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

Happy Farm'n Friday! Last Sunday started with a simple task - plant those burgundy bush bean sprouts before beginning another day of weekend website work. But then it turned into "I'll just pull a few weeds...", then into picking up loose leaves, and 5 hours later I had done a plethora of yard work!

I also managed to use some of the freshly delivered garden soil from the other week for another mini wildflower meadow in the front yard. Since last year's attempt was a dud, this year, I put the good soil right on top of the crummy clay soil instead of mixing everything together. I hope to succeed better this time with the wildflower seeds tossed into the fresh stuff.

Cozy Bundle Dev Stream

On Wednesday, some of the folks over at Natsume hosted a dev stream of their upcoming 3DS-to-Switch ports of Harvest Moon: The Lost Valley and Harvest Moon: Skytree Village. These two older games are being published as the Natsume Cozy Bundle.

During the one-hour event, they gave an overview of the game and then opened it up to questions from the audience.

Well, you know what I was going to ask...

The topic of the silver fox, Doc, potentially becoming a marriage candidate in a future game was not flat-out rejected, while also recognizing the years I've been inquiring about the possibility (lol). So, there is a sliver of hope we might have a Doc-alicious marriage candidate someday.

Other tidbits of information from the dev steam include:

• All the DLC released for both games will be included in the Switch rereleases, as there is no 3DS eShop to download that content from anymore. This includes such things as new outfits for the farmers, more decorations, extra crops, and a few more marriage candidates: Andrea and Luke from Lost Valley and Edmond and Nova from Skytree Village. The formerly DLC candidates will appear in the Switch games as players progress through the games' stories.
• As the games are generally the same as the original releases, this includes older functionality such as gender-locked marriage. Neither Lost Valley nor Skytree Village supports same-sex marriage.
• While the Cozy Bundle has both games on one cartridge, separate digital versions will also be available. If a farmer wanted to play Skytree Village and not Lost Valley, then they don't have to buy both games. You can buy one or the other or both from the Nintendo eShop.
• Not many changes were made to the games' dialog. The changes typically revolved around updating text to remove references to a bottom screen since the UI was updated to work with the single-screen Switch.
• The games will support English, German, French, and Spanish languages.

The Cozy Bundle will be released on July 3 in North America and July 4 in Europe.

Seikyu EA Launch

Creature transformation farming and life sim game Tales of Seikyu launched on Steam early access on Wednesday. ACE Entertainment released a new trailer that shows off activities players can expect during early access:

The story of Seikyu involves the fox goddess, Inari. The land was originally the homeland of the fox spirits, the youko. While the land has become a safe place for various yokai over the years, the youko have mainly disappeared, minus the protagonist and their fox sister, Kon. As new residents of the little monster town, players will dig through the mystery of what happened to the youko and their missing diety.

This initial release of the game includes:

• the first story chapter,
• the first three yokai shapes the fox-spirit protagonist can transform into,
• romance events with six candidates (Nyotengu, Hephaestus, Musashi, Liliana, Yohji, and Anna),
• more than 40 types of seeds to plant and grow and farm space expansions if you need the room,
• build businesses like a casino and a tavern,
• battle the first two bosses, and
• participate in the first springtime event, the Carp Festival.

ACE will collect feedback from players as they work through adding more content to their farming game. The next update to the game will include another marriage candidate (Mika) plus more heart events, additional story quests, a summer festival, farm animal care, and a hot spring.

• Tales of Seikyu | Steam Store

Early access is currently on Steam, though ACE plans to release their fox-inspirited farming game on home consoles (PlayStation, Switch, and XBox).

Calamity Early Access

Solo-developed farming game Seeds of Calamity (previously titled Pine Lily Village) will launch on Steam early access on Wednesday, March 28. Laborious Lark Studios recently released a new trailer to promote the pixel-style game:

The protagonist of this game starts their adventure in a frontier village. A Great Calamity barrelled through the land twenty years earlier, bringing conflict and destruction. Now that things are somewhat back to normal, it's a good time to move away from the busy capital of Arnfell and start a quieter life on a farm. Grow crops and raise animals, partake in requests from the local villagers, catch fish, cook meals, and more. The goods produced on the farm can then be sent to the capital to help with the restoration efforts.

There are also dungeons to explore, but rather than an active combat experience like with Rune Factory, the exploration conflicts are turned-based battles. The protagonist's pet companion is actually a magic spellbook, recipe book, quest tracker, artifact locator, and cataloging buddy; a undersized PDA of sorts. Unlock spells water, lightning, and fire spells from the Spellbook companion and use them to survive in the dungeons.

The early access release includes village festivals, three dungeons, seasonal crops and quests, about 40 artifacts to collect for the village museum, and more. Future releases will bring more farm animals, villager storylines, more farm decorations and crops, and Steam achievements. Looks great!

• Seeds of Calamity | Steam Store

More Indie Farm'n!

Oh, we're not done yet! Tiny pixel game Cattle Country will be released on PlayStation 5, Steam, and XBox on Tuesday, May 27. Start a new farm'n and ranch'n life in a wild west town with bandits, hoe-downs, and more. Yee haw! A free demo is available on Steam:

• Cattle Country | Steam Store

Grand Bazaar Glider

In this week's Zephyr Town Walker from the official Bokumono website, Marvelous highlights the handy wind glider, a quick way to travel south across the town.

Look at that martial arts guy down there in the snow, showing off his arm moves. With that campfire and the lean-to shelter, it looks like Atara prefers to live outdoors. No thank you, I'll stick with the farmhouse. It's no secret that I don't like snow.

Anyhow, the glider can scoot you across the sky faster than walking. The higher you start gliding, the farther you can travel. The jump barrels scattered around town will help players reach walking shortcuts around town and give a height boost for glider riding.

Wind also has an effect on gliding. Days with more wind will push the glider farther, perhaps taking you to places you couldn't reach on less windy days.

The starting glider is leaf-shaped, but more styles can be unlocked later in the game. Changing glider styles is done using the closet inside the farmhouse.

Until next time!

- Cher
(Nintendo... email please... Switch 2... /sniffle...)

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