Treasure Hunting: A Reflection on One of Gaming’s Most Precious Studios
On the RetroLogic Podcast, we all disagree about a number of things. Any mention of games like Star Fox Zero or Sonic the Hedgehog can make that clear. But we’ve been consistent in singing the praises of one small game developer that stood tall in the 16 bit era, particularly on the Sega genesis: Treasure co., Ltd. I’d like to take a short retrospective on the studio’s history and my history with them to explain what made Treasure so special.
Treasure was founded in 1992 by Masato Maegawa and several of his co-workers from Konami. Between them, the team had experience on games like Axelay, The Simpson’s Arcade, Super Castlevania IV, and Contra III: The Alien Wars. While still working for Konami, Maegawa and his team came up with the idea for the game that would become Gunstar Heroes, but Konami rejected the concept, so they set out on their own. Gunstar Heroes would have to wait, however, as Sega was at first only willing to contract them for a licensed game: McDonald’s Treasure Land adventure. They proved themselves in short order, and were able to split the team to work on both games in tandem, even allowing Gunstar Heroes to release first.
While I haven’t played it myself, Treasure Land Adventure is known as a fantastic game in its own right, far better than any licensed game about a fast food hamburger clown has any right to be, but it’s fitting that Gunstar Heroes should release first. This is my personal favorite game on the Genesis, and one of first I ever played, albeit on the Wii shop channel many years later. Here was a game that made me wish I had a genesis.
The studio’s other output on the Genesis includes Dynamite Heady and Alien Soldier, also standout titles in the library, though Alien Soldier suffered somewhat from a rushed development and was only released in North America via the Sega Channel. Treasure stayed mostly loyal to Sega when the Saturn launched, releasing three games on the system, but also developing Mischief Makers for the N64 exclusively, published by Enix.
A high point of Gunstar heroes, the boss battle against Seven force, a boss that seamlessly transitions between seven different forms.
Treasure being a small studio not familiar to Nintendo fans, Enix, who published the game, got top billing in Nintendo Power. (Though Nintendo itself published the game in North America and Europe)
While Treasure’s output on the Saturn and N64 is well-regarded by gamers today, it did not do quite so well commercially at the time due to changes in the market. The Saturn and N64 didn’t have the install base of the Playstation, and Treasure’s games didn’t adapt quite so well to a market that no longer wanted 2D sprite-based games. The only game Treasure made for the Playstation was Rakugaki Showtime, which had a limited release due to legal disputes between Treasure and their publisher, Enix. Treasure’s first fully 3D game, (while Sin and Punishment used 3D graphics, it was not a true 3D environment) Stretch Panic, released for the PS2 in 2001, showed that the team struggled to adapt to designing controls for 3D space. 2001 would also see the release of Ikaruga in the arcade, which, while arguably the greatest game in its entire genre and Treasure’s magnum opus, was initially received poorly in the arcade due to how different it was. While Ikaruga would be vindicated by its console ports, it showed that treasure was still struggling to understand the market of video games in this new era.
While the quality of Treasure’s output remained high, the years after Ikaruga seems to mark a turning point for the company fading further into the background. Most of Treasure’s games after this point are either licensed properties, like Astro Boy:Omega Factor or Bleach: the Blade of Fate (continuing the trend of their licensed games being surprisingly good) or sequels to established series, and, for the first time, their own games: (Wario World, Gradius V, Advance Guardian Heroes, Gunstar Super Heroes, and Sin & Punishment: Star Sucessor). Treasure was founded out of frustration with konami for being too reliant on sequels to already successful series. “Konami’s big titles are TMNT, Castlevania, etc…I just couldn’t stand making more sequels, but in order to drive sales sequels must always be made.” Treasure founder Maegawa said in an interview with gamefan in 1993 [source]. The company even made a point of releasing Gunstar Heroes before McDonald’s Treasure Land even thought the latter was finished, because they wanted their debut game to be an original IP. The studio’s last international release was Sin and punishment: star successor, followed only by Gaist Crusher and Gaist Crusher God, a pair of Japan-only games made in collaboration with Capcom, released in 2014. Since then, Treasure’s only activity has been the 2018 Switch re-release of Ikaruga, published by Nicalis. The studio does still exist, and Maegawa remains President, but some of the other key staff has left the company. Ikaruga’s creator Hiroshi Iuchi was working on a spiritual successor to Ikaruga with M2 called Ubusuna, which was announced in 2014. Development seems to have hit some snags, as little has been said of Ubusuna since 2018. (last update). There may be a few surprises left for the studio, but it does seem like their glory days are behind them.
Stretch Panic is a very flawed game, but weird enough that I think everyone should check it out anyway
The story of Treasure studios seems a contradiction. The games that these talented developers made were in many ways on the cutting edge of technology in the 16-bit era. The team boasted that nothing like the transforming boss battle against Seven Force in Gunstar Heroes had been done before. Treasure had a reputation for pushing the Genesis hardware to the limit. But as gaming moved forward, Treasure remained in other ways stubbornly “old-school” in their design philosophy. Nowhere is this more pronounced than the company’s oft-criticized approach to difficulty. “..if we (the developers) don’t find the game interesting ourselves, we won’t be satisfied with it. As a result, the developers set it at the difficulty they find fun, and players end up getting dragged along for the ride.” Maegawa said in a 1995 Interview about Alien Soldier. While not every Treasure game was hard like alien soldier, difficulty was a trait they often shared. Treasure also remained dedicated to improving sprite-based graphics and gameplay well into the era where most interest had shifted to 3D graphics, as their projects on the Saturn and N64 show. In many ways, Treasure’s design philosophy guaranteed that their games would become sought by collectors years later: High quality gameplay, often intended for an experienced gamer; creative concepts unconcerned with what was trendy at the time, and thus undersold.
For me, Mischief Makers was the first title I played. It actually took some time to grow on me, but it is now one of my favorite games on the N64. There really isn’t anything else like it on the console. Being primarily a Nintendo fan, I didn’t play Gunstar Heroes until much later on the Wii Virtual Console, but it was the game that really opened me up to what I had missed on the Genesis. Sin and Punishment: Star Successor for the Wii was a bright spot in the system’s shovel-ware days, and as I became more interested in looking backward, I began to piece together that all these games were indeed from the same developer. It’s been a real joy to discover games like Dynamite Heady, Alien Soldier, and Ikaruga by collecting the output from this wonderful little studio. Less polished games from Treasure’s past like Silhouette Mirage and Stretch Panic have their share of flaws, but the are certainly interesting to say the least. While I don’t know what the future holds for this studio, I can certainly be thankful for the chance to experience these games by looking back through the past, and I have fellow collectors and Retro enthusiasts to thank for making me realize just how special they are. They truly are a “Treasure” to the industry. Let’s just hope that treasure doesn’t become buried.
