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! We finally got some rain that made the smoky skies clear once again, or as clear as rain clouds can make it. Air quality went from 195 AQI on Thursday to 23 AQI today. The interns were glad to spend some after-breakfast time outside in their catio this morning, and Intern Hondo was kind enough to leave his slug friends outdoors.

I learned the other day that I could play the SNES game on my North American Nintendo Switch. "Whaaaa, you didn't know how?!" you say? No, I didn't know! If you didn't know how either, you first need a paid Nintendo Switch Online membership with access to the virtual console systems. You also need a Nintendo profile account registered on the Switch with Japan as its primary region to access the Japan-based Nintendo eShop. Then simply log into the Japan account, access the Japan eShop to visit the JP NSO page, and download the NES, SNES, and N64 virtual consoles (free - 無料!) as part of your NSO benefits. To play the Japan VC games, simply select the Japan VC app when using the profile that your NSO membership is associated with.

With Bokujou Monogatari 2 (HM64) planned for an NSO VC release in Japan next year, maybe I'll finally get around to playing through the game more than a few in-game days. I've tried a few times on the WiiU virtual console, but I just can't seem to get into it...

New Kickstarter - Sally

A cute life sim game with farming aspects launched a crowdfunding campaign this week. Sally puts the player on a flying ship exploring the sky and its floating islands while helping their fellow kid crewmembers discover their personal potential.

In this game, players will embark on a journey to find their own home island with a group of fellow kids and two nurturing grandma-like figures, Alice and Beatrix. At the start of the game, the crew kids are automatically generated with random looks and personalities. There will be preconfigured crew kids that are standard to every game for you to choose from as well. As the crew is different in every game, this makes for an interesting relationship-building experience. The crew will respond to the protagonist based on the player's personality, mood, and memories.

To move the story along, players will repair the neglected bits of the ship and customize Sally's deck with plants, crop fields, and decor. The plants grown in the fields can be cooked into meals and given to fellow crewmates to improve relationships. The core experience of Sally is the relationships built during the ship's journey.

Besides growing crops, players can pick wild items from floating islands that Sally visits. Wild animals will also live on these island biomes that can drop materials for cooking, gifting, crafting, and completing quests.

Located in Montreal, development studio Lucid Tales hopes to receive enough funding to complete and fully release their sky-dream sometime in Quarter 1 2025 on Steam, with a stretch goal for a Nintendo Switch edition. The Kickstarter ends on November 17. You can learn more about this game on the Kickstarter website:

• Sally | A cozy life-sim game about community and belonging

SoS:AWL Cows

Marvelous posted a tweet this week that walks through a bovine baby birth in three screenshots. The first one is the typical animal birth event with Nik, Nac, and Flak when a momma cow gives birth. The next two images are a bit more interesting.

The second screenshot reveals that the baby cow is no longer sectioned off into a separate calf hutch. Huzzah! Be free, little dude! The protagonist is shown hand-feeding Mother's Milk to the baby cow, so we know that mechanic continues on in the remake of HM:AWL.

If you're unfamiliar with Mother's Milk, it is a special type of milk that the mother cow produces for several day after giving birth. Ideally, this special milk would be hand-fed to a baby cow twice daily. Once you run out of Mother's Milk, you can feed normal milk or fodder to the baby cow. If Marv's screenshot indicates a cow that has given birth is producing Mother's Milk, there's a good chance that players will need to breed cows to encourage milk production. In the original Gamecube game, a cow's milk production is plentiful after she gives birth and becomes weaker as the year goes on. Eventually, the cow will stop producing milk until she gives birth again. Pregnancy requires the use of a bull. Players can rent a bull for a small fee or own a bull on their farm. The advantage of owning a bull is that it allows cows to become pregnant naturally once they stop milk production, but the bull takes up precious barn space. While you can breed any cow variety with each other (e.g., a normal cow with a marble bull), you have better chances of a female calf offspring when the two parents are the same type.

The third screenshot is the baby cow in its medium cow form; if it was an adult, the cow would be visibly taller than the protagonist. In the original HM:AWL, a baby cow takes 20 days (2 seasons) to mature into a medium-sized cow. In the second of Marvelous' screenshots with the Mother's Milk, the date is Indigo 5 (Winter 5 in the EN version), and in the third image, the date is Pepper 5 (aka, Summer 5). These imaged dates align with the baby-to-juvenile cow growth rate from the original Gamecube game, which would place each season also at 10 days long in the remake.

Harvestella Sprites

Square Enix's version of a farming life-sim game, Harvestella, will be released for Nintendo Switch and Steam/PC on November 4. This week, SE revealed that their game has its own take on farm-helper Harvest Sprites.

In Harvestella, the four seasons are influenced by giant crystals called Seaslights. The towns near the Seaslights enjoy the seasons each of the Seaslights blesses them with. The town of Nemea is surrounded by spring cherry blossoms, Shatolla is in a beachy summertime area, starting town Lethe Village is wrapped by colorful autumn leaves, and the holy city Argene is covered in snow and ice.

From A look at Winter in HARVESTELLA

During the game, the protagonist will be recruited by Seaslight faerie Juno to help the other faeries found at the Seaslights. The faerie sprites will also help the player with their farm as they complete Faerie Orders. These orders are tasks - such as harvesting a specified number of crops, crafting goods, and completing town quests - that unlock tool upgrades and farm enhancements. For example, once the player marks 3 Faerie Orders from wind faerie Aeril as completed, she will bless the player with the ability to harvest more than 1 square of crops simultaneously. The faeries can also improve fields for growing and harvesting higher-quality crops. Sounds like it would be pretty beneficial to help out that bossy fire faerie!

Until next time!

Cher
(It's beginning to look a lot like Christmaaaaas...)

RSS