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: The Winds of Anthos (September 2023) and Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life (June 2023)
• Europe: Harvest Moon: The Winds of Anthos (October 2023) 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

Happy Farm'n Friday! We put together the font-yard garden boxes last weekend, though we did have a small setback. Mr.Fogu wanted the boxes to be level with the dahlia bed's top edge, but it turns out the ground where the raised beds were being installed has a downward slope. Oops! Creatively, he opted to build mounds of soil for the box to sit on to make it level, but the ground still needs to be raised up to match the bottom of the box. So this weekend, I'm working with a neighbor down the street to do that; he wants to get rid of a lot of fill dirt, and I need fill dirt. Neither of us owns a truck or a trailer to move the dirt. I'm sure together we can come up with another imaginative solution!

One World DLC #2

The second of four optional download content bonuses for Harvest Moon: One World will be released on the 13th (next Tuesday).

The Precious Pets DLC includes 12 new pets; four cats, four dogs, and four rideable horses. You can read more about the expansion pass contents on the Natsume community blog page:

• The Harvest Moon: One World Precious Pets DLC

As for my progress towards solving my money problems in One World, a fellow farmer let me know about selling Orange Punch for 6000 G each. The kitchen cooking recipe only requires an orange, cherry, and peach to make, and those trees grow wild in the farm space south of the Harvest Goddess shrine. I'm slowly building up to pay for the 350,000 G house upgrade!

PoOT Patch 1.0.4 and 1.0.5

The latest patch for Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town was released earlier this week in all regions. The free updated includes:

• Overall loading time improvements
• Made a correction with an animation that could trigger when interacting at the shrine in the forest north of Olive Town
• Fixed a bug that triggers when an animal is born that could potentially corrupt a player's save data
• Fixed a bug that would prevent the game from continuing beyond the childbirth scene
• Fixed a bug that allowed players to get infinite items (This was done during the animation that plays while the farmer was placing an object on the farm. During the animation, opening the bag inventory and swapping the item being placed with an unwanted item resulted in the placed item being duplicated after closing the bag inventory menu.)
• Other minor, unspecified bugs were fixed

After the 1.0.4 update, my farm does seem to be a little smoother. Before the patch, when my character gets out of bed in the morning, the whole game would pause for a brief second as I ran across the house to pet my cat, Doctor Meows. After downloading the patch, my farmhouse interior is now pause-free. Every so often, there will be a little bit of a stutter where it used to be a full-blown did-my-game-lock-up pause. Definitely a great improvement!

Marvelous JP also posted a follow-up article written by Producer Takemura, where he outlined the upcoming changes to the game planned for patch 1.0.5. The latest updates were emergency patches to make corrections and adjustments to the game. Future updates will be for more bug fixes and content updates. Producer Takemura plans for the following to be included in the 1.0.5 update:

• Additional conversation text for villagers and marriage candidates. Producer Takemura noted that a new scenario writer has been brought in to expand the in-game dialog.
• Improve the maker machines, allowing the farm factories to produce more than 1 item at a time.
• Change the meal eating scenes that play at the bistro and cafe, so the protagonist's eating scene is no longer the same meal of a drink, vegetable salad, grilled fish, roll, and tea when ordering any edible item.
• Add the ability to move the farmer in a straight line, as this will help ensure the blue target-box moves more efficiently when watering, harvesting, and so on.
• Adjust the 30-minutes of time that passes when cooking in the farmhouse kitchen.
• Remove the A-button prompt when exiting a building; you'll still have to press A to confirm entering a building.

The content changes patch is planned to be released at the end of May. Before the planned 1.0.5 patch, North America and Europe will receive the Animal Attire costumes for the marriage candidates and protagonist and the Olive Town Mystery Files scenario with Cindy and Mikey. Around the time of the 1.0.5 release, we'll have the Windswept Falls expansion that adds Dunhill, Hina, Felicity, and Neil to the game.

