Treasure (company)
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| Treasure Co. Ltd | |
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| Type | Public |
|---|---|
| Founded | June 19, 1992 |
| Headquarters | Japan |
| Key people | Masato Maegawa, CEO |
| Industry | Video games |
| Products | video games |
| Employees | about 30 |
| Website | http://www.treasure-inc.co.jp/ |
Treasure Co. Ltd (トレジャー) is a Japanese video game developer, founded by former employees of Konami on June 19, 1992. They are best known for being a "cult developer," a studio that inspires a great deal of passion with a small number of fans. They are often critical darlings, though not without their failures. Treasure is best known for classic-style action games that employ innovative gameplay systems. Their greatest commercial successes have been games like Wario World and Mischief Makers, but they are better known for their critical successes, such as Gunstar Heroes, Ikaruga, Radiant Silvergun, and Bangai-O.
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[edit] History
[edit] Before foundation
Treasure employees were never a real "team" at Konami; they were mostly fairly young, had only been with the company for 2 or 3 years, and no more than 4 of them ever worked on any one game while at Konami. Many of them had never worked with each other before coming to Treasure.
The core founding members came from various development teams within Konami Tokyo; the most notable being the teams behind the arcade and NES Bucky O'Hare games (the former of which was the first game directed by Treasure's founder and President Masato Maegawa). The team behind the arcade version included: Hiroshi Iuchi, primary background artist for most of Treasure's early work and director of Radiant Silvergun and Ikaruga; Norio Hanzawa (aka NON), primary music composer; and Tetsuhiko Kikuchi (aka HAN), enemy character designer. The team behind the NES game (which was entirely different) included: Masato Maegawa, CEO and founder; Kaname Shindoh, graphic designer; Hideyuki Suganami, programmer; and Kouichi Kimura, graphic designer. At the time of Treasure's formation, they had around 20 employees, a number which has swelled only slightly to around 30 (though they frequently work with many freelancers who are not employees)
Popular myth, largely attributed to GameFan, but spread far and wide, has falsely attributed many classic Konami games to Treasure staff. It is important to note that none of the employees were involved with the classic arcade Contra games or NES Castlevania titles, nor any Gradius games before the fifth. However, one to three identifiable employees were involved in the following Konami games (as well as others):
- Aliens (Arcade)
- Axelay (SNES)
- Bucky O'Hare (Arcade/NES)
- The Castlevania Adventure (Game Boy)
- Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge (Game Boy)
- Contra (Game Boy)
- Contra III: The Alien Wars (SNES)
- Rocket Knight Adventures (Sega Mega Drive)
- Rollergames (NES)
- The Simpsons (Arcade)
- Super Castlevania IV (SNES)
- Tiny Toon Adventures: Babs' Big Break (Game Boy)
A great deal of misinformation exists regarding the work of Treasure staff at Konami. This may be the result of similarities of design ethic, or simply overzealousness on the part of Treasure's quite passionate fan base.
[edit] After foundation
Treasure is known for intense action games, with a lot with creative gameplay mechanics and flashy boss encounters. Their design ethic usually involves taking the basic elements of a genre, adding something new to the play mechanics or controls, as well as adding many new and varied elements into the level design. They are also known for their boss levels, which are very often the focus of the game. On older systems, these featured larged multijointed sprite bosses (using a technique where each arm or appendage was a still picture that was rotated for movement instead of the entire boss being one picture). They were also once notorious for their apparent policy that forbade developing sequels of their games, although Treasure employees have said on numerous occasions that no such policy existed.
Treasure's games are very similar to the ones they produced when they first started. Because of this, while their early games were considered very progressive, and praised for their innovation and graphics which pushed the hardware to its limit, their later games were perceived as old-fashioned or "retro." To this day, only five of their games have had true 3D gameplay. Of those five, Wario World and Sin and Punishment were noted for their gameplay conventions that echoed many 2D games, Stretch Panic received very mixed reviews, and Dragon Drive: D Masters Shot was a major critical failure. Treasure has never acknowledged Dragon Drive on their website, and while their name appeared in the credits, it was removed from the box, leading many to believe that they were particularly unhappy with this release.
