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: Grand Bazaar (August 2025)
- North America: Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home Special Edition (October 2025) and Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar (August 2025)
- Europe: Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home Special Edition (October 2025) and Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar (August 2025)
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
Everdream Village Announced, G-Mode BM Released, and Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar Revealed | Posted at 07:19 PM 28 March 2025
Happy Farm'n Friday! Let's just get right into it this week, shall we? :)
Everdream Village
The developers of summertime farmstead game, Everdream Valley, are making a sequel to their cozy farming game. Game studio Mooneaters and publisher Untold Games are currently working on Everdream Village, a new farming game that expands on their first game. Set 10 years after the story of Everdream Valley, this new game has in-depth relationship building, landscape development/terraforming, animal breeding, and more!
Farm, fish, craft, cooking, questing, and more in this scenic farming game that welcomes exploration. Collect resources to build structures in the village and befriend the villagers who move in. The townsfolk have moods, personalities, and routines, so making them happy will benefit both them and your town-building goals. Plus, you might find a bit of romance too.
Untold Games plans to publish this game in 2025. More details to be released later. For now, you can add this game to your Steam wishlist:
G-Mode BokuMono Released
The next mobile-only BokuMono game is now available on Steam with a launch two-week 30% discount. The G-Mode Archive version of Bokujou Monogatari: Minori no Shima puts players in the role of a farmer tasked with revitalizing an island with its bounty sealed away by a goddess. Using pixel graphics and navigation menus, this 2008 mobile game includes animal care, a separate flower garden to grow pretty blooms, and relationship building. You're not going to find a lot of in-depth content, and it is all in Japanese, but it's a cute and inexpensive game.
SoS: Grand Bazaar
During this week's global Nintendo Direct, Marv surprised many with announcing the next game in the SoS series as another remake. Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar will be released on Steam and Nintendo Switch on August 27. This game is published under Marvelous' brand instead of XSeed Games', as Marv moves forward with growing their company recognition outside of Japan.
Looking back at the Marvelous showcases in 2023 and 2024, it's now obvious they were showing off the development of Grand Bazaar. Like, how did I miss it? lol
Taking the least popular game in the DS era and making an updated version is an interesting decision; on the other hand, many players skipped the original game because of its lackluster interest. So for some fans, this is a new game. The DS version was released in 2008 in Japan, 2010 in North America, and 2011 in Europe.
Another note is that the "Grand" in the game's title was added to the remake. The DS game's name in Japan was simply "Welcome! Wind's Bazaar," which was then published as "Grand Bazaar" by Natsume. Now we have "Let's! Wind's Grand Bazaar" in Japan and simply "Grand Bazaar" outside of Japan. Marv sticking with the old English name brings awareness that it is a remake for those who were around in 2008 (and if you weren't, hopefully you're in for some fun!)
If you're unfamiliar with Grand Bazaar, the premise of the game is to run a farm, producing goods to sell at the once-a-week bazaar held at the market grounds in town. You could sell goods to the shops in town during off-bazaar days, but the real profit comes from selling to visitors of the once-famous marketplace. The income and reputation earned is tallied the next day by the town mayor, Felix, who will reward you with a small prize. Improving the goods you sell and upgrading your bazaar stall helps to reach the mayor's profit target, increasing the bazaar size with the goal of making the Zephyr town's bazaar the greatest in the world once again.
The game is generally a hoardfest of saving your best goods to sell at the Saturday shop, whether it is the crops you grow on your farm, the animal goods you can process using the town's windmills, the bugs you catch (ya, bug hunt!), and more. You can also shop at the bazaar and buy things from the other booths such as tool and building upgrades, cooked meals and their recipes, seeds, animals, and so on. The larger the bazaar, the more variety of booths.
Though you can bring all that you can to your stall, you also need to entice market customers to actually stop and buy your stuff. Kind of like a mini game, use the bazaar bell at your booth to get the attention of the folks walking by. Depending on their reaction, they may be interested in purchasing something from your inventory. They'll walk up to the item for sale and then indicate how many they want (e.g., 2 Turnips). You can sell all or some of what they want, or ignore them, which is usually a bad thing. In the DS game, ignored customers are less likely to shop at your booth if they walk by another time. Sometimes customers don't want to buy anything at all - those who are asking for information will earn reputation points for your booth if you answer their question correctly, at least in the DS version.
This remake has little magical sprites who help with cheering your customers to buy more more more! The Cheer Squad gauge in the upper-left corner of the market game increases as you sell goods to customers, allowing you to trigger a Cheer Time bonus mode to earn more money from sales.
