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
SoS: Grand Bazaar 1.5 Update, Ova Magica Release, and Indie Updates | Posted at 05:08 PM 29 May 2026
Happy Farm'n Friday! As planned, the melon seedling trays were started last weekend: 9 seedless watermelons, 3 normal watermelons (to pollinate the seedless fruit), and 4 Sakana melons. As of today, only 1 normal and 1 Sakana have sprouted. The instruction manual for the seedless watermelons explained they are rather finicky to germinate, so I guess I'll wait a bit more. If need be, I can probably buy watermelon starts, but they won't be as unique.
SoS: Sweetie Outfit Sets
Keeping with their goal of ongoing support for popular game titles, Marvelous released two paid DLC packs for Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar containing six new clothing outfits stylized to match the clothing outfits of the game's marriage candidates. The Bachelorette Sweetheart Set contains the six outfits for the girl candidates, while the Bachelor Sweetheart Set contains the similarly themed outfits for the six boy candidates. Each of the six-outfit packs costs $4.99 / 600円 / €4.99.
- Kitty-Cat Gi (Arata)
- Cafe Threads (Derek)
- Bazaar Agent's Suit (Diana)
- Business Casual Fit (Freya)
- Atelier Wear (Gabriel)
- Teacher's Ensemble (Jules)
- Classical Apparel (June)
- Earthly Garments (Kagetsu)
- Wanderer's Robes (Lloyd)
- Autumn Uniform (Maple)
- Elegant Regalia (Samir)
- Berry Patch Suspenders (Sophie)
Optionally, a two-for-one bundle is also available. The Complete Sweetheart Set contains all 12 outfits for a price of $7.99 / 1000円 / €7.99.
My favorite is the Atelier Wear, with the runner-up favorite being the Cafe Threads.
SoS: Grand Bazaar 1.5
Along with the new DLC clothing outfits, comes several quality-of-life improvements to the game. This free patch is available on Steam/PC and Nintendo Switch, with its contents already included in the PlayStation 5 and Xbox X|S editions released yesterday. This update includes unnamed bug fixes and three new features.
Stacking
The first QOL update is the new ability to merge item stacks of varying star ranks. For an item in the rucksack or house storage, select the stack of items and move it on top of the other star-rank stack. You'll then be prompted to confirm the merge, with the resulting star rank as an average between the two stacks. There isn't a "merge everything" option, so you have to merge one stack at a time. Probably safer that way.
This does work to bump the star rank of a lower item to a higher star rank, as long as you're smart about it. In my case, I have one straggly chicken that still isn't laying 7-star Eggs like all my other birds, so merging a 4.5-star Egg into a 7-star Egg got me to two 6-star Eggs. Then merging those into a 7-star Egg bumped all three Eggs to 6.5 stars.
The stacking mechanism is maxed at 99 items. You can't move a stack of 30 items onto a stack of 99 items, but moving a 99-item stack onto a stack of 30 will result in a merged stack of 99 items, with 30 left over from the original merge. For example, I dealt with a stack of 30 5-star Silver Ore that I received from completing a Support Fund task, merged it with a stack of 99 7-star Silver Ore, and received a stack of 99 6.5-star Silver Ore and a remaining stack of 30 7-star Silver Ore.
There is a limit to averages, meaning you'll never reach the maximum star rank regardless of how often you squish stacks together. Even merging a stack of 98 7-star items with a single 6.5-star item will result in a stack of 99 6.5-star items because the whole stack is no longer maximum star rank. The game doesn't round up star-rank values. If the lower star-rank item can be processed into another product (e.g., 6.5-star Silver Ore + 7-star Moonstone = a 6.5-star Black Necklace), then attach the Red Wonderstone to the processing windmill to process the 6.5-star materials into a 7-star finished item, thanks to the wonderstone's boost to star quality.
Animal Products
Instead of having to wait for sheep to produce high-quality wool to make into yarn for Karina's clothing emporium, Penny will sell what you need at the Nature Sprite shop during the bazaar. She'll also sell other processed animal products such as cheese, butter, yogurt, and mayonnaise, both normal and plus-quality. Penny does not sell milk, wool, or eggs, though.
Buying these goods requires spending Happy Energy, but if you're at the end game, you're most likely laden with HE and regretting that there's nothing to spend it on. If you're looking to make a lot of Khachapuri (Wheat Flour + Butter+ + Yogurt+ + Butter+), there is now a reliable source for those rare ingredients.
