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
Harvest Moon Remakes Delayed, Cooking in SoS: Grand Bazaar, and Paleo Pines Funding Updates | Posted at 02:37 PM 04 July 2025
Happy Farm'n Friday! It's blueberry season again, and the bushes are full of fruit. The nieces visited last weekend to pick as much as they could carry home, which only made a slight dent in the berry bushes. Mr.Fogu has been taking them to the office to share with his coworkers, too. This morning, we picked six more pounds of blueberries. Time to break out the blueberry cookbook and find something tasty to bake! There's a blueberry bundt cake that includes allspice, cinnamon, and cloves that might be delicious.
I made it a little farther in Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma this week, finding the last of the astral shrines and finally meeting the mystic, Ikaruga. He kept appearing in Spring Village before that, but his name was always "????" so I didn't know who he was.
I also ventured back to the Limestone Caverns to befriend the ghost-horse boss as a new battle buddy. If the monster looks cool, then maybe the horse is a great fighter? Alas, that was definitely not true. The Spectral Warrior is a stinker of a party member. The rider swings their sword around for a bit and then just stands there like it was pausing during a boss battle. Bah, I have no room during a heated fight for such slack-tastrophy. Switched the warrior out with good 'ol Dusk Tengu and got back to business.
HM: Lost Valley and Skytree Village Delay
This week was the expected release date of the cozy bundle of Harvest Moon: The Lost Valley and Harvest Moon: Skytree Village. These remakes of the original 3DS games were scheduled for a July 3 physical and digital release for the Nintendo Switch. Unfortunately, Natsume announced that the game's release date has been shifted to July 31. Which is fine; that gives me more time to finish Rune Factory!
SoS:GB Updates
We have less than 55 days to go until the global release of Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar for Nintendo Switch and PC/Steam. In this week's Zephyr Town Walker, Marvelous JP shares details of the cooking system.
In the original DS game, buying meals from the cafes would add the meals' recipe to the player's cookbook. The other way to learn recipes was to select ingredients and experiment to discover new meal combinations, as long as you had the appropriate cooking utensils purchased for the kitchen.
In the remake, this week's article notes that the player has to eat the purchased meal to learn the recipe. Meals can also have Meal Power temporary status effects, such as the Strawberry Pie granting animal petting benefits or Herb Soup adding a temporary movement speed boost.
Recipes are categorized as Soup, Salad, Appetizers, Main, Dessert, and Drink. Each recipe displays the required ingredients and indicates whether an option to add extra ingredients (i.e., an arrangement) has been unlocked. Some meals are also tagged with "trend" in the upper-right corner of the recipe card, which we'll most likely learn about later. The recipe book will also make a note above the recipe title when the player has made the recipe at some point, which avoids the "Did I cook this already?" conundrum. Also included on the recipe card is an icon indicating the required utensils (if applicable), the base sale price, and whether the resulting meal can be used as a valid gift during specific festivals such as the Pumpkin Festival.
The article notes that ingredients that have lost their freshness could still be useful by adding them as extra ingredients when cooking a meal.
A few options seem to be missing from the latest information post. The first is the ability to experiment with ingredients to cook meals in the kitchen. It's clear that players need to have the recipe saved to the cookbook to craft the meal, which was the same system as in Pioneers of Olive Town and Friends of Mineral Town. The other change is that meal ingredients always come from the player's personal inventory/rucksack; in the original game, ingredients could be pulled from the bag or from the farmhouse storage. It's possible that the option may unlock later (or perhaps not at all).
Paleo Pines Expansion
Dinosaur companion farming game Paleo Pines has launched a crowdfunding campaign to cover the costs of developing player-requested updates to the game. Game developer Italic Pig intends to use the funds to add a Spinosaurus, a dino-poop cleaning feature, dinosaur color variant tracking, and more. The intent is to release these game improvements for free to everyone who has a copy of Paleo Pines, regardless if they contributed to the Kickstarter. To entice financial support, Italic Ping has offered a variety of campaign rewards, such as plushies, pins, t-shirts, and more.
The public support for this project has already unlocked enough funding for several of the developer's plans, which stretch goals of adding more features to their dino farming game.
The expansion Kickstarter started on July 1, with already over $125,000 of pledged support in its first few days. The campaign will end on July 31. If you want to check out this dino game, there are free demos available on Steam and Nintendo Switch.
Paleo Pines is also discounted 60% off on both platforms until July 10.
Until next time!
- Cher
(Yaay Switch 2! Even came in 1st place in an online race! Varoooooom...)
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