Happy Farm'n Friday! Yaay the peonies woke up!

The sunflower sprouts are now in the top terrace of the front yard, among the dahlia plants. And of course the next day, there were nibbles on the sunflower leaves from some pesky insect. From the pattern of destruction, it looks like earwigs munched the leaves, leaving the veins intact. There's an earwig problem in that flowerbed, as every year they like to eat the dahlias. Now I'm outside every evening after our neighborhood walk, dusting the leaves with diatomaceous earth. It appears to be working as there's no additional damage to the sunflowers.

So how is everyone's stay-at-home going? We're wrapping up week 8 of voluntary self-confinement, still doing office stuff during the workweek and Fogu stuff on the weekends. Intern Reba is happy that we're home basically 24/7! The state has relaxed some coronavirus countermeasures, allowing some counties to move to the next reopening stage. Those in the Portland-metro area are still at the beginning stage, with take-out-only restaurants and gatherings of no more than 10 people. It may be a while before we can move onto the next stage of reopening.

And this week I can't write the typical "there isn't any news about a NA release date for SoS:FoMT," because there finally is!

New Farm'n - HM: One World

On Tuesday, Natsume and Rising Star Games announced the planned publication of Harvest Moon: One World for Nintendo Switch later this fall in North America, South America, and Europe (sorry Japan).

The press release notes that there will be multiple villages, new and returning characters (smexy Doc please?!), new graphics, and various environments as players track down long-forgotten crops that were referenced in an old, mysterious book.

I'm pretty interested in the new graphics and characters, though we'll have to wait to see what the game visually looks like. In prior years new-game announcement takes place a few weeks before E3 (LoH and Skytree were both revealed in May), then a game demo is playable at E3 in June, and finally, the game gets released later in the year. We're on Step 1 at the moment, and with the physical E3 event canceled due to Covid-19, maybe we'll reach Step 2 next month in some form or other.

New SoS:FoMT Info

Today, Marvelous EU and XSeed Games released new information about the upcoming localization of the GBA game, Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town. Marvelous EU also revealed more information on their official blog, while XSeed Games announced the North American release date will be July 14.

Digital preorders for the game are now available on the Nintendo eShop in Europe and Australia for £42.99, €49.99, or $79.95 AUD. Marv EU and XSeed Games confirmed that Nintendo eShop digital preorders will receive the cow costume for the protagonist farmer as a preorder bonus. EU physical releases won't receive the strawberry cow plushie that North American preorders receive, but they will receive a sticker sheet featuring "various characters from the game."

Marvelous EU and XSeed Games also revealed that the cow costume will be available as a separate purchase from the eShop when the game is released. This allows those who buy the physical edition to have the cow costume as well. In North America, the cow costume DLC will cost $1.99, though the EU cost hasn't been revealed yet. Marvelous has noted that "additional animal-themed outfits" will also be available for purchase off the eShop when the game is released in Europe and Australia. The other animal outfits might be the special retailer-specific preorder costumes offered during the game's Japan release: a sheep (Geo), a chicken (Amazon.jp), a chick (Rakuten), and a dog (Joshin). The reindeer costume was included in one of the game's free bug patches. I don't know yet if that will be a DLC costume or be included in the game.

The European website recently updated with some new information and confirmation of all localized names such as Dudley for Doug, Gotts for Gotz, Mei for May, Lou for Ruby, and Mugi for Barley.

You can check it out at the official websites for SoS:FoMT:

• http://storyofseasons.com/fomt/ (North America)
• http://www.storyofseasons.games (Europe)

You can even sign up for the Marv EU email newsletter!

Until next time!

- Cher
(Grrr slugs, stay away from my zucchini plants!)

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