Although they are perhaps best known for their creative and humorous original franchises, they have also produced many licensed games, including McDonald's Treasure Land Adventure, Hajime no Ippo: THE FIGHTING and Wario World. At the time of this writing, licensed games and sequels have made up their last 11 releases, with Stretch Panic being their most recent original (Advance Guardian Heroes and Gunstar Super Heroes were sequels).
Treasure is often called a "cult developer" because, while they have a dedicated and loyal following among fans and critics, they very seldom experience mainstream financial success. In the west, their best selling games were Mischief Makers and Wario World, while critical darlings like Gunstar Heroes and Gradius V were financial disappointments.
[edit] Games developed by Treasure
Items marked with a '*' were not released in North America/Europe/Australia.
- Gunstar Heroes (1993, Sega, Sega Mega Drive/Sega Genesis; 1995, Sega, Sega Game Gear; 2006, Sega, Virtual Console)
- McDonald's Treasure Land Adventure (1993, Sega, Mega Drive/Genesis)
- Dynamite Headdy (1994, Sega, Mega Drive/Genesis; 1994, Sega, Game Gear)
- Yu Yu Hakusho Makyoutoissen (幽☆遊☆白書 魔強統一戦) (1994, Sega, Mega Drive*)
- Alien Soldier (1995, Sega, Mega Drive)
- Light Crusader (1995, Sega, Mega Drive/Genesis)
- Guardian Heroes (1996, Sega, Sega Saturn)
- Mischief Makers (ゆけゆけ！トラブルメーカーズ yuke-yuke! Trouble Makers) (1997, Enix (JP)/Nintendo (US/EU), Nintendo 64)
- Silhouette Mirage (1997, ESP, Saturn*; 1998, ESP (JP)/Working Designs (US), Sony PlayStation)
- Radiant Silvergun (1998, self-published, Arcade*; 1998, ESP, Saturn*)
- Rakugaki Showtime (1999, Enix, PlayStation*)
- Bangai-O/Bakuretsu Muteki Bangaioh (爆裂無敵バンガイオー) (1999, ESP, N64*; 1999 (JP)/2000 (EU)/2001 (US), ESP (JP)/Swing! Games (EU)/Conspiracy Entertainment (US), Sega Dreamcast)
- GunBeat (Cancelled, unknown publisher, Arcade)
- Silpheed: The Lost Planet (2000 (JP)/2001 (US/EU), Capcom (JP)/Swing! Games and Conspiracy Entertainment (EU)/Working Designs (US), Sony PlayStation 2)
- Sin and Punishment: Successor to the Earth (罪と罰～地球（ほし）の継承者～) (2000, Nintendo, Nintendo 64*)
- Stretch Panic (ひっぱリンダ hippa linda) (Freak Out) (2001, Conspiracy Entertainment (US)/Swing! Games (EU)/Kadokawa Shoten (JP), PlayStation 2)
- Ikaruga (斑鳩) (2001, self-published, Arcade*; 2002, ESP, Dreamcast*; 2003, Atari, Nintendo GameCube, 2007, Xbox Live Arcade)
- Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster's Bad Dream (2002, Swing! Games (EU), Nintendo Game Boy Advance)
- Hajime no Ippo: The Fighting (Game Boy Advance)
- Tiny Toon Adventures: Defenders of the Looniverse (cancelled, unknown publisher, PlayStation 2)
- Wario World (2003, Nintendo, GameCube)
- Dragon Drive D-Masters Shot (2003, Bandai, GameCube*)
- Astro Boy: Omega Factor (2004, Sega, Game Boy Advance; developed in collaboration with the Sega team, Hitmaker)
- Gradius V (2004, Konami, PlayStation 2)
- Advance Guardian Heroes (2004, Ubisoft, Game Boy Advance)
- Gunstar Super Heroes (Gunstar Future Heroes) (2005, Sega, Game Boy Advance)
- Bleach DS: Souten ni Kakeru Unmei (2006, Sega, Nintendo DS*)
- Bleach DS 2nd: Kokui Hirameku Chinkon Uta (2007, Sega, Nintendo DS*)
- Untitled Xbox 360 Shooter (TBA 2007, Unknown publisher, Xbox 360)
[edit] External links
- Treasure HomePage (Japanese)
- Treasure Co. Ltd profile on MobyGames
- SF Kosmo - comprehensive fan site
- Treasure Entry at the gaming wiki, Encyclopedia Gamia
- An illustrated history of Treasure
