Original source (visible on the pic): Swrinny @ youtube

It can be hard to keep track of which remedy to use for which disease, and just dumpig every medicine you have into the fertilizer often backfires later, so a little cheat sheet can come in handy.

In case the direct link doesn't work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aceL6Yr9MPo

As much as I like this game, but I've always been a bit disappointed with how they handled the story of the Ashigumo Tribe - and particularily "the" Ashigumo who was never given an actual individual name despite Tama urging Sakuna in-game to find out what his real name is. It just never comes up again. There is no conclusion, the task goes nowhere and is entirely forgotten a few days later.

What irks me, begins even with the species itself. You see, there is a Japanese yōkai called "Kamaitachi" which roughly translates to "sickle weasel". They're fierce, proud creatures, quick like whirlwinds, striking from the shadows, delivering merciless blows against opponents, and they can't be seen by the naked eye if they wish to remain hidden.

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("Kamaitachi" (鎌鼬) from the Kyōka Hyaku Monogatari by Masasumi Ryūkansaijin)

Sakuna uses a bunch of other Japanese yōkai as well, like for example Kappas, and usually stays somewhat true to the IRL folklore.

...and then there is Ashigumo, the weasel-looking, quick, fierce, proud warrior anthropomorphic character wielding sharp blades and dealing merciless blows that even a literal goddess can't block... he looks like a sickle weasel, fights like a sickle weasel, and he's a character from a game that makes heavy use of IRL folklore, so he must be a sickle weasel, right?

Nope. He's an otter. Canonically. Even tho the only thing about him that looks a little more otter-like than weasel-like is his tail, when everything else about him is basically identical to the Japanese sickle weasel spirits.

I have no idea why the devs decided to go with this description, but it rubbed me the wrong way right from the start, especially since he's such a cool character in general.

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Story Spoilers ahead:

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Later during the story we find out that the entire tribe was wiped out and "the" Ashigumo is the last living member of his species ... allegedly. Because after you defeat Ishimaru, there's a cutscene in which Ashigumo nonchalantly walks up to the injured Ishimaru, turns into an undead specter, summons a couple of his undead brethren, and slaughters Ishimaru - offscreen but heavily implied, as Ishimaru never appears again.

What a twist! Ashigumo has been dead all along?!

Well ... no. I guess? While it is undenieably the same in-game model as Ashigumo, it isn't exactly clear whether the Ashigumo from the cutscene is the same as the one that has befriended Sakuna, or the hostile specters playing tricks with a disguise ... or maybe the devs just copypasted the model because they didn't want to create a generic Ashigumo version for an eleven second cutscene. In the cutscene, that character has no spoken dialogue so comparing the voices won't help either.

And parts of the storyline won't make sense then, as Ashigumo was injured during one of the earlier cutscenes and then nursed back to health by Myrte, which wouldn't exactly work well if he had been dead all along.

He also appears during later cutscenes and the epilogue again. Did he die after Myrte healed him, fought Ishimaru while he was undead and then somehow turned back alive again for no particular reason? It sounds fishy.

And after the Ishimaru cutscene, Ashigumo's story is just kind of dropped and forgotten. He's still there on most days, standing idle on his little lookout post farther down the mountain, talking with generic dialogue. He also still appears in regular cutscenes as if nothing ever happened, talking about mundane, everyday stuff.

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Sakuna never finds out - nor seems interested in finding out - what exactly happened to him and his tribe, what exactly his relation to her parents has been (other than Ashigumo owing some sort of debt to Takeribi), it is never resolved what his real name is/was nor what his tribe was called before Lady Kamuhitsuki gave them the mock-name Ashigumo. There is no explanation as to whether the specters were laid to rest (and you can still encounter and battle them as usual after the Homitsubi Specter is gone).

Many open questions, a ton of hints at some deeper meaning behind unexplained factors, but no answers. It just doesn't feel satisfying.

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I really hope that the plot point(s) the devs dropped here are going to be picked up and actually finished in a possible sequel, along with all the other loose ends that were never tied up, like who the Visitors are, how Lady Toyohana got her hands on the Divine Raiment or how she ended up on Hinoe in the first place, or what happened to the former Lady Kamuhitsuki who just "suddenly died" for no particular reason, or who exctly brought Kokorowa the poisoned rice as there is a cutscene hinting at a "traitor in the capital" but then the characters just never talk about it again...

