out of buildings. Sometimes I'll see a little bit of a stutter when running through the paths, but it's just a quick blip before things smooth out again. The paths between towns have little alcoves to explore with fruit trees, more wisps, and even wild animals to find.

This game has a large encyclopedia to complete, so it's a good game for those who are completionists and must grow them aaaaaalll. There are over 220 crops, 30 fish to catch, over 300 cooked recipes, and 65 animals to discover. Some animals are easy to find, such as the basic black and white cow, while others only appear at night somewhere in the world.

Growing crops is a bit easier too, with each area of the world having different types of soil where crops could mutate into new varieties. In this version of Harvest Moon, the game encyclopedia shows the mutation path a crop can take. If you haven't discovered the mutation yet, the charge on the crop profile's right-side will have a gray-colored box. Now you'll know whether a crop does or does not mutate.

All in all, I am enjoying One World. The marriage candidates have flavorful personalities and seeing Jamil getting teased by his mom for not having a special someone was pretty amusing. The story is challenging enough that it will take longer to complete than the storyline from Harvest Moon: Light of Hope.

PoOT Updates

Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town released last week on the Nintendo Switch. Famitsu states that the game has sold over 202,000 physical copies since its release on the 25th. That's a lot of one-week sales! The game sold more than Square-Enix's Bravely Default II, which was released on the 26th.

Despite the strong one-week sales, there have been rumblings in the Japan fanbase about the game's shortcomings. The high expectations stemming from Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns has resulted in a less-than-stellar acceptance of the game from some farmers. There's the complaint about the lack of festivals, of which there are only two per season and none relating to farming. When interacting with Olive Town's villagers, the conversations are stale, and there are many long loading screens when moving between areas. Then there's the problem with the maker machines that can only process one item at a time.

The discontent has been great enough that Marvelous and Producer Takemura have published a response and laying out a plan to make updates to the game. The first update will occur mid-March and include bug fixes and optimizations to the loading screens. Another update will be published later that improves the villager conversation dialog, makes the maker machines more efficient, enhances the player's sense of immersion, adjusts gameplay balance, and applies additional corrections.

With PoOT coming out in English at the end of March, I would guess that we'll get the bug-fix patch but unsure about the additional changes.

PoOT JP Physical Edition Preorder Goodies

My copy of the game arrived on Monday. The version I ordered was the Amazon.jp special edition, which came with a game code for the Agate costume, metal clips, and a pluuuuushie!

The stainless-steel metal paper clips are about 1 inch tall and etched with familiar farm animal faces. These can be used as bookmarks or just for holding a stack of up to 10 papers together.

The soft cow plushie is a bit bigger than Marvelous' previous preorder bonus plushies and has a felt bell on its tail. It also has a clip attached to its head to carry it around since it contains a little surprise inside

Folded up within the cow is a medium-sized reusable grocery bag, with one side printed with the BokuMono logo and the reverse side with small vegetable images. It could hold some light-weight groceries, but I wouldn't carry around a 10-lb bag of oranges with it. It's too precious for that!

Gameplay Impressions

My copy of the game arrived on Monday, so I've had a limited time to play. I am enjoying what I have seen so far. There is plenty of small details that I do enjoy, such as when it is raining, the protagonist leaves behind wet footprints when running across the pavement in town. Or the wild animals make little sounds to let you know they're around. Or when the day falls to dusk and the sounds of bugs float through the farm area. So there are plenty of nice things to see.

But then there are some odd design choices, such as the bombardment of loading screens. Press A to confirm you want to enter your barns or leave the farm and go to Olive Town. While Trio of Towns required an A-button confirmation to go into a villager's house or shop, no confirmation was required to exit the house like there is in Olive Town.

Whenever moving from one area to another, the game opens a loading screen that displays basic photographs or photographs captures by other PoOT players. Cow butts are cute, but sometimes the images can get on the creepy side. Seeing a photo of Linh's chest area over and over can get a bit awkward after a while.

Another noticeable functionality is the movement of the villagers themselves, or lack thereof, to be precise. While the protagonist will animate their arms when left idle, the villagers will simply stand in place inside their houses until their scheduled time to walk somewhere else.

My farm only has two maker machines placed within the space, but there is a little bit of a slowdown while running past groups of trees. While it is nice that the game makes an effort to insert gaps through the tree foliage so you can see the protagonist behind everything, the chopped-down trees reappear on the farm as tiny seedlings after a day or so. While the little seedlings can be smashed back to the ground with the hammer, they keep sprouting like crazy! It's like the wild squirrel on grandpa's farm is planting quick-grow trees overnight.

Looking forward to seeing how the planned change improve the game!

Until next time!

- Cher
(Finally started taking the ornaments off the Christmas tree this week. Gotta do it sometime, right?)

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