White Wonderstone
The third bonus is the addition of the White Wonderstone, an item that can be attached to a windmill. This stone is crafted at the red windmill after attaching the Purple Wonderstone. Once crafted and attached, the White WS acts as a do-everything stone, unlocking the recipes from the other windmills. Ideally, this stone would work great attached to the red windmill because of the limited items the red windmill can produce.
Another benefit of the White Wonderstone is speeding up the production of processed goods. While I don't have the stone yet (arg, dumb Ultimate Stone…), the item's description notes that this is the case.
We know that the processing time of a windmill is influenced by the daily wind speed. Zero to 1 dot of wind (light breeze) doesn't have any impact on processing time, 2 dots of wind speed (medium) reduce the processing time by 25%, and 3 dots of wind speed (heavy wind/stormy weather) reduce the processing time by 50%. Then stacking the Blue Wonderstone reduces processing time by another 50%. So for processing Milk+ into Cheese+, which normally takes 5 hours to complete, on a 2-wind day the time would be reduced by 25% to 3 hours 45 minutes, and then attaching a Blue WS would reduce that time by 50% to 1 hour 52 minutes.
And that matches the time reduction for Cheese+ pictured in the images shared by Marvelous for the 1.5 update announcement. The White Wonderstone essentially has the same 50% reduction in processing time as the Blue Wonderstone, with the added benefit of being able to process every windmill recipe. A very useful windmill enhancement, indeed.
Now, we just need to be able to craft/cook from storage lol.
Ova Magica Launched
As announced by ClaudiaTheDev during the Cozy Game Awards yesterday, blobby farming game Ova Magica exited Steam Early Access and is now available in its 1.0 form. In this game, players take over an old farm in Clover Town, where companion blobs work side-by-side with humans. Blobs can produce goods, go on adventures with the protagonist, and even battle against other blobs.
A central feature of Ova Magica is blob breeding. Take excellent care of the parent blobs and you may produce a strong blob offspring. Cross-breeding is also included, resulting in some wacky-looking blob designs!
The little dev team has taken their game a long way from its crowdfunding campaign in February 2021, followed by an Early Access release in July 2024 and finally a full release. Publisher Top Hat Studios is still working on the home console release, which is scheduled for July 21. While the plan initially was to release the game on all platforms, the team explained that they decided to split PC and home console development due to the extra time required for optimization and certification.
The Steam version has a 20% off launch discount until June 11.
Sakuna Mobile Shift
With the upcoming discontinuation of the mobile game Sakuna: of Rice and Ruin, Hinuka's Spirit Journey, Toho Studios announced they intend to release the game's planned scenario stories on YouTube. Currently, the game is up to Chapter 4 of the story. Publishing the stories on YouTube will allow players to watch the unreleased chapters and the conclusion once the game goes offline.
Other Indie Updates
Funky farming/puzzle game Super Farming Boy will be released on the Nintendo Switch eShop on June 12. Play as the Super Farmer tasked with harvesting crops to pay for the release of his mom and friends from the evil corporation. Complete as much as you can each day, because at night, evil ghosties appear on the farm space. Buy power-ups and friends with the money earned, then start again the next morning.
While Super Farming Boy is currently available on Steam, it has been in Early Access since last August. The Early Access version is currently 75% off ($3.24) until June 1, as part of the Game Effect Showcase sale event. A free demo is also available on Steam.
GIANTS Software released a free content update for their realistic agriculture game, Farming Simulator 25. This update includes three new John Deere tractors and a QoL patch to improve game performance, correct fence gates not aligning to the terrain, prevent the game from failing to load when a corrupt or broken mod was detected, and more. You can read the full 1.19 patch notes on the GIANTS website:
RedDeer Games' cozy dress-up game Cottonville is now available on Xbox One and Xbox X|S. Previously released on Steam and Nintendo Switch, players can grow crops to transform into materials (cloth, dyes, etc.) and then create clothing outfits for the dress-up shop. So not exactly "farming," but it is a cute game with farming elements. There is a free demo available on Steam if you want to check it out.
- Cottonville | Steam Store
- Cottonville | Nintendo eShop (on sale for $1.99 this weekend)
- Cottonville | Microsoft XBox Store
Until next time
-Cher
(Hello, June!)
| << Previous page | Next page >> |
 RSS |