It remains to be seen whether or not these plot points will ever be resolved.

Original source: https://noisypixel.net/sakuna-of-rice-and-ruin-developer-announcement-2024/

In case you don't want to click any offsite links:

> To celebrate the third anniversary of the farming action game by Edelweiss, Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin, developer Naru has teased a new announcement for the first half of 2024. > > Based on the wording, it’s uncertain whether this announcement will be about Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin. So, just keep in mind that it may not necessarily relate to that project. > > Naru said the following, translated by our team’s Ryuji: > > “The third anniversary of Sakuna: Rice and Ruin! We hope you have been enjoying the currently ongoing free trial of the game [on Nintendo Switch Online]. We are so grateful that this game’s support is still trending after three years since its release. Thank you very much. We will finally be able to make a big announcement in the first half of next year. Please look forward to it!” > > We’ll keep you all updated on whatever this upcoming announcement will be. > > Further, you can view the third-anniversary illustration for Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin below:

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The game’s artist, Ryota Murayama, also shared celebratory artwork, viewable below:

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Can be found here: https://www.neoseeker.com/sakuna-of-rice-and-ruin/walkthrough

Full guide: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2972481961

intro: > Sakuna's post-game consists primarily of Amagaeshi Shrine, which you unlock halfway through the main game. It's hard to find info online about rewards and their rarities; in game, each reward appears with a specific frequency, represented by a number of asterisks in the game file. The exact relationship between these asterisks and the drop rates is unknown. > > Every fifth floor of Amagaeshi shrine features a boss; upon its death, a green glow appears and you receive a special reward. You can only complete up through floor 60 before completing the main story, but in the post-game you can go up to floor 300. > > There are two types of rewards: Equippables (weapons, items, clothes, etc) can only be obtained if the item isn't already in your inventory. E.g. you cannot get two Soldier Hat+'s. But after you turn your first Soldier Hat+ into the Wheeling Hat+ at Yui, you can then obtain a new Soldier Hat+. > > If you're looking for a particular reward item, after killing the boss you can reload your auto-save, to kill the boss again, and try for a different reward item.

In the English version, Kinta and Sakuna argue loudly, but their "insults" are relatively tame, so it might seem like a bit of an overreaction that Kinta storms out of the house afterwards and the other characters act totally shocked about Sakuna's "childish and uncalled-for" behaviour.

This is because the actual dialogue is lost in translation: In the Japanese version, Sakuna calls Kinta 金玉 (kintama) which translates to "ballsack".

Can be found here: https://furudbat.github.io/sakuna_fertilizer_helper/

A free-to-use online tool for the more experienced players trying to minimax stats and get the most out of their harvest ;)

• I have cleared out all green pillars and there are no more Bounties on my map!

Your exploration level might not be high enough to have unlocked the respective areas yet. To fix this, keep solving exploration targets elsewhere, and the newer areas will eventually unlock.

If your exploration level is high enough and you still don't see any new light pillars, you might need to share a meal with the others. Some cutscenes ONLY happen when all of the characters sit down to eat, and some of these cutscenes are mandatory to progress the story.

Some Bounties are also obtained by defeating story bosses, so if you try to postpone the next boss until after you fully recovered, it won't work. Keep in mind that you can offset the debuff with food bonuses to gain back your former fighting power - at least temporarily.

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• I have found a bunch of Bounties but my stats are still halved!

Just obtaining the Bounty isn't enough - you need to use it as well. And to use it, you have to put it into the fertilizer and then spread the fertilizer on your field.

The same goes for the Orb of Transformation by the way.

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A detailed, helpful in-depth guide about where EXACTLY the Bounties are, can be found here: https://www.neoseeker.com/sakuna-of-rice-and-ruin/Recovering_Your_Stats

As you play, you unlock progressively more tasks that can pile up real fast: exploring the island, growing the rice, feeding the 'family', keeping track of armor/weapon/utensil upgrades, requests to build stuff, ingredients spoiling after a few days, fertilizer, bosses, hunting, cooking, et cetera, et cetera ... it can feel overwhelming.

And once you start to look for guides, you get a whole lot of conflicting info, like one guide claiming that you NEED to use fertilizer twice a day and pump it full of stat boosters and salt, and the other one saying that you should NEVER use fertilizer more than once a day and not overfill it with ingredients and never use salt ...

