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've started painting the remaining walls and replacing the door trim now that the floor crew has finished their momentous task. I've picked the colors for the inevitable 1970s-themed office space I'll be working out of soon. The plan is to paint the walls, let the paint cure for a while, and then add an avocado/gold/orange striped supergraphic mural around the room. I also found an accessory wall hook with 70s-style acrylic orbs that looked like it came out of the best decade. I'll be imitating Reina's little happy wiggle in PoOT when the whole thing is finished.

When I was a kid, Grandma P had red shag carpet in her family room. It was very different than the high-pile boring beige in the rest of her house or the industrial-like scratchy carpet at my house. It's one of those things I've learned to appreciate over the years; it is such a fun material that you just can't help but smile at it.

Indie Farming Game Updates

Alien world farming game One Lonely Outpost now plans to have its Early Access launch this June. The game's beta version will be made available to qualified Kickstarter backers at the end of February.

Rural Japan farming game Sunnyside recently released a collaboration video with Nintendo Life that showcases building relationships with the residences of the old town. Look'n good!

• Exclusive: Farming Game SunnySide Shows Off 24 Dateable Residents In New Trailer | Nintendo Life

The spring update for Coral Island will bring a new tree planting festival, NPC swimsuits along with updated NPC daily schedules, and beard options for the player to customize on their protagonist.

SquareHusky is still developing his afterlife town building and farming game Everafter Falls. He recently announced that the game's code has been streamlined to make it simpler for the modding community, and he's still on track to release the game near the end of 2023.

SoS:AWL First Week Unit Sales

As reported by Weekly Famitsu, first-week physical game sales of Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life in Japan was 40,759 units. That may seem like a lot, but it isn't when compared to Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town. PoOT had its first-week unit sales at 202,000, while Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town was a little bit more than 66,000 units during the first four days of its release.

SoS:AWL Marriage Details

In A Wonderful Life, there are generally two ways to get married - be proactive and propose to someone, or wait until the end of the year and be woken up by Takakura, who forces a list of potential partners on you.

Every marriage candidate has a new introduction event that wasn't in the original version. These events easily trigger when you enter the area where they occur. There are no affection requirements for these introductions to trigger; you don't even need to have talked to a marriage candidate to see their intro event.

As before, you give gifts and talk to the villagers and marriage candidates to build relationships. The candidates have diaries inside their houses that display in hearts how they feel about you. A diary entry will begin at 1 heart and move up to 4 hearts. But there's a better indicator inside the Villager section of the main menu. Every person has a friendship gauge with a face icon marking your relationship progress, while the marriage candidates also have heart markers under their portrait to indicate their affection level. By default, every villager already has some level of friendship with your character, but it varies depending on the villager; for example, Patrick is more friendly towards you than his twin brother, Kassey.

The love events start after seeing the introduction events. These events are generally the same as the original game, with a few necessary adjustments. For example, Molly has an event that changed an answer option from "return to the bar" to "return to the shop" since the late-night pub was transformed into a coffee house in the remake.

Cecilia, Molly, and Nami have 5 love events each. The boys and Lumina have 4. Even Gordy had 4 love events even though he's a new marriage candidate. The events become accessible as you increase your love hearts with the candidates. You can see multiple love events per day, and the marriage candidates won't respond negatively as you work towards increasing everyone's love levels to see their events.

In the original game, seeing the 5th romance event with Nami, Molly, or Cecilia would mean the player is going steady with that woman and would be locked out of triggering any remaining romantic events with the others. In SoS:AWL, that does seem to be true for Molly (two of us noticed that we couldn't see other candidates' love events after seeing her 5th). But I could still see other candidates' events after seeing Nami's 5th love event (where she's invited to live with the protagonist); I don't yet know with Cecilia whether her 5th event also locks out other events or if it doesn't.

The original AWL also had a breakup scene that triggered after seeing the 5th romantic event and then giving the Blue Feather to a different candidate. I couldn't get the betrayal-style events to trigger in SoS:AWL. Nami didn't seem to care that I gave the Blue Feather to Molly after seeing Nami's 5th romantic event, and the same went for seeing Molly's 5th romantic event and then giving the Blue Feather to Nami.