You'll also meet visitors from prior BokuMono games. While the original game has characters from the Island of Happiness/Sunshine Islands series (Gannon and Chen), the remake includes more cameo visits. The ones we know of so far are:
- Ronald from Save the Homeland and Hero of Leaf Valley
- Pierre from Island of Happiness and Sunshine Islands
- Rebecca from A New Beginning
- Matsuba from Story of Seasons 1
- Woofio from Trio of Towns
There are new characters too, such as the two new marriage candidates Diana and Arata. Diana is a serious member of the Zephyr bazaar committee with a passion for revitalizing the town's market (reminds me of Ina from Tale of Two Towns), while Arata is a martial artist and big brother character (kinda like Ludus in Trio of Towns).
The remaining 10 marriage candidates from the original game have had a nice glow-up, with the exception of Daisy/Anemone. Her character has been completely redesigned from a young lady in a maid outfit to a more adult-like style while wearing a dirndl dress. She also received a name change from Anemone (her original JP name) to Maple; we'll find out soon if that's also her new EN name, too. All other marriage candidates retain their JP names from the 2008 game, though their EN names have been changed from the original Natsume version: Sherry is now Sophia, and Ivan is now Jules.
Even non-candidates are getting name changes, such as the cafe manager Marian is now called by her Japanese name, Mina. Another major redesign is with the three shopkeeper brothers, Raul, Enrique, and Diego (JP: Mucho, Lucho, and Fucho). The sombreros and ponchos are gone, replaced with snazzy hats, capes, and jackets. Mucho/Raul is now named Miguel. We'll see what other names are updated as Marvelous releases more EN information.
Marvelous in Japan has started posting introduction videos of the Japanese version on their Twitter account, including such topics as:
- Character creation - Face styles, skin tone, hair style and color, eye color, voice option, facial hair options (whaaaaa can haz mustache!), moles, freckles, and body styles
- Voice Options available during character creation based on four Japanese voice actors - Yui Kondo (style A), Junta Terashima (B), Ryota Osaka (C), and Hidenori Takahashi (D).
- More Voice Options to choose from, this time from Yuki Kuwahara (E), Anna Yamaki (F), Reina Ueda (G), and Maria Naganawa (H).
The game includes speaking voices for the character as well, in both the Japanese and English versions. Though Marvelous EU will also be releasing the game with dialog translated in German, French, and Spanish, the audio voice overs will only be available in English and Japanese.
Naturally there will be livestock and poultry. In the DS game the animals were limited to two types of chickens, two types of cows, and two types of sheep. In the remake, there are more varieties (there's 4 chickens just in the above image), plus alpaca! Owning dogs and cats would help with herding the animals every good-weather day, with the cats caring for birds and dogs assigned to the livestock. In the DS game, selling pets wasn't possible. I expect this will be corrected in the new version.
Animal products could be processed using the windmills around town, which takes time depending on the amount of wind blowing through the town. In the DS game, blowing on the console microphone would create in-game wind, speeding up the windmill processing time. Wind is still a factor in the game - there is a windsock icon in the upper-right corner of the above image to indicate the wind power - but most likely we're not going to power it with our mouths.
Physical Switch preorders will have a standard edition and a limited/premium edition for a higher price. Both NA and EU will have the same special edition containing a copy of the Switch game, a 115 page art book, a CD soundtrack, a small suffolk sheep plushie, and a cloth poster in a special box.
In Japan, well, it's Marvelous. Naturally there are a bajillion retailer specific preorder options. Microfiber towels, keychains, pins, postcards, and acrylic standees. Some retailers are offering digital costumes and hang-glider codes: Eon has a pink dog-themed sweatshirt outfit, Kojima has a western outfit, Geo has a chef outfit, Joshin has a yellow bee-themed outfit, Rakuten Books is giving out a blue bouquet outfit, and Yodobashi Camera has a turnip costume. The digital preorders in Japan from the Nintendo eShop have a cow costume and glider bonus goods. You can see the retailer-specific options in Japan on the official JP website:
But, wait, there's more!
Digital preorders will be available in a standard game-only version and a deluxe edition, which unlocks access to the game's DLC, the Trunk of Transformation (/dramatic_music). This DLC includes a ninja-themed outfit, glider, and bazaar booth decor; four new hair style options; and four animal costumes. There's also a suuuuuuper deluxe digital edition that includes the game, the DLC, and a digital version of the artbook and soundtrack for about €10 more than the deluxe edition.
We'll be bazaar'n in about 5 months!
Until next time
-Cher
(Another rainy weekend, and the lawn grass is getting so tall…)
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