However, this sounds worse than it actually is. Each new "task" you unlock is but ONE possible aspect to play this game, and almost everything can be ignored entirely without dire consequences.

You are literally unable to permanently fail anything.

Monsters:

• If fighting enemies is too hard or tedious, then just ignore them and grow rice instead. The more you do this, the stronger Sakuna will get, as her "powers" are directly tied to the growth of the rice. Eventually, you'll be so strong that enemies aren't a problem anymore, because they do not scale up. And even if they're still too hard - there is no permanent game over. Losing a fight only loads your last (auto)save and those happen super frequently.

Harvest:

• If growing rice is too tedious or you just don't find the time to tend to the fields amongst all the fighting, hunting and cooking, then you can entirely ignore the field - like, 100% completely ignore it - and the "worst" that will happen is that your stats grow a little slower. But they will still grow either way. It is not possible to lose the rice either, because even if you forgot to do something "super important" like harvesting the rice and bringing it inside the shed before frost sets in - Tauemon will do it for you instead at the last minute. You WILL get stronger every year even if you do absolutely nothing.

Time-sensitive Events:

• There is no time limit. Yes the seasons change every three days, but if you forgot to do something this winter, you can still do it in the next one. Nothing becomes unsolvable or unavailiable if you take a few years longer, so play the game at your own pace in a comfortable way. There is no need to rush.

Food:

• The characters can not starve. Sure it is a lot more nice to have a full larder and let Myrte cook proper meals for everyone, and the meals provide some nice stat boosts to you as well, but neither Sakuna nor the others will drop dead if they don't eat anything for a couple of years. Some cutscenes only happen when the "family" sits together to share a meal, but to unlock those, you can cook anything you want, like a fistful of weeds you just plucked out of the field a minute ago, or a cup of plain water for everyone. Nothing bad will happen even if you put zero effort into feeding them.

Long story short: you are unable to fail. Take your time, do the things you enjoy doing, and ignore the things you don't like doing. Take your time to get the hang of how everything works and don't fret about doing it "wrong" - because you can't.

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As for actual in-game tips and tricks, I've found the following useful:

Fertilizer:

• You can use fertilizer right from the start. Normally, Tauemon explains the process to Sakuna at the end of the first winter, but nothing is stopping you from taking the .... "stuff" ... from the outhouse to the fertilizer pit right from the start. And you don't even have to do something fancy with it - even "empty" fertilizer, e.g. when you did not add ANY extra ingredients, will boost the nutrients of your field, without any negative side effects (pesticide, herbicide etc)

Ingredients:

• Once you unlock the option to let Myrte cook proper meals, you can change the menu anytime. Useful if you wanted to use certain igredients for the fertilizer and Myrte insists on cooking them instead - just tell her to cook something else.

Spiders!

• Did you wonder why there are spiders, frogs and snails you can "catch and release"? Sakuna puts them into the field, and they help to keep pests under control. With enough "natural" critters, you won't need to put medicine and remedies into the fertilizer.

• Ducks actually eat the beneficial critters, so most people keep the ducks out of the field in favor of spiders and snails.

A Thousand Different Factors:

• Water levels, growth stages and the timing of when to harvest / sow / till seem like super important, time-sensitive matters. You can still not mess those up, even if you drown your rice in a 100% flooded field or never water it at all.

Hulling:

• For the first few harvests, go for White Rice while hulling. Brown and Mixed Rice give better food bonuses but less total/permanent stat growth so raising your actual stats is the better option at the beginning.

Dogs:

• Once you get the (first) dog, send Kaimaru out to gather frequently. He's the only one able to find more dogs, and once you have more dogs, you can send more people to gather at the same time.

Ice:

• Having a block of ice at home will prevent food from spoiling for 1 day and then the ice melts into "renowed water". If you have more than 5 blocks at once, only 5 of them will melt per day.

Oil:

• Letting fish spoil turns them into oil for your lamp. It took me embarrasingly long to figure out where the oil came from.

Exploration:

• Completing "exploration" tasks raises your exploration level, which in turn eventually unlocks more areas on the map. If you feel stuck, clueless or can't figure out where to go next, you might just need to explore more in order to unlock the next area.

I hope I didn't forget anything important, but I might simply update the "guide" then.

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