In the remake, triggering the 5th romance event does not mean that the player will be marrying Cecilia, Molly, or Nami automatically if the player doesn't hand over the feather during Chapter 1. In the original AWL, the girl with whom you saw a 5th event would appear in Chapter 2 as your partner without having to give her the Blue Feather. That's not the case in this game. In SoS:AWL, not giving the feather will result in the Takakura list event that contains the names of all available candidates to choose a partner from, even if you've seen a woman's 5th romantic event.

Proposing Marriage

To proactively ask a candidate to marry requires giving them a Blue Feather, which you get in the same way as the original - from the Harvest Sprites starting in the summer season. From what I've experienced in the game, if you have seen at least 3 romance events and have at least 6 hearts in the Villager menu (i.e., 4 hearts in their diary), passing over the Blue Feather will trigger a little romantic scene where the person accepts the feather. You then have to wait until the end of Chapter 1 to go through with the newly-added marriage ceremony at the pond in the forest, where you have a small two-person wedding along with a few Harvest Sprite witnesses.

Naturally, handing over the Blue Feather stops all other remaining romantic events from occurring.

If you don't give the feather to anyone and go to bed on Winter 10, Takakura will rudely wake you up (bah!) to let you know that he saw someone wandering around the farm. He will then present you with a list of marriage candidate names to identify as the farm visitor. To have their name appear on Takakura's naughty list, the marriage candidate must have at least 6 hearts of affection.

After picking a name from the list, that person will enter your house and propose to you regardless of how many love events you've experienced with them. For example, I had Gustafa up to 6 hearts, only saw 1 love event with him, and he refused my Blue Feather when I proposed normally. Still, when choosing his name from Takakura's farm visitor list, he showed up and successfully proposed marriage. This new marriage option allows players to marry a candidate they prefer, even if they missed the not-always-easy-to-trigger romantic events.

If you refuse to accept the Blue Feather, then it's game over. The scenes that play will be of Takakura talking to his dead friend, the former farm owner. Takakura will be sad that their friend's offspring decided farming wasn't for them. It's okay though, because the child will find their own way in life; Takakura is sure they'll be successful, so he isn't worried. You can then see the game credits and return to the title screen to reload your last save game.

To propose or to wait for a reverse proposal is up to you. BUT, proactively handing over the feather will unlock an engagement event between you and your future spouse. This event will happen when leaving the farmhouse (either the same day as you propose or the next morning), and they're cute little scenes expressing how they are looking forward to becoming your partner.

I've uploaded all 8 after-engagement videos to the UNoT Youtube channel under the SoS:AWL playlist:

• UNoT Story of Seasons: AWL Videos | Youtube.com

Lastly, Lumina's marriage proposal has not been modernized, at least in the recently-released Japanese version. Giving her the Blue Feather triggers an event with Romana initially being hesitant about the engagement but eventually accepting Lumina's decision. Romana then assures the protagonist that she'll instruct Lumina on how to be a suitable bride, with Sebastian confirming that's the best way for Lumina to become a splendid wife for the player. Lumina then tells the player she'll study hard to become a worthy partner. At the end of Chapter 1, the protagonist heads to the mansion to fetch fiancé Lumina, where Romana reminds the player that her granddaughter is still going through "bride training" (花よめ修業). The adult-version Lumina then appears starting in Chapter 2. So even though Marv up-aged Lumina's physical appearance from the original game, she's unfortunately still treated as an inexperienced child in the Japanese game. This carries into her after engagement event too, where Lumina asks you to escort her to the Blue Bird Cafe, as it is a place where adults socialize that she's always wanted to visit; this makes sense when the Blue Bird was a night pub, but not so much now that the place is a coffee house. Hopefully, XSeed will give more respect and maturity to our Lumina in the localized version.

Until next time!

Cher
(Hmm... maybe I should marry Nami, just like I did 20 years ago...)

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