Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin Beginner's Guide

Farming Rice, and battling enemies, there’s a lot that you’ll need to do in the island that you suddenly find yourself in. In Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin, you get to play the story of the Princess Sakuna, a goddess who needs to clear the Isle of Demons, as well as help out the humans who live here.

With two modes of gameplay, you’ll either be tending to the farm as well as looking after the people, or you’ll explore dungeons and take down enemies through side scrolling fun. With indefinite time on your hands, you can play the game according to your own pace. You can focus on tending to your farm, or go on dungeons in order to defeat enemies and unlock new features.

Farming in Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin isn’t simply planting and watering your crops, there is more care that is needed in order for you to have the best harvest possible. In order to become stronger, you’ll have to have great harvests. This can be quite daunting at first since you’ll want to be able to farm properly. In this guide, we’ll be providing you with beginner tips and tricks as you start out your journey in this land. Hopefully, you’ll be able to work your way and master the ways of farming and battle!

Talk to Tauemon in order to gain knowledge for farming

One of the first villagers you’ll meet in the game is Tauemon, he’s the huge man with a blue outfit, and he’ll be providing you with a lot of tips in the game in order to improve how you plant your rice. His tips are invaluable since when you follow all of his advice altogether, you’ll be able to increase the quality of your rice.

By listening to his advice, you’ll be able to learn about how much water you’ll need for your rice, he can even tell you about things to look out for such as pests. Later on, in the game, you can even talk to him and get tributes in order to affect the weather. If you don’t know what to do next for your Farming, you can always count on Tauemon.

Prepare your Seeds

Preparing your upcoming harvest is important in this game since this will determine how you’ll get stronger. In order to develop Sakuna’s stats and skills, you’ll be depending on the quality of the rice that you’ll be creating. As you play through the game’s story, you’ll be provided with a Seedling box where you can germinate your seeds. This first step is important since you’ll be able to determine the quality of your harvest already.

With the Seedling box, you’ll place in a mixture of water, mud, and seeds. The amount of mud will determine the quality and quantity of rice that you will create. The more mud you place, the higher quality it will be but you’ll have a lower amount for harvest. Since the quality of rice determines how much stats you’ll be able to get, you’ll want to get as much quality rice as possible. Once you have placed your seeds, you’ll need to wait for them to grow before you can place them on the rice paddies.

Plant your Rice properly

Tending to your rice will mean that you’ll want to be able to plant them properly to maximize your harvests. If you have a Rice Paddy to look after, you’ll have to plant them side by side, and make sure that you don’t spread them too far apart or else they won’t be able to grow properly.

As you play through the game’s story, you’ll be able to unlock a guide later on that can show you a grid on your paddy. This will let you space your crops efficiently by planting rice for every square tile. Make sure not to skip any tiles or else you’ll get a message that your plants are too far apart.

Apply your Fertilizer everyday

One of the ways to increase the quality of your rice is by providing fertilizers. This is similar to real life where plants will need nutrients in order for them to grow better. In Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin, you’ll actually need the help of the people in order to create fertilizer! You’ll have to gather waste from the outhouse and then place them in a fertilizer pit along with other resources. This way, you’ll be able to create better fertilizers which will yield a better harvest.

The best time to add fertilizer to your plants is twice each day. You can provide fertilizer in the morning, and then in the afternoon, or 10 hours after you have placed your first one. This will ensue that the soil that you place will still be rich all throughout its growing period.

Monitor your water levels, weeds, and pests

One of the first advice that Tauemon will give is that you’ll need to water your plants up to your ankle. If you check at Sakuna’s clothing, you’ll see that her feet is bare and her clothes will help you determine how much water you’ll need. As a guideline, you’ll want to raise the water up to her ankle if you have short plants, then you’ll want lesser water for offshoots. More water will be needed once plants sprout, so use her clothes near her ankles as your guideline.

It’s important to monitor the water levels or else your plants might now grow properly. Having excessive water can lead to your crops to rot, and having not enough water will prevent them from growing. Aside from the water, you’ll have to remove weeds that can grow as well since they’ll take space on your paddy. Pests can destroy your crop as well, so you’ll want to catch and release some animals such as spiders and frogs in order for them to be controlled.

Harvesting, Drying, and Hulling your Rice

Once your Rice is ready for harvesting, you’ll use your Sickle in order to get them. Once you have stalks on hand, you’ll have to place them on drying racks before they can be hulled. If you’re ready to harvest them from the paddy, you can remove the water from the field so they won’t be soaked as you use your sickle. Take note that Rain can fill up your fields, so talk to Tauemon to know about the upcoming weather.

If rain will appear the next day, you can provide an amber amulet to stop it. This way, you’ll be able to dry your stalks properly in order for them to be prepared for hulling. Take note that the weather can affect your harvests as well so keep your harvest in the storehouse before Winter or else they’ll be destroyed.

The final process of your harvest will require you to hull your rice. You can hull and obtain brown rice, or white rice. Hulling shorter will provide you with brown rice, and this provides good buffs but lower stat gains. Hulling longer will provide you with white rice and this provides better stat gains. Depending on what you’re doing, you can hull accordingly if you’ll need buffs or stat boosts.

Store your extra food

Aside from Rice, you can also have food and plants that you can gather throughout the game. Food can spoil quickly, so leaving them outside will cause this and you’ll end up throwing them away. This will waste your effort when you gather resources and you wouldn’t want that.

If you talk to Myrthe before eating dinner, you can ask her to store away your resources. She can then process your foods through pickling, drying, etc. and this will let you store them. It’s an important task that you’ll need to do especially during winter since you won’t be able to gather resources much during this period.

You can eat Dinner twice

Since Sakuna doesn’t need to sleep, you can actually get up to 24 hours’ worth of food buffs by eating dinner twice. Have a meal right before midnight, and then go back to the map and re enter the game after midnight. You’ll then be able to have dinner once again which will let you choose more buffs.

Buffs are important since they help determine the outcome of your adventures when fighting against monsters. The bonuses that you can gain can help strengthen Sakuna. By eating dinner twice, you’ll be able to get buffs that can last you the whole day, and this will help you out in the progression of your game.

We hope that our Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin Beginner’s guide has helped you with tending to your farm as well as learning about your tips before you head out for your adventure. Farming and Battling will be part of your daily routines, so maximizing what you do will help you out in the long run.

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