Happy Farm'n Friday! The temperature has jumped quite a bit here, and I didn't understand that Mr.Fogu's watering schedule for the vegetables is not as frequent as I'd like it to be. Some leaves on the tomatoes turned crispy, and the top of a raspberry cane shriveled up in the sun. Oops! After pouting for a bit about my crunchy tomato plants, he showed me how to press a few buttons on the automated watering system to manually turn on the drip line system for a few minutes. Now if it has been a really hot day, I just come home from work and boop-boop-beep push a few buttons to water the raised bags and beds. The front yard still has to be watered by hand though.

New SoS: FoMT Videos

This week the Official BokuMono Twitter Account released two additional videos for Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town, scheduled to be released for Nintendo Switch in Japan on October 17.

The first video shows the male farmer fishing off the dock at the beach and eventually catching an empty can, which he places into the garbage can in the plaza. In the original GBA game, throwing that empty can on the ground will negatively impact your friendship with the villagers. No word yet if that's still the case in the Switch remake or if items will bounce on the ground when dropped like they do in the recent Story of Seasons games. The video also includes the remade Mineral Town theme song.

川や湖、海では釣りができます。たまに空き缶や長靴などが釣れることも…。ゴミはゴミ箱に捨てましょう。https://t.co/oxGbwKXwVI　#牧場物語　#再会のミネラルタウン pic.twitter.com/nPjGBBseZN

— 『牧場物語』公式アカウント (@bokumono_PR) July 23, 2019

The area around Mother Hill is showcased in Marvelous' second video. The farmer can be seen heading up to the hot spring by the mine and Goddess Pond, picking up a wild Red Grass along the way. The background music in this video is the chipper fall theme song.

マザーズヒルではたけのこや栗など季節にあわせて様々な山の幸を手に入れることができます。ときには野生動物を見かけることも。https://t.co/oxGbwKXwVI　#牧場物語　#再会のミネラルタウン pic.twitter.com/uvhTvwBMIr

— 『牧場物語』公式アカウント (@bokumono_PR) July 25, 2019

Rune Factory 5

Rune Factory 4 SE was released this week (25th) in Japan for Nintendo Switch, and along with the release Marvelous aired another live stream special on its YouTube, Periscope, and NikoNiko Video channels. Joining Underbar, Hira, Maika Maekawa from Marvelous, and Milikine were Hitomi Nabatame, the VA for bachelorette Clorica, and special guest Takahiro Fujimoto, the VA for Porcoline, Blaise and Sherman (RF4), and Herman and Douglas (RF2) in the Japanese versions of the game. They played the game together, showed off some of the art sent to them by Rune Factory fan artists, and made spicy tomato juice. At the very end, they aired a teaser trailer for Rune Factory 5, showing two separate protagonists.

After that, poor Maika was jokingly "sealed" so he couldn't reveal too much about the upcoming release, but he was able to explain that players of Rune Factory 4 SE will have two characters from RF4 appear as guests in their future game of Rune Factory 5 (i.e., RF5 will check for RF4SE save data on the console). He also mentioned that RF5 will have a purple theme to it.

Rune Factory 5 for Nintendo Switch is scheduled to be released in Japan sometime next year. No English release specifics are available yet for either Rune Factory 4 SE or Rune Factory 5.

FarmCon 2019

Starting tomorrow, the Farming Simulator expo, FarmCon19, will take place in Harsewinkel, Germany. On Saturday and Sunday, farming video game fans will gather to watch live farming eSport matches in the Farming Simulator League (FSL), meet up with other FarmSim enthusiasts, and learn about the future of the series from GIANTS Software. Keep an eye out for the Twitter hashtag #FarmCon19 or follow the official Farming Simulator Twitter Account for a rundown of the fun times taking place this weekend.

Harvest Moon: Light of Hope SE Complete

A new package bundle of Light of Hope will be released next Tuesday in North America. The Special Edition Complete for Nintendo Switch and Playstation 4 is a new physical release of the game that combines the Special Edition base game and the four DLC extras into one game. This release edition is ideal for players who can't buy the four separate download content add-ons that unlock house interior redesigns, farm decorations, clothing options, and the four new marriage candidates (none of which are the magnificent Doc, hmph!). The Complete edition will be for sale at retailers starting on July 30 for $29.99 USD plus applicable tax.

Harvest Moon: Mad Dash Pre-Orders

The farming-themed interactive party game, Harvest Moon: Mad Dash is now available for pre-order at Gamestop in the US. The retail edition of the game will come with a bonus pre-order squishy sheep keychain, the same one that was given out as a promo item to attendees at this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in June. The game is esimated to be released for Nintendo Switch and Playstation 4 in September, but an official release date has not been announced by Natsume yet.

• Harvest Moon: Mad Dash for Nintendo Switch
• Harvest Moon: Mad Dash for Playstation 4

Doraemon: SoS Week 5 Sales

The magical robot cat spin-off Bokujou Monogatari game for Nintendo Switch has sold another 3100 copies in Japan since its release on June 13, putting its current rank as #23 according to sales data from Weekly Famitsu, with a total of 78,300. Bandai Namco Asia released another promo video this week, showcasing bug catching, fishing, mining, and tool upgrades:

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