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! I spent last weekend painting the color that I thought would look good on the walls of my new office. It looked fine on the sample at the paint store, and it was a lighter shade when first applied to the wall, but after several coats of new paint to cover the ugly beige left over from the former homeowner, I could see the huuuuuge decision error.

Yea, nope! I tried living with Care Bear Funshine yellow for a few days, but it was simply too much. My dearest changed the luminosity color of the room's lightbulb to be more white than yellow, but not even that could tone down the extreme happiness that color brings. It would be great for a kid's room or maybe a kindergarten classroom, but it's not suitable for a combination home office and farming website headquarters!

The general contractor stopped by to review the last bit of work that his crew did with the floors, and even he was baffled about how radiant the walls became as the yellow paint dried and cured. The GC noticed that not even the paint dried on the side of the paint can was that eye-straining bright. The interaction with the underlying beige appears to have caused a wonkiness that nobody expected.

Despite Mr.Fogu's insistence that it looked fine, there's no way I could work in an office with walls constantly yelling at me. He sensed my displeasure with the outcome, and because he would have to live with the color and my never-ending grumbling about the issue, he picked up a gallon of primer the other day and repainted the entire room to void the yellow. Now I'm spending this weekend painting the room again, but at least it's not "vanilla ice cream" yellow anymore! Huzzah Mr.Fogu saved the day!

SoS:AWL Updates

I've been able to play more of the game here and there. In general, I'm still enjoying the game even though I've only reached Chapter 2. After the morning farm chores (watering, milking, etc.), there's no pressure to put items in a maker machine or go mining for tool upgrade ores. One can do nothing at all for the rest of the day and still make progress. The return to the simplicity of A Wonderful Life is refreshing. Perhaps that's why the original game would lead me to frequently doze off. Zzzz...

As I've played through some more, here are a few tidbits I've noticed (for both veteran and new players of AWL):

• Seeds can't be planted in the season they aren't intended to grow in; not even pre-seeding on the last day of the season works. Even crops that are typically springtime crops, such as Turnips, have to wait until their scheduled growth season. Likewise, crops will wilt on the first day of the new season they aren't intended to grow in.
• The generation 1 crops (Tomato, Melon, Potato, etc.) can grow over multiple seasons except for Yams, which only grow during autumn. The growing season does stagger. For example, Strawberry is an autumn, winter, and spring crop, while Tomato is a spring, summer, and autumn crop.
• Fertilizer is very cheap (20 G each) and can be placed on the crops one at a time or spread across multiple crops by holding down the Y button.
• The villagers in Chapter 2 don't vary their dialog much compared to Chapter 1. Almost every original townsfolk talks about the same things except for Galen. He's not in a talkative mood.
• The bulletin board next to the inn has a pinwheel attached to it that will spin when someone has posted a new fetch request. Just reading the request adds it to the Requests section of the main menu. Most requests have a fixed number of days they need to be completed (typically by the end of the season), but the ones with a flower background are special requests and have an extended timeframe or no time limit. Special requests include the alarm clock from Grant and a sand shovel/bucket toy from Lou for the kid. Requests for bringing a cooked meal to the requester will also give you the recipe.
• There also isn't a lot of board requests. After the requests that did appear are turned in, new requests appear at the start of the next season.
• I still haven't needed to impregnate my original Normal Cow. Though she makes less milk during summer, she's still pumping 2 milk per day. Takakura theorizes that cows make less milk during this season because of the warmer weather.
• Animals becoming pregnant on their own if both sexes of animals are on the farm still holds true in the remake. I discovered my female sheep was pregnant in early spring. She goes outside in the pasture when called, and her wool can still be shaved.
• The Seed Maker sits next to the farmhouse. The front face of the machine will change colors when a crop has finished being converted into 2 bags of seeds.
• Tsurudan, the hybrid-mixing plant in Takakura's house, needs to be friendly towards you before they accept crops to make into new seeds. This means the plant needs to be on the pink side of the friendship gauge noted in the Villagers section of the main menu. You can only talk to Tsurudan to raise its friendship, but you can do this multiple times per day. The friendship gauge will increase each time you listen to the plant talk until they eventually ask if you want to mix things up.
• Van appears to still only sell the goat during the spring season. I didn't have the 40,000 G to buy the goat starting in Chapter 2; it took until summer before I had enough to purchase the animal. Now Van doesn't have it for sale anymore. Oops! I guess that's one thing that didn't change from the original game!
• The bag does have a sort function. Press the "+" button in the rucksack menu to space everything back up nice and neat, starting from the first row of the bag and moving down as the spaces fill up. You can't control the sort order, though. Animal products will be sorted to the front, followed by seeds, crops, fish, wild items, dig site items, and so on. The contents of the storage cabinet and refrigerators can also be tidied up in this manner.

According to this week's Weekly Famitsu estimation of physical game sales, SoS:AWL sold another 9,522 units, bringing the total sales ending on February 5 to 50,281. The game does not have the same sales figures as PoOT or SoS:FoMT, but it's doing better than Grand Bazaar.

Farm'n... Boots?

Japan's appreciation for rice farming game Sakuna: of Rice and Ruin has made its way to limited-batch alcohol, a rice-farming class at an agricultural college, figurines, manga series, a live-streamed concert of the game's soundtrack, and other merchandise. Character goods retailer Anmibus recently added a pair of Sakuna-themed red rubber boots to its plethora of Sakuna goods for sale off the company's website. These rice-kick'n galoshes will be available for preorder next month for 19,800円 (without tax), which equates to about $150 USD at today's money exchange rate. Besides the cute Sakuna logo printed on the front, the purple heel of the boot is also stamped with the Sakuna logo. Definitely a unique item for any Sakuna fan! Although the preorders open on March 9, the boots won't actually be shipped until August.

You can see more images of the Sakuna boots on the Amnibus website:

• Sakuna: of Rice and Ruin Unisex Long Rubber Boots

Steam Next Fest

Several farming games have free demos available during this season's Next Fest, a showcase of upcoming games that lasts until February 13 (next Monday), taking place on the Steam gaming platform.

• Cornucopia - "A charming 2.5D farming RPG sim with unique mechanics like pet-assisted gathering and combat, animal auctioning and breeding, buying more homes, and a magnifying glass and compost system. Explore a bustling world, make friends, marry, have children, play mini-games, and attend festivals."
• Sunnyside - "Bridge the gap between tradition and modernism in this JRPG farm-sim as you find harmony in the Japanese countryside. Cultivate new experiences, build a thriving homestead, and let your relationships with the locals blossom."
• Anime Friends - "Upcoming life sim with flying dragons and a farming system. Meet new friends, start your farm, ride on dragons, and get new adventures in flying islands in the world of Anime Friends! Be ready and explore a new sim world!"
• Voltaire the Vegan Vampire - "An action-farming-roguelite, full of whimsical flora and mischievous creatures! Dracula's lastborn, Voltaire, has decided to swap human flesh for ~*plant flesh*~ to satisfy his dark cravings. But be careful: going vegan is not for the feint of heart!"
• Pixelshire - "Build the town of Pixelshire and grow your community in a unique RPG sandbox which mixes life sim elements with town building, exploration, and combat. Express yourself by planning the town to your liking, master trades, get to know your neighbours, and explore the continent of Arcadia."

Until next time!

Cher
(Ok Tsurudan, let's start making hybrids!)

RSS