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: Home Sweet Home (August 2024) and Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life (June 2023)
• Europe: Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home (August 2024) 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

A Summary of Daiki Yamashita's 2nd Let's Play of SoS: Grand Bazaar, and a List of Popular Steam Summer Sale Discounted Farming Games | Posted at 05:50 PM 27 June 2025

Happy Farm'n Friday! Something happened to Summer over here; the season seems to have gone into hiding. Last weekend, it was rainy and cold enough for snow to accumulate in the mountain passes. Today, it's dark and cloudy. This feels more like Autumn than Summertime. Even the pool noodle fell out of the neighborhood tree skelly's grasp. The two hybrid tomato plants have stopped growing due to the cold, and they weren't growing much before the temperature dropped! At least the zucchini in the front yard are doing amazingly well, though the lettuce in the garden box directly below Big Doug has had no growth for months. Thanks Doug...

I have not played much Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma over the past week. I did manage to find the boss of the first astral shrine, who quickly defeated my battle party, which included Murasame as part of the story. Once I ditched him and switched back to Mauro, Watarase, and my monster pet Dusk Tengu, and discovered there was a giant bullseye to shoot at when the boss was stunned, I had an easier time clearing the first shrine. Still playing hard mode, too! Now, I'm exploring the next shrine in the sequence.

It's still a pretty game, though the dungeons seem small so far. I tamed several elemental wisps to live in the animal barns I set up in Winter Village because they look pretty cool, but they only produce Rocks every day. Plain 'ol grey Rocks. I think my expectations were too high. lol!

Also, next week is the release of the Natsume cozy bundle featuring the Switch remakes of Harvest Moon: The Lost Valley and Harvest Moon: Skytree Village. Both games can be purchased together from the Natsume Online Store. The games are not yet available for preorder on the eShop, but they will be available as separate, unbundled purchases.

SoS:GB Updates

In this week's Zephyr Town Walker, Marvelous showed off the new mini-game for fishing and confirmed that the bug catching element was still in the remake of Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar

The small snippet in this week's news article shows the protagonist catching a large fish - a Grass Carp - using an upgraded fishing pole. The protagonist also used Guardian Fish Bait, which wasn't a thing in the original DS game. Instead of madly mashing the A Button to reel in a fish, in this new version of Grand Bazaar, we'll be playing a follow-the-prompts game. The number of correct button presses is indicated by fish icons, with the time limit noted as a receding bar that is based on the fishing pole's strength. Press the directional pad in the proper direction when promoted within the time limit to successfully reel in the fish. It seems more interesting than pressing A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A over and over. Note that the Grass Carp was not a fish king/guardian in the DS game.

The other component is catching small critters. There are a variety of little fellows to collect: cicadas, beetles, dragonflies, fireflies, frogs, butterflies, and grasshoppers. The critters are seasonal, and some are weather-specific. For example, fireflies are only available on summer nights, and frogs only appear when it is raining. The dragonflies are fast and can require the double-jump skill to reach their flight path, while the squeaky cicadas take stealth to capture before they startle and fly away. While there were 85 critters to collect in the original game, in the remake, there are only 47. Critters have a sale price and can be offloaded at the bazaar.

We also get a brief glimpse of the bookshelf encyclopedia, where we can see that every type of crop has a super variety. While Giant Turnip and Star Potato were in Pioneers of Olive Town, we now have super varieties of existing crops from Grand Bazaar (asparagus) and new crops (lettuce) added to GB. That super carrot looks a bit suspicious...

Early this morning, the second half of Daiki Yamashita's early access experiences was uploaded to Marvelous' Youtube channel. In today's Let's Play, Daiki got a free chicken from Mayor Felix (naming it MaruMaru), had some challenges with catching critters, discovered villagers only accept 1 gift per day, collected a Giant Turnip on his first crop harvest, and helped Isaac fix the farm's windmill.

The staff at Marvelous then realized Daiki was progressing farther into the game than they expected (he's an experienced farmer and skips tutorials), so they loaded a different save game and set him on the path to meeting the Harvest Sprites, the five characters he voices in the Japanese audio for the game. This section of the presentation introduces Happy Energy, the mysterious little music notes that tally on the right side of the screen when the bubbles appear. The sprites explain that Happy Energy is a source of power for them. From watching other videos, it seems Happy Energy can only accumulate; Daiki was earning +100 Happy Energy per customer for using Cheer Time during the bazaar, and that save file had over 300,000 Happy Energy collected so far. Let's collect lots of Happy Energy to make the sprites happy!

Daiki also discovered that pressing on the Right Stick will activate the camera zoom, so use it when you want a close-up to check out a cute animal. Plus, carrying the pet dogs and cats is cute, though I'll say that the Fogu kitty interns would not enjoy being held like the protagonist holds cats. Intern Hondo will go as far as trying to claw his way onto a shoulder or back to escape an arm hold. He does not tolerate being held for longer than 10 seconds!

The presentation confirms that players can ride their horse on their farm and in town.

While messing around with the glider, Daiki initiated a greeting command to give a hearty hello to Diana and Sophie as they walked by. While Diana indicated a boost of affection, Sophie's response was a locked heart, meaning she did not earn any affection from the greeting command. I'm sure we'll learn what this means later.

The little Harvest Sprites also set up a bazaar booth, though it is hidden in the back corner and only accessible by the protagonist. Near the end of Daiki's presentation, they showed Ivy prompted with a menu for exchanging insects. Wonder what's for sale there?

Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar is scheduled to release globally on August 27.

Steam Summer Sale

It's time for the annual video game discount celebration on Steam! From now until July 10, there are a lot of farming games on sale. Yeea haaw! Below is a sample of farming games that are on sale:

• Cattle Country - 20% off ($15.19)
• Coral Island - 30% off ($20.99)
• Cornucopia - 20% off ($19.99, early access)
• Doraemon Story of Seasons - 60% off ($19.99)
• Doraemon Story of Seasons: Friends of the Great Kingdom - 40% off ($29.99)
• Echoes of the Plum Grove - 40% off ($11.99)
• Everafter Falls - 25% off ($14.99)
• Fae Farm - 50% off ($14.99)
• Farlands - 30% off ($10.49, early access)
• Farming Simulator 25 - 15% off ($42.29)
• Fields of Mistria - 20% off ($11.19, early access)
• Harvest Moon: The Winds of Anthos - 50% off ($24.99)
• Harvestella - 60% off ($23.99)
• My Time at Sandrock - 50% off ($19.99)
• Roots of Pacha - 40% off ($14.99)
• Rune Factory 3 Special - 60% off ($15.99)
• Rune Factory 4 Special - 70% off ($8.99)
• Rune Factory 5 - 60% off ($15.99)
• Sakuna: of Rice and Ruin - 50% off ($14.99)
• Snacko - 25% off ($18.74)
• Stardew Valley - 50% off ($7.49)
• Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life - 50% off ($19.99)
• Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town - 75% off ($9.99)
• Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town - 65% off ($13.99)
• Sugardew Island: Your cozy Farm Shop - 25% off ($12.74)
• Sun Haven - 60% off ($9.99)

The Story of Seasons and Rune Facotyr games also have the same discounts on the Nintendo eShop until July 10.

Until next time!

- Cher
(Finally getting a Switch 2 next week! No thanks to Nintendo...)

Feedback: Add

<< Previous page

Next page >>

RSS