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! Even though the spring bulbs are coming up, the latest batch of unexpected snow makes it feel more wintery than ever. Brrr! The snow is slowly melting, but it freezes overnight on the road. Our local big hill has turned into an ice rink, with a plethora of abandoned cars. Luckily, the cars driving by Fogu HQ are going downhill. This afternoon, my neighbor tried to drive out of his place and go up the hill; the vehicle is now parked along the side of the street.

We got the new Playstation VR2, but I haven't played it yet. I caught a cold and don't want to get snot all over the headset. I'll just sneeze on the Switch instead!

SoS:AWL Gameplay Updates

I finally reached Chapter 4 and ventured into the teenage years. Edith is still slightly interested in being scholarly, but her artistic trait is strong! Even the scene at the end of Chapter 3 had her and Gordy together, and Nami pointed out Edith was interested in artistic things.

The valley's residents have gotten a little older. Molly and Rock have changed their clothing from their original outfits to muted colors. I don't remember reaching this point in the original game. Having each chapter only 1 year long makes it feel like there's more progress.

Before the game was released, Marv was promoting that more crops were added for players to grow on their farms. That's sort of the case...

While they didn't add any new types of generation-1 crops and trees, what did change was their color to make them "new" crops. The Trickblue Flower can be given to Tsurudan along with a bag of gen-1 seeds to make a blue version of the plant. Hand over a Trickblue and a Potato Seed and get a blue-colored potato called a Pabluta. A Trickblue and a Banana Seed becomes a Mabluge, a Trickblue a Strawberry becomes a BerriBlue, and so on. So 13 new plants are just blue-colored versions of the base crops and trees.

The generation-2 crops and trees are the same as in the original game. There are 28 gen-2 crops and 10 gen-2 fruit trees discovered using the same combinations as in AWL. A Melon and a Tomato become a Melotoma (or a "Metoroma" in the JP version), a Carrot and a Yam makes a Kanro, and such and such.

The gen-3 fruit trees are also the same 9 plants as in AWL, but there are 38 gen-3 crops. There were 24 generation-3 crops in the original game. I've only grown 3 of them so far (#1, #2, and #34). The two from the OG game generally looked the same as they did 20 years ago, but the new one (#34) is the red paper lantern crop, which wiggles and has a Japanese-drum-like sound when standing next to the plant. Can't wait to see how the others turn out!

The fruit trees don't produce as much fruit in this version of AWL. They will flower the season before they have fruit. Collecting the fruit is either by shaking the tree, which then drops the fruit that auto-collects into your inventory, or picking it up off the ground one at a time. A tree only produces about 14 fruit and is finished fruiting around the middle of the season. The tree will flower again after all its fruit is gone, but it doesn't stop flowering to produce more fruit. I'm unsure if there is a way to make them produce more fruit, but not even my Rank S Magenge tree grows more than 14.

On the other hand, the fruit does sell for more money. Gen-1 tree fruit sell for two to three times more than the original game, while gen-2 and gen-3 fruit sells for a lot more. For example, the persimmon-like gen-3 fruit (at rank B) sold for 100 G in the original game. Now they sell for 485 G. Converting the gen-3 fruit back into seeds isn't profitable in SoS:AWL. While the persimmon tree seed sold for about 1000 G in AWL and then reduced to around 200 G in AnWL and OhWL, in the remake, the profit from selling a rank B persimmon-like gen-3 seed is now only 100 G.

You can shave a pregnant sheep's wool while she is in the birthing pen inside the barn, but a pregnant cow in the birthing pen cannot be milked. The cow does produce the special Mom Milk after giving birth, which can be fed to the baby cow. The special milk can't be sold. After a few days, the mom cow will start producing two extra milk. Normally, a cow produces 3 milk in spring and autumn and 2 milk in summer and winter. A cow that has given birth will produce 5 milk during spring and autumn and 4 milk during summer and winter. So while you don't have to impregnate a cow to continue her milk production, there is an advantage to doing so.

The fourth-week physical unit sales for the game lowered to 2948, with an overall total of 57,909. The game has dropped to #20 on the Weekly Famitsu game sales report. For comparison, PoOT didn't drop to that level of sales until week 7 post-release, but it also had four times the number of units sold by then.

RF3 Next Week

The Japan release for the Nintendo Switch version of Rune Factory 3 Special is next Thursday (March 2). Besides the various retailer-specific preorder bonus goods, Marv has also collaborated with popular social media chef Ryuji and his viral cooking recipes. This week, recipe researcher Ryuji recreated the game's Supreme Curry recipe. Ryuji added his own twist by adding shrimp and making Supreme Shrimp Curry!

You can watch him cook up some Supreme Curry on his Youtube channel:

• Make Restaurant-Quality Curry in 15 Minutes | Rune Factory 3 Collaboration

Alas, Mr.Fogu hates everything curry (and coffee, cilantro, etc.), and I'm allergic to shrimp, but other than that, it looks delicious!

Wandering Village Update

Stray Fawn Studios has released an update for their monster-back farming game The Wandering Village. This game now has full controller support, Steam Deck support, achievement trophies, and more. You can read the full list of improvements on the developer's website:

• The Wandering Village | New Update 0.2.0

Research Story EA

On Monday, the indie farming game Research Story launched in Early Access on Steam. Developed by Petal Cat Games, players will explore Shimmerbrook as a researcher from the Violet Archive. The goal is to record data about the animals and plants discovered throughout the land.

After clearing the farm space, seeds are found by looking around for wild plants. Once enough knowledge is learned about a plant, you can collect its seeds to grow on the farm. Plant success is determined by the soil the plant grows in, the amount of sun or shade exposure, distance from a water source, and even the weather when the seed was planted. Learn about the plant to complete its research scroll and add the information to the archive.

Animals require taming to move to the farm, where they'll live in pens constructed and customized just for them. Build a high relationship to unlock perks, such as finding more seeds when foraging wild plants.

The game has relationship-building, romance, quests, fishing, protagonist customization, and a job bulletin board. Players can even collaborate with fellow in-game researchers to help complete the archive.

The early access built contains the main storyline and over 60 things to research. Still, it currently doesn't contain the marriage system, festivals, farm automation, and all the research subjects Petal Cat Games intends to have in the game.

You can check it out on the Steam store page:

• Research Story | Steam Store

Until next time!

Cher
(bah, snow!)

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