PoOT Weekly Sales Numbers

For the week of March 29 to April 4, Weekly Famitsu Sales Data reports that PoOT sold another 4400 physical copies, bringing the Japan physical sales to a total of about 266,900.

May 2021 Nintendo DREAM Developer Interview

In the May edition of Nintendo DREAM magazine in Japan, there is a new 4-page interview with Producer Takemura, Director Nakano, and Assistant Director Hoshina. They answered questions about the character development of PoOT:

• When it comes to creating romantic characters, Nakano explains that they started with laying out all the characters in the game and had Igusa Matsuyama draw them. Then after that, they made the scenarios. It was important to him that he listened to everyone on the team, especially the women. Hoshina further explains how they write everything down in detail, such as the characters' looks and personalities.
• As he remembers it, Nakano believes the first heroine they designed in the initial stages of PoOT was Bridget, and Reina was the last one they planned. Reina was initially intended to be a medical professional, but the doctor role was dropped during the game's planning phase, and she became part of the museum staff instead. Nakano confirms with the interviewer that their intention is to create characters from the perspective of whether they would be needed in Olive Town.
• They had some difficulty designing Iori, as they didn't want him to be the typical Japanese-style good-looking character, so Nakano had a hard time expressing Iori's style. Originally, Iori was designed as an old-fashioned samurai, but Nakano asked for a revision because Iori wasn't an actual samurai. Nakano is aware that BokuMono has a global appeal, so he wanted to add a Japanese character. His final design was well-received by the women staff members. Takemura thinks Iori's story scenario is fascinating. Nakano explains writing Iori's scenario was challenging for such a good-looking guy, but they were pleased with how the Heian-period nobleman turned out. (The Heian period took place in Japan between 794 and 1185 AD)
• Blaire was the bachelorette they were most pleased with. Nakano explains that Blaire's backstory was that she was not pleased with living in Olive Town and wants to move to the city; what girl wouldn't want to take that chance to step out? He described it as an American drama, where the protagonist goes to the city, becomes successful, then returns to the countryside and meets up with a girl during their high-school reunion. The pretty girl was there the whole time! Takemura feels it is important to make each character unique enough to not be disliked by everyone. Nakamura continues to explain that each marriage candidate has their own troubles and life challenges. Becoming friends allows the player to tackle those worries together with them. So with Blaire, they gave her romantic events a bit of recklessness as she attempted to travel to the big city.
• The types of gifts that characters like are decided during scenario development rather than during their initial design. With Bridget, they wanted her to like items relating to animals, while Iori prefers Japan-style gifts.
• Nakano confirms there are no hidden marriage candidates, as he is satisfied with 5 bachelors and 5 bachelorettes. There were also other problems, such as development scheduling issues. The only hidden-like character is the ninja, Matsuyuki, from Iori's scenario. That character won't appear until players advance Iori's storyline. Takemura reminds the interviewer that the upcoming expansion pass will bring in additional marriage candidates.
• The interviewer noted that they were shocked to find that Huang (from Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town) had become a handsome character. Nakano joked that perhaps in the future, there will be a world where Lovett becomes a handsome guy too!
• Hoshia confirms that the town medals can simply be shipped for money, but Mikey might like them as gifts.
• The interviewer noted that a mailbox isn't in the game. Nakano explains that this was by design; with the in-game system messages that pop up, the mailbox's purpose was no longer necessary. Likewise, it is a sign of the times (in a sense), as not many people actually write letters anymore.
• The inability to pull weeds by hand was also intentional. Materials can be produced when the weeds are cut, so the weeds need to be harvested using a sickle rather than picked up.
• Pressing the A button to move through the map was also by design, as Nakano noted that players could move to another section when they didn't intend to, so the button confirmation was added to prevent accidental map transitions. Though, he now recognizes that players don't like it. (The button movement confirmation is one of the issues being addressed in the future 1.0.5 patch)
• The availability of 10 save slots wasn't intended to be for the 10 marriage candidates; Nakano just wanted players to have the ability to play the game in various ways.

Until next time!

- Cher
(Time to dig some dirt!)