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
My Take on RF: Azuma, Wholesome Direct 2025, and SoS:GB Updates | Posted at 06:07 PM 13 June 2025
Happy Farm'n Friday! We're rolling full steam into strawberry season! There are more berries in the backyard patch compared to last year, though it's still not enough to satisfy Mr.Fogu's appetite for the red fruit. Gratefully, the local farms in the area produce flats of strawberries for sale. We could also go grab them from a U-pick field, but I did my share of strawberry picking in fields back in the late 1980s as a summer job for a few weeks. It was hot work and only paid enough to purchase a few Weird Al cassette tapes. The farm owners gave us kids a free picnic party at the end at a nearby lake, though. That made up for the lack of income!
Last week we got to finally play Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma. I picked up the Steam version ('cuz no Switch 2....) and opted to play with a controller rather than the keyboard. So far, I am enjoying it much more than Rune Factory 5. While the farming mechanic is not as significant, and there don't appear to be any runes associated with the field crops (that I have seen so far), the story is far less cringy than RF5. While I haven't seen a true purpose for the insertion of Hina and Mauro yet - they seem to be around just to fill profile slots - I am only 20 hours into the game and just unlocked the Autumn season god, Kurama. Don't spoil it for me if she does end up having a role!
I ended up buying the normal edition because the Earthmate Edition offered by Marvelous didn't have anything I would use, but there may have been a missed opportunity there. Iroha's little waist bag. It's adorable. If a replica of her bag had been a goodie for the special edition, I would have forked over the extra money for the bigger package.
The game isn't perfect though; the request board generally has the same tasks every day. Yes, it's a good way of disposing of extra furs and strong claws, but it would be neat if there was some variety to the monster drop requests. Also, for me, the button controls are confusing, as though the designers decided to use every button possible when just one or two pushes of the same button would have been equivalent. Press X to talk to someone, but then press B to pick a chat option or press A to cancel. Why couldn't I just press B to initiate the conversation? I'm also constantly mixing up the town-building mode by accidentally pressing Y when trying to place an object by pressing X. It may be time to play around with the custom button controls the game has available in the Settings menu so this old lady stops mispressing her buttons.
Famitsu reports that first-week physical sales in Japan were about 45,700 physical copies, placing it in second place for sales behind Mario Kart World, which nobody could catch with 782,000 sales. RF didn't have a chance against the new cow cart racer.
Wholesome Direct 2025
This year's Wholesome Direct took place on Saturday, June 7. If you missed the 60-minute presentation, the replay is available on Youtube.
Wholesome Direct showcases cozy indie games that are releasing soon, are mid-development, or are being announced for the first time. Typically during a Wholesome Direct, there will be cat games, puzzle games, and the like, including games from our favorite farming game genre. Past presentations included farm-component games Fields of Mistria, Moonstone Island, and Wyld Flowers.
This year's presentation contained a variety of indie games but, surprisingly, few farming games. As Marvelous is a sponsor of the Wholesome Direct, a new promo video for Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar was included (though Marv isn't an indie developer); we'll go over that in a little bit.
The few farming games included in this year's direct are:
Luma Island
This one-to-four-player game has been available since November last year, with a new (and free!) pirate-themed edition available on June 20. In this game, players start with a plot of land to build their perfect farm, but there's more to do than simply farming and ranching! The whole island is full of adventure. There's a nearby town, a forest to explore, mines to excavate, and more. There is also a professions system where players can specialize in a job, such as archaeologist or fisherman, along with quest lines to unlock new job skills.
The new pirate-themed version of the game brings a new area with mini-games, a temple to explore, more quests and clothing outfits, a new job profession, and more. Save files from the base game won't carry over one-to-one to the new expansion; players will get most of their inventory, their farm gets packed away, and constructed decor will be converted into resources and money. Players can also choose to start a new save file for pirate mode.
Collector's Cove
This boat-farm sailing adventure has players exploring the ocean to locate everything and become the world's ultimate Named Collector by completing every entry in the Collector's Compendium. Great for those of us completionist-style players! Decorate the farm boat, grow rare crops discovered on adventures, and grow bonds with the ship propulsion system (which can conveniently also water crops). There are no enemies to battle on the high seas; just a tranquil adventure to discover rare fish and crops.
This game is planned for a 2026 release on Steam, and a FREE demo is currently available if you want to check it out. The four-person indie development team at VoodooDuck is seeking player feedback!
SoS:GB Updates
A new cozy-feeling trailer was released during the Wholesome Direct for Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar, scheduled to be released on Switch and PC/Steam on August 27.
This new EN trailer revealed voice recordings for several characters outside of those we hear often (such as Mayor Felix). The official Marv US website now includes the names of most of the voice actors playing each character's role. Both Japanese and English voice casts are noted since the game supports dual audio. The website does not include information on some characters, such as Woofio, Pierre, Rebecca, the Harvest Sprites, Gannon, and Matsuba. A few of the Grand Bazaar cast also voiced characters in Rune Factory games.
Marriage Candidates
- Arata = EN: Y. Chang, JP: Daiki Hamano
- Derek = EN: Mark Whitten (Woolby's EN VA, RF: Azuma), JP: Shoya Chiba
- Diana = EN: Cassie Ewulu, JP: Yumiri Hanamori
- Freya = EN: Cat Protano, JP: Ai Kakuma
- Gabriel = EN: Kieran Regan (Fubuki's EN VA, RF: Azuma), JP: Wataru Urata
- Jules = EN: Howard Wang, JP: Yuma Uchida
- June = EN: Jennifer Losi (Sofia's EN VA, RF3: Special), JP: Maaya Uchida
- Kagetsu = EN: Anne Yatco (Matsuri's EN VA, RF: Azuma), JP: Megumi Han
- Lloyd = EN: Daman Mills, JP: Koki Uchiyama
- Maple = EN: Madeline Dorroh, JP: Nao Toyama
- Samir = EN: Nazeeh Tarsha, JP: Takeo Otsuka
- Sophie = EN: Deva Marie Gregory, JP: Manaka Iwami
Villagers
- Clara = EN: Misty Lee, JP: Kana Ueda
- Erik = EN: Chris Hackney (Reinhard's EN VA, RF5), JP: Show Hayami
- Felix = EN: Brent Mukai, JP: Hiroki Yasumoto
- Isaac = EN: Jonathan Lipow, JP: Hitoshi Bifu
- Kevin = EN: Melissa Hutchison, JP: Satsumi Matsuda
- Laurie = EN: Ratana, JP: Kokoa Amano
- Madeleine = EN: Rachel Robinson, JP: Kyo Yaoya
- Miguel = EN: Luis Bermudez, JP: Wataru Takagi
- Mina = EN: Brianna Knickerbocker (Ludmilla's EN VA, RF5), JP: Asami Imai
- Nadine = EN: Amber Lee Connors (Sakuya's EN VA, RF3: Special), JP: Rika Tachibana
- Sonia = EN: Janis Carroll, JP: Reiko Suzuki
- Stuart = EN: Keith Silverstein, JP: Junpei Morita
- Sylvia = EN: Dani Chambers, JP: Honoka Inoue
- Wilbur = EN: Andrew Russell, JP: Shinya Fukumatsu
(A few voice actors also were in Farmagia, but we don't talk about Farmagia...)
The new promotional trailer also showed a little bit of the new fishing mechanic. In the original Nintendo DS version of Grand Bazaar, fishing was a simple mechanic - press the B Button when standing on a pier to cast the line, and repeatedly press the A Button to reel in the snagged fish. In the remake of GB, it looks as though reeling in a fish is a push-the-button-noted-onscreen type of mini-game, with the rod strength reflecting the amount of time to successfully match the buttons before the fish escape.
We also have a scene with the greeting button being used with the kids, which has an area of effect that can trigger multiple greeting replies.
Over on the official Marvelous JP website, there were two Zephyr Town Walkers posted. Last Friday's article pointed out that helping the villagers with requests can reap some nice rewards, such as collecting materials to help Isaac repair the windmills. The article also explains how, as the bazaar expands, new vendors will appear to set up booths their own booths, such as Karina from Pioneers of Olive Town, who comes to the bazaar and seeks to set up a booth to sell fashionable goods. Karina will give a request for an accessory (any type) and 15 color dyes so she can set up her shop. Another character, Maru, asks for the player's help to search for her missing chickens, which had been entrusted to her by their former owners to find them a new home.
Today's Zephyr Town Walker is the topic of love (oh la la!). The promo video shows a romantic event with June, Sophie asking the protagonist what they consider them, either a lover or a friend, which the player can select when prompted, and Jules confessing his love. There's also a cute scene of the protagonists' and Jules' little duck-outfit baby.
The article also notes that an indicator will be presented when a romantic event can be triggered. The development team explained that while sometimes it is nice to have surprises, it can also be confusing to players when trying to see these events. They hope clarifying the romantic events with these new signs will be liked by new players and longtime players of the series.
The more significant reveal in this week's article is confirming rival events are preserved in Grand Bazaar.
In the original game, the matched pairs were Sophie and Lloyd, June and Derek, Freya and Jules, and Maple and Gabriel. While you could trigger the rival events to see the cuteness between the two candidates, the couple would never marry. After the release of Grand Bazaar in December 2008 in Japan, rival events were essentially removed from the BokuMono series until the remake of Friends of Mineral Town, where they were made available for earning Farm Degree points, but resulted in zero rival marriages. The last game to have rivals with marriage was Animal Parade, released a few months before Grand Bazaar in Japan in October 2008. (I'm going by the Japanese releases here, not the English ones, and hopefully, my memory and data is accurate!)
The remake of Grand Bazaar will contain rival events, though it is unknown yet whether Marvelous moved forward with including actual marriage or if it will be similar to the original.
Until next time!
- Cher
(Mr.Fogu bought a new starter for the barbecue, and I joked that at least he was able to buy a switch. He found my dad joke pretty funny...)
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